Top Innovators
Joseph Byrd and Andrew Hedrick represent the Fleet of the Future team at BGE.
PUF's Lori Burkhart: Describe the innovation that won the William Hammer Top Innovator Award for Electrification. Talk about how it works and the benefits to Baltimore Gas and Electric.
Andrew Hedrick: This is the innovation award for our Fleet of the Future, which involved quite a few moving pieces. Job site EV charging started in 2021, as we had an issue with EVs in the utility field with our crews needing to work long hours on a job site due to a natural gas leak or an outage. The EVs may not have the range to make it back to a charging station.
The solution we found is a mobile DC fast charger that is portable and compact. You can carry it in the trunk of a Chevy Bolt out to a job site for rapid charging of another EV to get it enough range to make it back to the depot, a public charger, or even the operator's house for recharge.
It is a quick charger advertised as fifteen miles in fifteen minutes. Because we've heard of similar products with similar capabilities that did not perform, Joe and I visited the company in Massachusetts to see the product firsthand.