Kempower is part of a state-wide procurement contract in California

National Car Charging, a charging station reseller and installer, has scored an exclusive contract with the state of California. NCC will be the state's primary provider of non-networked DC fast charging and has selected Kempower as its hardware partner.

Headquartered in Finland, Kempower reportedly opened their US plant in Durham, NC. The chargers the company is making will now be available to public entities and qualifying non-profits throughout California.

“At NCC, we offer a vast portfolio of highly-vetted products; however, we chose Kempower for California because of their quality, small footprint and modularity,” Jim Burness, CEO of National Car Charging, said. He added that Kempower products were “also ideal for California because of their unprecedented uptime and their ability to withstand the climate extremes. Their products are extremely versatile and can charge a wide variety of vehicles, including cars, medium and heavy trucks, school and transit buses, heavy equipment, emergency vehicles, watercraft and more.”

The California Department of General Services (DGS) awarded the contract. The California Legislature recently appropriated general funds to the DGS Office of Sustainability to support the installation of EV charging infrastructure.

National Car Charging was selected as the state’s exclusive non-networked DC fast charging provider. Non-networked usually describes stand-alone stations which are not part of any network. These EV chargers also have no smart features, e.g. maintenance requires a visit from a technician, and you usually cannot collect usage data or balance loads. Also, roaming will be difficult.

Looking at this lack of smart functionality, it remains to be seen how many stations the contract will result in.

Overall, California targets installing 250,000 chargers by 2045 and is investing over $10 billion in zero-emission cars, trucks, buses and infrastructure as part of the $52-plus billion California Climate Commitment.

NCC has been awarded EVSE procurement contracts in seven other states, including their home state of Colorado. It says it participates in more than eight public and private cooperative buying programs nationwide. The company has installed more than 11,000 EV charging ports across 48 states.

nationalcarcharging.com

1 Comment

about „Kempower is part of a state-wide procurement contract in California“

Margaret-Ann Leavitt

15.02.2024 um 23:05

Hi Nora ... Thank you for publishing this piece about our CA award. To address your concerns above, I wanted to provide some additional context. This award is primarily for 'behind the fence' use -i.e., state and city fleets. While we often recommend and sell smart DCFCs for 'in front of the fence' charging such as public chargers, because so many electric fleets use telematics to monitor and track their vehicles, smart charging isn't necessary and this actually allows the state to take advantage of more affordable DC fast charging units and do so without the added expense of software (i.e., we're trying to help the state save money and spend their budget more efficiently). Research also shows that 50% of all station downtime is related to communications issues, so not having software on these stations is expected to be an uptime advantage which is critical to government fleet operations. Plus, Kempower is known for their stellar 99% uptime which is a key reason why we recommended their product line for CA fleets. And while it was not mentioned in the press release, ChargerHelp!, the nation's leading charger O&M provider is also available as part of this contract award. I am happy to address any additional questions you might have. Please feel free to reach out! All the best, Margaret-Ann Leavitt, CMO at National Car Charging.