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NRG to start network of electric car charging stations in Houston
ELIZABETH SOUDER
[email protected]
NRG Energy Inc. is attempting to launch the electric vehicle revolution in the center of the Oil Patch: Houston.
The company announced Thursday that it will spend $10 million to build a network of charging stations for electric cars in Houston and offer customers all-you-can-use charging for a flat fee. It's the first such network in the U.S., and NRG will extend the concept to Dallas and other cities next year.
The move is a relatively inexpensive play by a company accustomed to spending billions on power plants. NRG wants a piece of the transportation fuel market, the country's largest consumer of energy.
"That's a very attractive market for the electric industry," said NRG chief executive David Crane.
The idea is to install enough home and public charging stations around town so that electric vehicle drivers feel confident they won't get stranded.
NRG will partner with electricity companies for the offer. Some partners, such as TXU Energy, are working on their own plans for charging stations.
TXU, a unit of Energy Future Holdings, is donating money to the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth to install free public charging stations.
Drivers can sign a three-year contract for one of three service packages.
For $49 a month, a customer gets a home charging station. For $79 a month, the customer also gets access to NRG's network of more than 50 public stations. Those stations will pop up at retail locations such as Walgreen, Best Buy Co. and H-E-B grocery stores.
For $89 a month, the customer gets all the electricity he can use in his vehicle, at home and on the road.
Customers who want the all-you-can-use package must buy it through one of NRG's retail electric provider partners: Green Mountain andReliant Energy (both owned by NRG), TXU Energy and Direct Energy. Crane wants to add more to the list.
Crane said Texas is a good place to build the charging network because the electricity industry is deregulated. Also, the state will be among the first to get electric vehicles early next year, as Chevy rolls out the Volt.
Texans tend to park in their own garages, where they can easily install home chargers, Crane said. And, he said, a city like Houston, with highway grids that look like a hub with spokes, offers good, strategic spots to install public chargers.
He said he will eventually offer pricing packages that make it cheaper to juice up at night, when total demand for electricity declines.
Charging a lot of vehicles in the middle of the afternoon, when demand for electricity spikes, can strain resources and push power generators to fire up older, dirtier plants.
Arun Banskota, president of NRG's electric vehicle services unit, said he expects the network to begin turning a profit in four or five years. Crane said he needs about 1,000 customers in Houston to make money.
That's a modest number, but consider the prospects for electric cars. J.D. Power and Associates estimates global sales of electric vehicles will hit 20,000 cars next year and rise to 300,000 by 2015. Half of those will go to China.
Banskota said: "We're dependent upon electric vehicles really being adopted en masse for our product to also be viable."
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