Winter Springs votes to remove all public electric vehicle chargers in city

 The Winter Springs City Commission voted to remove the only two public electric vehicle chargers in the city on Oct. 23.

As Duke Energy’s Park and Plug pilot electric vehicle charging program comes to an end next month, the city was faced with a decision – to keep three electric vehicle charging stations, two of which were available to the public, or to have them removed.

“We had to make a decision,” Donna Bruno, interim finance director, said. “Basically, we can say, ‘OK, we’re done,’ and then they will restore the property back to its original state. Or we can elect to go forward with Park and Plug, separate and apart obviously from Duke Energy, where those assets will be turned over to the city.”

The program began in 2018 with the intention of making EV charging stations more accessible along with cleaner energy alternatives, according to Duke’s website. More than 600 EV chargers have been installed in Florida since the beginning of the program. 

“Our Florida customers deserve a cleaner and smarter energy future,” said Melissa Seixas, Duke Energy Florida state president, via Duke Energy’s news. “Advancing the use of electric vehicles is a priority for Duke Energy that will benefit our communities and state for generations to come.”

In the past decade, the number of charging ports in the United States has skyrocketed, according to Alternative Fuels Data Center. In 2012, there were 14,982 ports in the U.S., compared to 143,711 ports in 2022. According to energy.gov, EV sales nearly doubled just from 2020 to 2021, from 308,000 sales to 608,000. 

Winter Springs became a host site to the Park and Plug pilot program in 2021, when Duke Energy installed three charging stationsin the city, with two charging ports each: by Magnolia Fountain on Tree Swallow Drive, in Central Winds Park  on Hicks Avenue and at City Hall. The City Hall location is closed to public use and is only intended for city vehicles. All three stations belong to Duke Energy, as the city did not pay for the chargers or their installation. Duke reported it cost about $30,000 per charging station to install, Bruno said.

The six charging ports use Level 2 chargers, which charge EVs at a rate of 7.2 kilowatts per hour, providing about 15-30 miles of range per hour depending on the vehicle type, according to Duke Energy’s website. 

“Which means it’s like a trickle charger,” Commissioner Victoria Colangelo said. “I mean, it’s so slow. The ones at my house I think are, I’m not sure…This is just very, very slow charging.”

More than 80% of electric vehicle chargers in America are the same Level 2 type chargers with similar output, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. 

In the last 12 months, the Magnolia Fountain location had the highest revenue with 13,177 kilowatt hours used – an average of 5 total hours of car charging per day – followed by Central Winds Park with 1,680 kilowatt hours, and City Hall with 729 kilowatt hours. 

“I personally would like to see the city continue to do it,” McCann said of the chargers, before outlining how he said the city should charge just enough money to break even on the service so that it would keep electric charging in the city but not cost non-EV users any money.

“We just want to cover our costs,” McCann said.

“I like the idea of keeping them because the number of vehicles that will use them will increase,” Commissioner Ted Johnson said.

With the removal of the chargers, residents unable to charge at home will need to drive outside of the city to charge their cars before returning home. According to PlugShare, an EV charger tracking application, neighboring Oviedo has 16 public electric charging stations, Longwood has six, and Casselberry has five.

The closest public station will be outside city limits, located at 143 Mission Road in Oviedo, more than five miles away from the current charging stations. 

Keep the stations?

If the stations were kept, Duke Energy would have transitioned the ownership of them to Winter Springs. A Duke Energy technician would remove all signage and decals, and the stations would be purely the city’s responsibility. The city would continue to pay for the electricity used by the stations.

The city must also decide whether or not to network the chargers. If they decide to do so, they can charge drivers for their charging sessions and view analytics. They are faced with three options:

• Place the chargers in auto-dispense mode, which would make the chargers free to use, avoiding paying a fee to a billing service that would manage access to the chargers
• Keep the chargers on their current Shell Recharge network, which charges each user by the kilowatt-hour
• Place the chargers on the ChargeUP network

Remove the Stations?

If the city did away with the EV charging program, a Duke Energy contractor would remove the charging stations and signage, and restore the sites of the stations free of charge.

Even if the electric vehicle chargers are removed, all electrical infrastructure installed by Duke Energy will remain. This could potentially be used for similar EV chargers to be installed in the future.

Making the Decision

The Commission went back and forth with the decision, as they weighed the usage of the stations and if it would be worth it financially. Many also weighed how many people had EVs compared to vehicles that used gas.

“I would be more in favor of just giving them back,” Deputy Mayor Rob Elliott said. “The city is not in the business of fueling gas cars, and I don’t understand why they should be in the business of charging electric cars. I mean, if someone chooses one or the other, there shouldn’t be an advantage.”

The Commission appeared to be leaning toward voting to remove all three electric vehicle chargers before Bruno pointed out that the city has electric vehicles and would have to sell them if the Commission did so.

“We own the vehicles, they’re here, we made the investment,” McCann said. “We need a way to charge them. If we try to dump the electric vehicles at this point, we’re going to take a massive loss on it.”

The Commission debated the pros and cons to what the charging stations contributed to the city, many of them confessing that they do not own EVs, and thus the topic was unfamiliar. 

Commissioner Ted Johnson made the motion to cancel the program, seconded by Elliott, which concluded the debate.

“I would make a motion that we keep the two that we use at City Hall for our city vehicles and then surrender the others that are remaining throughout the city back to Duke Energy,” Johnson said. 

The Commission voted unanimously to surrender the chargers. The date to remove the two public chargers has not yet been determined.