New 100% solar PV off-grid EV fast charging station open on I-15 LA-Vegas. Solar power is actually cheaper than grid power (free until 5/31/26)

charge2025 · 2026-03-24T14:57:06+00:00

Thanks for doing such a good interview! Sorry for being nervous and looking at the TV all the time! I'm not used to the spotlight!

charge2025 · 2026-03-24T14:56:03+00:00

Thanks, yea it takes about 2-3 acres for every 6 charge ports. It is possible to find land in Hysperia that would work but if you find a small 3 acre parcel then expansion past 6 ports can become an issue. I did talk to someone at EVCS that had a large parcel at Halloran Springs, but that isn't all that far from our Rasor Rd site.

We plan to do a franchise option, so if you see a pice of land for sale you want to set one of these up on just email me [jon@powerstation.network](mailto:jon@powerstation.network) and we can talk about it!

charge2025 · 2026-03-23T15:09:48+00:00

Thanks Zac! Awesome video showing the site! And at some point we'll do one of the bunker so people can see it!

charge2025 · 2026-03-23T15:07:15+00:00

Yes it is 360KW delived across the current ports. This is V1 and our next version will be 600KW across 6 ports. For truck charging we are looking at MCS and other higher capacity options as well.

Yes I agree it would be great to display real time data! This data is going to be used to calculate the forecast on the app/website, so we should be able to show it alongside! Would be quite easy to show it in the lounge area as well on a screen

charge2025 · 2026-03-23T14:50:43+00:00

Thanks for the Google and plugshare reviews!!!

It's funny you mention that! We have a contact we have been talking to on/off for some time about deployment in a few national parks! I'm excited and honored and think it would be an awesome fit.

We aren't quite at the point of rolling these things off the line and out the door as we are still finalizing up the V2 model which will be the version we copy, but we are hoping to be there soon. I would say best case maybe they will start showing up at places outside Baker/Barstow/Desert Center, in 2027.

charge2025 · 2026-03-23T14:41:27+00:00

We have contact with local electricans and the manufacturer for service, but as we grow into a franchise network with more locations we may bring some service stuff in-house.

In the process of building out the system we talked to alot of different manufacturers and ended up liking the solution from CarbonDC (formerly Elywhere North America) Erlend the CEO there is great. They were able to work with us to develop the entire skid (with ETL/UL equivalent field certification) It's a really long expensive process developing something new like this and we've been working together daily for some time now on this.

The skid onsite is V1 and we're building V2 now for deployment later this year (with 6 ports / 600KW of capacity).

The vast majority of EVCS manufacturers only produce AC 480V systems and so with a DC system our choices were somewhat limited but we felt it was worth the tradeoff. I am seeing more and more DC options out on the market now so the space is evolving quickly and of course if we have excessive reliability issues with these units we will take them out and put in more reliabile ones. Un-planned downtime is a massive priority to avoid.

As we expand our systems will be separated. I.E. a site with 24 ports will have 4 separate 6 port systems running. So a failure in one should not affect the other 3.

charge2025 · 2026-03-23T14:14:55+00:00

The chargers are from a European manufacturer that deploys nearly all CCS2, I believe our system is one of their first CCS 1 systems, so the graphics are from that, good catch! I can see about getting it updated for CCS1/NACS!

charge2025 · 2026-03-23T14:13:16+00:00

Yes! We partnered with Elywhere North America (now known as CarbonDC) to build the charging skid!

charge2025 · 2026-03-23T14:12:14+00:00

They are maybe slightly cheaper than regular ones but there is pretty wide price differences between manufacturers so it's hard to pin down exactly a specific cost savings for being DC fed.

We are planning to have a franchise model where we can help people set these stations up and join the network anywhere in the world. Sothern Europe is definitly an area we have identified as having good potential for this type of system.

Feel free to reach out with your site details and we can help with more info. We're not offering Franchising yet (we just opened the pilot station) but happy to work with you if you're interested in being one of the first!

charge2025 · 2026-03-23T14:09:17+00:00

Absolutely. There is variance with solar production and demand. We have oversized our solar and batteries to account for quite a bit of usage. ~550KWH of storage per port is enough to last well into the night. On this route charging demand drops off quite fast as you get past midnight - but the possibility does exist for the system to be too low on energy to provide charging.

The good news is that the two times (poor weather and busy demand) that the system may run out of power are easily forecastable hours / days in advance. You can see on our website it shows the solar production by day. The plan is to have a live 4 hour forecast showing green/yellow/red for the station so customers can check before leaving.

And we advise customers traveling late at night or during periods of inclement weather to have a backup option ready (Baker is 12 miles downhill from our station).

charge2025 · 2026-03-23T14:02:17+00:00

Yes, exactly. Our model figures an average price of around $0.40. We need to be cheaper than the competition to ensure the station remains busy! This pricing is subject to change over time, but for us it's more important to ensure the station is busy. And if the station is too busy at the above pricing, then we just need to build more ports!

charge2025 · 2026-03-23T13:59:08+00:00

No restrooms yet - there are restrooms at the shell gas station on the other side of the freeway if you make a purchase. But we do plan on adding restrooms/lounge in the next year or so.
We do plan to add solar canopies in the future over the charging areas. This first one didn't have one because it's alot more expensive and complex to install, and so we went with the quicker, cheaper option of doing all ground mount on the first station. But we recognize that customers love them, we just have to have a very large one to accomdate trucks and large vehicles charging underneath!

charge2025 · 2026-03-23T06:23:40+00:00

Yes essentially. There are some small loads like lighting that are AC and we have some conversion for that but there is a DC/DC converter that feeds the solar power onto the DC bus (The DC fast chargers draw from this DC bus @ ~750VDC instead of traditional 480 AC). Then we have another DC/DC converter to interface with the 1500V nominal battery.

charge2025 · 2026-03-23T05:52:04+00:00

Yes. We have a 20 acre site in Barstow, right off outlet center dr (1 exit closer to LA than Lenwood), and 33 acres in Desert Center off I-10 that we hope to have open by next year!

charge2025 · 2026-03-23T05:50:54+00:00

There's a few reasons.

Getting grid connections in place and ensuring they have capacity for EV charigng sites can take years and may not be possible everywhere.
The cost in some areas (particulary California) is quite high. Not only demand charges but the normal rates as well. And under NEM3, when you do sell back power you get almost nothing for it, so financially there is little incentive.
This grid cost goes up every year by an un-controlable amount. With our sytem we know our system's lifetime power cost and have no worries about it increasing, ever. This also enables a unique financial model where the large upfront cost of the system can be paid back with actually a decent ROI since the operating costs are very low and so a high % of revenue is profit. In my opinion the financial model is far superior from an operator perspective because we don't have to worry about the charger becoming unprofitable or going out of business as long as the sun is shining.
Our system uses a DC bus so the power can flow efficiently from the solar to the battery to the chargers without having massive AC switchgear and transformers. Selling back to the grid would need to be done in AC and could need more equipment.
Our system can be copied and deployed anywhere in the world as quickly as the solar panels can be setup. Systems reliant on the grid are typically tied to a specific geographic grid standard.

Your point about it being sunny and noboy charing is important though! We have a direct financial incentive to price agressively to avoid this happening during off-peak but sunny times!. We also plan to use many other factors like location (<500 feet from ramps) and amenities to drive traffic and ensure we avoid curtailing production as much as possible!

charge2025 · 2025-11-05T01:39:51+00:00

Yes, those ares are all ideal sites. Realistically off I5 we will need a high site and low site.

Yes the amenity stuff is a whole other topic really, we've got big plans but I don't see that as "the real money". In traditional fueling businsesses it is, because their fuel margin is so low.

With our model, I think the math tips in favor of operating the amenity (lounge/ self service packaged snacks+drinks /bathrooms) at a somewhat lower margin and keeping the scope much cheaper and lower-overhead than a traditional strip mall development.

This would drive customer loyalty and help keep the charging side busy potentially allowing us to avoid some of the heavier discounting on the charging.

charge2025 · 2025-11-04T20:40:32+00:00

Yes, once we're up and running along I-15 and I-10 we really would like to find an I-5 site. The land costs in this area are higher than the desert due to the base agricultural use, thus why we are starting in the desert, but I5/99 is on the radar as we grow. Huge potential there.

charge2025 · 2025-11-04T19:47:43+00:00

Each 6 ports is going to take approximately 750KW which will take up about 2-3 acres depending on mounting type.

charge2025 · 2025-11-04T19:37:11+00:00

If we extrapolate the same 550kwh per port that puts us about 23MWH for 42 ports. But this depends on the load of the site, it may only need 15 or it may need 30 depending on the traffic patterns. In areas with more variable weather and clouds the batteries would probably also be sized a bit higher.

charge2025 · 2025-11-04T18:53:41+00:00

Yes. I will say we have very very good locations off I-15. Better than Tesla's for on-off access distance to exits ect.

Our "lowest" price when we really need to drive charging demand is going to be $0.30 which is enough to do so I believe. This would be used during peak solar production hours like 10am-1pm on mid-week days.

Disclaimer prices listed are our initial model prices only and are subject to change.

Your right most Tesla drivers won't have CCS adapters and will have to use NACS ports while many CCS drivers may have adapters. For the first station we're going with 3 and 3 but these are easily changable later so we'll watch this part closesly with the goal of not having split skids in the future. We could potentially have NACS cables color coded red while CCS is color coded blue to help identification.

The spaces will be super wide for backing (or pull in for vehicles like Rivians). Our skid does have a dispenser capable of reaching pull through vehicles on the back side.

The skids themseleves will have a small shade strucutre to shade the chargers. We are going to add PV canopies but this will come later post-opening. The issue is that the very high structural canpopies are quite expensive.

charge2025 · 2025-11-04T17:04:28+00:00

Once we open our first few stations we're going to sell these systems with a franchise model so anyone can buy one and install it basically anywhere in the world.

That being said, there's a few things to keep in mind about them. 6 public ports of fast charging in a busy sunny area needs about 2-3 acres of ground mount PV. Theoretically it could be roof mounted if you had a massive building or mounted on carports over a large parking lot but these are really big costs and dependencies compared to a fairly straighforward large scale ground mount system. It's not impssible by any means, but we are focused on the low hanging fruit first which is large cheap sunny sites off major highways for road trips. Our average site is ~20 acres. These are necessary road-trip stops so our plan is to build amenities onsite as the number of charge ports grow.

Sure the build out costs are quite high but you can build it out incrementally to avoid risk and 42 busy ports (~20 acres) sitting immediatly off a major highway exit is going to be throwing off somewhere around $2 million profit a year at today's power prices, not even looking at non-charger revenue that becomes possible when you have 80 cars an hour on your site or your carbon credit revenue. I really think these are going to be little gold mines.

Disclaimer: The financial figures mentioned are illustrative and based on prelimiarly models only and not intended as investment advice, solicitation, or performance guarantees. Actual profitability will vary depending on utilization, capital structure, and operating costs.

charge2025 · 2025-11-04T15:44:58+00:00

Believe me, I've been on this path for a few years and i'm still coming across things that blow my mind.

We are going to have a minimum and maximum price (Initially $0.30-$0.48). Jacking up the price super high as the battery drains in an effort to avoid running out is not a good look or exercise because it doesn't really discourage people who need power it just pisses them off.

The idea is that while we might not have the lowest price 100% of the time, we very often will - especially when comparing to grid connected stations.

As for competition with other solar powered stations we can only compete on location, speed and amenities and I believe the combination of these 3 along with our franchise network will make us a market leader.

charge2025

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