FreeWire Boost 2.0 Development and Demonstration Project
FreeWire Technologies, Inc.
Recipient
Newark, CA
Recipient Location
10th
Senate District
24th
Assembly District
$860,883
Amount Spent
Active
Project Status
Project Update
In 2024, Freewire was acquired by Speed Charge and was reconstituted as OptiGrid. At the end of 2024, OptiGrid was actively conducting negotiations with the CEC to amend the original agreement with Freewire to account for the reorganization, including a reassignment of the award to OptiGrid. Freewire's core innovation of a battery-integrated DC fast charger remains the same, but the project is expected to pivot towards focusing on medium and heavy-duty applications such as port operations. When negotiations with the CEC are complete, the project is set to resume.
The Issue
FreeWire recognizes that demand for EVs has increased rapidly, along with the need for EV charging. Business owners and managers view EV charging as a potential opportunity to serve employees and clients and to generate revenue. However, business owners and managers also face multiple challenges and concerns, including EV charger installation costs, justification for the use of capital dollars, space requirements, electricity costs, service disruption, and electricity reliability.
Reliability concerns have risen to the forefront as California’s utilities and grid managers struggle to balance electricity load and supply. California has recently endured brown-outs and blackouts caused by extreme weather, fire danger, and an aging grid system. More EVs and increasing demand for EV charging could exacerbate these concerns and further stress California’s grid. Unfortunately, such disruptions cause costly downtime and create critical concerns for business owners and managers, industrial facilities, commercial buildings, and other key contributors to the state’s economy. Although business owners and managers as well as other potential EV charging site hosts are hesitant to deploy EV charging if it could exacerbate reliability concerns, they are seeking to deploy systems and technologies that improve resiliency and buffer from outages to manage reliability risk. System-wide grid upgrades needed to improve reliability are exceptionally costly, and those costs could be passed on to utility ratepayers. Nonetheless, mass deployment of EV charging can only occur if Site Hosts feel confident that their core business and ability to charge vehicles will remain operational and resilient, and Site Hosts are increasingly seeking installation of new infrastructure that supports improved resiliency.
Project Innovation
FreeWire's solution is intended to substantially alleviate the need for grid updates, while improving power and charging reliability on site and addressing the key concerns of Site Hosts. The proposed turnkey, modular system design further reduces soft costs related to business analysis, permitting and utility requirements, and deployment costs, while addressing the critical needs of Site Hosts for resilience and electric system reliability.
Project Benefits
Executive Order B-16-2012 called upon state agencies to support benchmarks to ensure that Californians have easy access to ZEV infrastructure by 2025, and Executive Order B-48-18 set targets of 250,000 electric vehicle chargers to support 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on the road in California by 2025, and 5 million by 2030. Direct current fast charging deployment is significantly constrained by site installation costs and site hosts are concerned about reliability. The project will greatly reduce the installation and operational cost for DC fast chargers by minimizing utility upgrade requirements and demand impact. It will also provide a resilience solution to improve reliability for site hosts and fleet operators.
