Suggest introducing a Charging Station Location

[robogeek]

In many cases there are multiple charging stations at a site. A "site" should be precisely defined, but is loosely defined as a parking facility or a section of street-side parking where charging stations are located in close proximity. Usually, such stations are operated by a single provider, but there are cases of multiple providers operating one or more stations each.

The hierarchy would be:

• Site - contains charging stations
• Station - a.k.a. EVSE
• Port - A charging cord attached to an EVSE

The entity currently defined in this spec - Station - is easily splittable into Site and Station. The spec even has this in the field descriptions:

• Unique identity specific to the physical location of the station (site)
• Descriptive name of charging site
• The field name site_host_type and site_host_type_detail

And so forth

One way to define a charging site versus station is the point of common coupling to the electrical grid. It's very likely the stations operated by one provider will have a separate point of common coupling (and electricity meter) from stations operated by other providers. That way the electricity costs are neatly divided between the providers because each has their own electric meter.

[jamesdifilippo]

Thanks for your comments! Aligning language in this space has not been a simple process.

As mentioned in replies to your other comment, we have adopted the federally preferred nomenclature of station (which is a collection of ports at a single location and is synonymous with 'site' in your proposed hierarchy rather than EVSE) and port (which is not explicitly a cord but the system that can supply power to a single vehicle. I.e, a port may have more than one cord if it supplies power to two different connectors through the same power supply, and both cords are not usable at the same time.)

Also, as noted in another response, because EVSE configurations vary, we do not include EVSE as a distinct reporting unit. We recognize this has limitations, especially as it pertains to ports that share a single power supply. Those limitations will be addressed in an update, though likely through the same port-based reporting structure.

We appreciate the thoughtful input and welcome continued discussion on how to best structure reporting data.

Note: that previous iterations of the specification used 'site' instead of station, and so some field names retain that nomenclature.