https://cleantechnica.com/2024/10/27/ev-charging-before-during-after-hurricane-milton-struck-florida/amp/
Reporting for CleanTechnica before Milton made landfall on October 9, for example, longtime Florida resident Paul Fosse noted that public charging stations were readily available to EV drivers in the days preceding Milton,
even as 2,000 or so gas stations were already out of fuel due to many drivers dashing out to fill up their tanks before the storm.
Fosse also noted that some EV charging stations co-located with gas stations were open, even when gas pumps at the same site were still closed.
Meanwhile, the pre-Milton gas shortages dragged on for days after landfall, because the hurricane struck a keystone of the Florida gas import infrastructure, the Port of Tampa. Milton knocked out power to oil terminals at the port, along with other damage. Restoring the port to order was not an easy task.
“DC fast charging utilization increased in the days before the hurricane, reaching 43% above average on Oct. 7. It plummeted to under 40% of normal on Oct. 9 and 10 as Floridians sheltered in place, but rebounded again immediately after the hurricane, reaching 92% of normal usage on Oct. 11 despite lingering power outages,” Stable reported.
Charging stations also recovered power in a reasonable mount of time.
By October 11, just two days after Milton made landfall, more than 85% of EV chargers in Florida were in service. Outside of Hillsborough County, only 8% of EV chargers were still offline by October 12, Stable also reported.
“Even within Hillsborough, which saw the worst impacts from the storm, just 29% remained offline by October 12th and 90% were back online by October 15th, less than a week after landfall,” Stable added.
What About The Wait Times?
Yes, what about them? Similar to Fosse’s experience, Stable found that charger outages did not lead to significantly longer lines at the remaining chargers in service.
“Some of the counties along evacuation routes, especially Alachua and Duval counties in the northeast saw periods of higher utilization but no counties saw any period with >60% utilization for more than 3 hours of any day,” Stable noted.
That’s on average, but Stable also notes that drivers who encountered a full EV charging station could usually find space at another one nearby.
“Sometimes anecdotes are not the same as reality, but in this case charging infrastructure was resilient with fewer waits and a quicker return to normality as power was restored across the state,” the company concluded.