LTcredit : Green Vehicles

Hi Tanja, I'm sorry about any lack of clarity in the requirements. Yes, the 7% for green vehicles is a "for all projects" requirement. Projects would first fulfill that requirement and then choose between Options 1 and 2.

In actuality, the spaces with charging facilities must be separate from those reserved for green vehicles. This would then mean reserving 10% of all parking spaces for green vehicles and charging facilities. I'll dive back into the credit language and ensure that it's more understandable. Thanks so much for posing your questions, as it ensures the language will be as clear as possible when we finalize the content.

While I understand that LEED wants to encourage the installation of charging stations, convincing a client to dedicate 7% to green vehicles and 3% to charging stations would be difficult for a business providing significant parking for customers. For example, I'm working on a site that provides 4,500 parking spaces in total and of those around 3,000 is staff spaces. Providing 7% parking scattered around 14 parking location is hard enough. Providing 3% for charging stations is more than a challenge. The math: 4500 * 7% = 315 spaces * $500 per sign = $157,500 4500 * 3% = 136 spaces * $6,000 per double charge station = $408,000 Total cost for this credit for this campus is $565,500. If we could just consider the staff spaces for the electric charging stations, it would help: 3,000 * 3% = 90 * 6,000 per double = $270,000 which is a savings of $138,000 and is significant. Given that our projects do not impact the total campus but this credit is counted over the total campus, to ask one project to pick up the cost of the campus is more than the budget will bear. And I would rather make the case to spend an additional $400,000 on mechanical upgrades than parking initiatives especially when they are doing some of them already. They are not considering anything close to 68 charging stations.

I think you're being optimistic that the double charging stations will cost an average of only $6,000. Conduit and wire costs add up really fast when going across parking lots. And 90 charging stations will need 1,248 Amps of capacity. Bigger panels and transformers are more money.

Absolutely! I should have prefaced the costs as super basic, product based costs for quick estimates only and not installation costs. I don't think we as a green building community think about the dollar costs of these discussions. The particular client above understands this credit and is dipping their toes into charging stations by purchasing 3 stations that will charge 6 vehicles. 65 stations to go....