California Public Utilities Commission authorizes So Cal Edison to develop pilot program for 1,500 EV charging stations
17 January 2016
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) authorized Southern California Edison to develop a pilot program to incentivize the deployment of approximately 1,500 electric vehicle charging stations and conduct education and outreach in support of electric transportation.
Edison is authorized to spend $22 million on implementation of Phase 1 of its Charge Ready and Market Education Programs under a settlement agreement among parties that was modified and approved by the CPUC.
Edison plans to locate charging stations at locations where drivers typically leave their cars parked for four hours or more: workplaces and fleet facilities, multi-unit dwellings, and destination locations such as parks and shopping malls. Single-family homes are not eligible.
The customer participant will own and operate the charging station and will be responsible for all related operating costs, including maintenance and electricity usage. Ratepayers will fund the cost of all paneling, conduits, and wiring, up to the charging station itself. Edison will also provide charging station rebates to site owners to cover a pre-determined percentage of the charging system “base cost.”
Rebate levels will be 25% of the base cost for all non-residential market segments, 50% of the base cost for Multi-Unit Dwellings, and 100% of the base cost for any charging stations located within disadvantaged communities, regardless of market segment.
Under the pilot program, Edison will validate its cost estimates and program incentives, identify and address field deployment issues, and refine its market education strategies. Edison will also convene an Advisory Board to review and provide input, guidance, and suggestions on the execution and improvement of the pilot.
That's one of the good way to go to foster the use of more EVs.
All e-suppliers should joint the club and contribute to the installation of more charging facilities on their territories.
Local, States and Federal authorities should also contribute.
Posted by: HarveyD | 17 January 2016 at 07:54 AM
$14.666 for a charging station! Scam.
Posted by: dursun | 17 January 2016 at 12:28 PM
Charging facilities go from a single very slow (Cat I) charge unit @ about $500 USD to over $200,000 USD for multiple high voltage charging units @ 200 KW each.
Homes may do with the low cost unit but public highway units need much higher power charging facilities.
Posted by: HarveyD | 17 January 2016 at 04:45 PM
Large high power charging stations are a waste of money. Tiny turbine range extenders in each automobile would be small enough and light enough to get back to any location faster and at lower cost than any recharge pause. Ordinary statistical use would not require the use of the range extender and fill ups would be seldom so any kind and cost of fuel would not be a great expense to most. Micro turbines need no additional equipment or fluids to meet combustion standards.
Maize ethanol producers could have two grades of fuel for range extenders: ordinary and carbon negative depending on what might be wanted by the user. Carbon negative would use electric power when available in excess from solar cells or windmills in the area to produce hydrogen which can be combined with CO2 from the fermentation process to produce carbon negative ethanol in another type of fermentation process to produce ethanol that can also be used as a drink because it has the radioactive carbon from plants in it required by alcoholic drink inspectors. Carbon from oil, gas or coal is not radioactive. Alternately carbon can be collect from the air by processes that use the electricity from solar or wind sources.
All of this is a bit expensive since half the fuel for city travel can be saved with a new type of cheap hydraulic hybrid transmission and no expensive heavy batteries or electric generators and motors. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 17 January 2016 at 10:44 PM
If wired properly in the US, two adjacent ordinary outlets can supply 240 volt charging service. Since every tablet and cell phone charger can adjust automatically to low or high voltage charging so can automobiles do too with only two standard cords needed. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 17 January 2016 at 10:54 PM
Let's see, 1500 stations for $22 million (from the ratepayer).
How many hydrogen stations could you buy for $22 million, at $4 million a pop? 5½... oh.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 18 January 2016 at 06:07 AM
Why does it have to be all or nothing? Charge stations can coexist along with hydrogen fueling stations. It seems like some believe that if everyone does not do everything they want, those people are misguided.
Posted by: SJC | 19 January 2016 at 09:46 AM
If you're paying $15,000 for a charging station, you can buy almost 270 of them for the price of one hydrogen station. That is a LOT of charging stations.
Look at it this way: you could put one station at every strip mall and hotel in the city nearest me, one or two in every big retail store parking lot, half a dozen stations in each mall parking lot, several on each floor of the parking structures, and sprinkle more around places where people spend time waiting like doctor's offices... and I don't think you'd exhaust an allotment of 270. But if your city doesn't have a hydrogen station you are a very undesirable destination for FCEV drivers.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 19 January 2016 at 01:17 PM
The initial cost of clean H2 stations and REs is going down NOT up like NPPs. They will soon be under $4/Kg and $0.05/kWh each soon.
Combined ultra quick (200+ KW) e-charging stations and H2 stations is a strong possibility. H2 could be produced and stored when e-chargers are off peaks and/or when e-power is available at much lower cost.
One large combined highway station every 200/300 Km or so would be enough for a thin early network.
Posted by: HarveyD | 19 January 2016 at 04:23 PM
Well said, EP. According to hydrogen researcher Ulf Bossel PhD, because a hydrogen tanker truck can only deliver 400kg of hydrogen, it would take *15 truck deliveries every day* to supply the same number of cars served as a typical gas station.
Supply delivery to 270 EV charge stations would take... zero trucks per day. Since as you point out, the EV stations can be distributed throughout a service area, there would be less traffic congestion and greater convenience (closer to point of need). Hydrogen stations require dedicated real estate (expensive) while EV charging stations perform double duty as parking spots (while the patrons eat, shop, obtain services, etc). Multiple businesses can benefit vs very few in proximity to the single H2 station.
Posted by: electric-car-insider.com | 19 January 2016 at 07:47 PM
It takes roughly 60 kWh of electricity to electrolyze 1 kg of hydrogen. At your purported 5¢/kWh, that's $3 in electricity right there. That only allows $1/kg for amortization, O&M, taxes and profit; in short, you're smoking something. Current prices of H2 from anything that can be considered "renewable" are on the order of $15/kg. Given the hard-to-handle nature of H2, they're not going to come down very fast.
There are literally millions of opportunities for medium-power EV charging stations going unused. Every lamp post on a street or parking lot has excess power capacity going to waste unless it was just designed for LEDs with small margins. Those can be pressed into service for as little as hundreds of dollars each.
Had to get that barb in, didn't you? NPPs are only expensive when governments force them to be; there are no major problems in China, S. Korea or S. Korea's export markets (e.g. UAE). Clear away the legal and regulatory thicket and that issue disappears.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 20 January 2016 at 04:25 AM