NASHUA – The slow spread of electric-car charging stations in New Hampshire has reached Nashua with the opening of the first city-overseen unit in the Elm Street parking garage on Wednesday.

The charger is a 240-volt system that can “fill up” an empty electric car battery in about eight hours, depending on the model, adding 10-20 miles of range each hour. It was turned on Wednesday morning and formally unveiled in an afternoon ceremony featuring Mayor Donnalee Lozeau and officials from Public Service of New Hampshire, which paid for the roughly $2,400 installation of the system.

For the time being, the electricity is free – cars will pay the same rate of 50 cents per hour as in other parking spots in the garage. Eventually, the space will cost extra, although the difference is still being determined.

“It’ll take legislation to change the rate,” community development director Sarah Marchant said.

“We’re gathering data,” she said, and it will be presented it to the mayor and aldermen.

On Wednesday morning, parking maintenance worker Phil Plourde demonstrated the unit, made by a company called AeroVironment. It has a simple on-off button and a nozzle that plugs into the charge port of electric cars.

Drivers who park in the space to use the charger must type the parking space’s location number into the city’s pay station to activate the system.

Plourde said he likes the idea of electric cars, but, like many people, is concerned about the lack of places to charge. He said he thought the city’s charger was the sort of action that might change minds.

“Once people get used to seeing it, they’ll be more open,” he said. “The more stations there are, the better.”

This charger is the city’s first publicly accessible charging station that isn’t hosted by a car dealership. Peters Nissan, which sell the Leaf, the world’s most popular electric car, and Tully BMW, which sells the electric I3, have stations.

A number of private, at-home charging stations also exist in the area, installed by people who bought electric cars or plug-in electric hybrids such as the Chevy Volt and Toyota Prius. Some of those stations can be used by others with permission: The website Plugshare.com lists three such homes in Nashua, plus several others in neighboring towns.

Public electric-vehicle charging stations exist at the Bedford Village Inn and at the Tyngsborough, Mass., library, and the upgraded Hooksett toll plaza on Interstate 93 will have 10 charging stations when it is completed. Simon Properties, which owns the Pheasant Lane Mall and many other malls in the state, has begun installing charging stations at some of its properties nationwide, although no announcement has been made in New Hampshire.

Portsmouth installed a similar charging station in its city parking garage this year. Marchant said Nashua talked to that city about its experience as it prepared for its charging station.

The makers of the Tesla luxury electric sports car said they plan to install one of their “supercharger” stations on the Seacoast this year, although they haven’t said where.

It would probably be near I-95.

Superchargers, which require a 480-volt electrical connection, charge vehicle batteries at 10-15 times the rate of a Level 2 charger.

They require a special connection port only available on a Tesla, although the company is sharing its technology so that other cans can take advantage of them.

The charger installed in Nashua and at most other locations is a Level 2 charger, which operates at 240 volts.

It is also possible to charge an electric car from a wall socket with a Level 1 system, but that generally takes more than a day to fully charge a vehicle.

The Nashua charging port was installed on the lower level of the Elm Street parking garage, next to the Transit Center, in a space that is often empty, Marchant said.

“It’s not an electric-car-only space, but it hasn’t been used heavily in the past,” she said.

The charger will be available between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m., when parking charges within the garage are enforced. No electricity will be produced when plugging in overnight.

All of these factors may be changed as Nashua learns more about how to operate the system, Marchant said.

PSNH has also helped create Level 2 electric-vehicle charging stations at Antioch University New England in Keene and Redhook Brewery in Portsmouth, and plans two more around the state.

It also has a system at its Manchester headquarters for PSNH employees.

David Brooks can be reached at 594-6531 or dbrooks@nashua
telegraph.com. Also, follow Brooks on Twitter (@GraniteGeek).