OYA Renewables exec outlines structure of EV partnership with OpConnect

OYA Renewables is creating an ecosystem of partnerships within the EV space—starting with OpConnect, an Oregon-based electric vehicle (EV) charging solution provider, said Manish Nayar, Founder and Executive Chairman of OYA, in an interview with NPM.

“We plan to install several hundred plugs on an annual basis—that's really our goal, because we think there’s a significant amount of demand in the C&I sector, as well as the public sector,” Nayar said.

The duo announced the strategic partnership last week, that Nayar said plays on both of their strengths.

“Our strength is developing, deploying, and owning assets,” Nayar said. OpConnect will provide equipment and cloud-based software that provides payment processing, scheduling, maintenance ticketing and support services for its users. It also includes mobile apps to locate and pay for charging and web portals for account management.

“We’re leveraging their technical capabilities and their software platform to provide good user experience to our customers," Nayar said.

OYA is now working with a number of municipalities and Fortune 500 companies, including Dollar General and Ahold Delhaize USA, one of the largest food retail groups and parent company to nearly two dozen brands including Stop and Shop, Food Lion, and Etos, within their current pipeline to deploy EV infrastructure.

“It’s a two-way street,” Nayar said, adding that OpConnect also brings customers to the table that want EV charging stations but don't want to own the infrastructure.

“They want it but they prefer to have EV charging as a service rather than putting the money down and managing the asset—that's where we come in,” said Nayar.

Nayar said he believes most customers will not want to own and manage their infrastructure so having a solution that is oriented around third-party ownership was important to them.

The first several projects will be deployed in New York later this year.

OYA’s community solar and DG footprint is in the northeast and Midwest including New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Virginia. He intends to deliver EV charging solutions into each of the states.

“That’s the customer base that we would be focused on, but of course OpConnect may have other customers that may or may not overlap with that geography,” Nayar said. And if their Fortune 500 companies take them into new geographies, they’ll follow their customers there, too.

Nayar said states with the highest EV adoptions may be next on their list, and those states include California, Texas, and Florida.

Nayar also said he believes that more states will create EV programs for in low-to-moderate income communities so that they don’t become "EV deserts,” he said.

A level two charger can take about 12 hours to charge a car, it’s very slow but you just plug it in the wall. Level three charger that draws more power, you typically need a little more juice. So, you may need to install a battery storage system, so then you get into the different incentives for battery storage.

“Our goal is to work with the customer, determine what their needs are: Is it municipal fleet electrification where they’re going to buy cars, but they don’t want to manage the infrastructure. Another use case can be that a municipality is looking to provide charging to residents to attract more tourists. Or it could be a grocer who wants to attract a certain demographic and keep them in the store longer by having the charger available to them.

An EV charging station with one-to-two plugs and mixed level of level two and three charging can theoretically be done in about two weeks. This includes pouring a concreate pad, running electrical infrastructure, installing batteries, and working with a utility to connect. Nayar said they will be installing about 3-10 plugs at a time.

Additional EV partnerships will be announced in the upcoming weeks.

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.


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