If you're running on empty and in desperate need of a charge upon entering Waterville, the easiest way to find this charger is to stay on the highway until you come to a large brick Catholic Church with a little light blue Espresso shack across the street. The charger is immediately east of the Espresso shack,
Highway 2 Brew. It happens to be beside Highway 2 Brew because they are the sponsors of the charger. If you charge up there (it's free), go next door and have a cup of Java.
The charger was installed by
Plug-In North Central Washington sometime around June of 2014. While it is a High Amperage Level 2 charger, we can't say who actually manufactures these.
Plug-In North Central Washington has posted an
online map depicting the locations of all the chargers installed by them to date, updated as more installations are completed. To date the map shows 19 installations. On the same page one may subscribe to their E-Letter. Below is a bit of the story of what
Plug-In North Central Washington is about.
As a wholly-owned non-profit subsidiary of the North Central Washington Economic Development District, Plug In North Central Washington (PINCW) has a mission to encourage adoption of plug in vehicles throughout the region. We do this through a combination of outreach, education, projects and programs.
One of our most recent programs revolves around PINCW acting as an entity to accept charitable donations towards the purchase of high amperage Level 2 (haL2) electric vehicle charging stations, providing planning support to help get them installed in strategically chosen locations in North Central Washington, and then providing the stations free of charge as a 3-year "lease" to businesses or organizations that would like to act as the caretakers of these stations for a set period of time.
Each haL2 station has an approximate retail value of $2,200. At the end of the lease period, the businesses/organization who contract with PINCW have the option of purchasing them or asking PINCW to remove them. As an all volunteer organization with limited resources, PINCW has no ability to assume liability for the charging stations during the term of the lease. Those responsibilities lay with the host businesses and/or organizations that choose to install them.
Essentially the haL2 program, through charitable donations, is providing a charging station free of charge to an organization that would otherwise have to spend $2,200 of its own money to obtain them. We are also providing expert technical resources regarding charging station equipment and installation. Everything else regarding the station will be up to the host organization as if they were to have purchased the station themselves. This includes installation, liability insurance, maintenance and other incidentals (see contract for details). At the end of the host contract (a "lease period," if you will) the host will be able to purchase the station for $500 (roughly a 75% discount on the original purchase) if they so desire. This essentially acts as a grant of $1,500 towards the purchase of a charging station.
From Plug-In North Central Washington