25,000 charging stations could be built in No. CA

[Richard230]

According to an article in my newspaper today, written by George Avalos of the Bay Area News Group, titled (appropriately) "PG&E has plan to charge autos - and consumers".  The story is that our electric company, Pacific, Gas and Electric (AKA Pacific, Gas and Extortion) has applied to the state PUC to authorize the construction of 25,000 new EV charging stations within their service area in Northern California. (The entire state currently has about 6000 charging stations.)  The stations would be located all over the place, including large apartment buildings, all sorts of businesses and all of the expected public locations, streets, parking lots, public buildings, parks, etc. etc.  The entire program would cost $654 million, of which $551 million is the estimated capital cost of the charging stations. The program would be funded by a 70 cent increase in the average monthly residential electric rate.

It should be no surprise that the state's rate payer advocates have questioned placing the burden of the program on residential customers.  Mark Toney of TURN says that "We are very skeptical about the value of investing so much ratepayer money and betting it all on electric vehicles". 

It should also be no surprise that Charge-Point is not too happy about the idea, either. While they support the concept of electric utility companies getting into the charging station arena, they are concerned that PG&E's approach "could stifle competition", because the utility wants the PUC to authorize it to wield wide-ranging control over the design of the physical facilities and the network support services. Charge-Point says that "PG&E wants to pick the hardware vendor, the network services vendor, and we don't' think that's fair", says Pasquale Romano, CEO of Charge-Point.

This is going to be an interesting public discussion, especially as just about everyone in the state hates the CA PUC right now and believes they are in the pocket of PG&E (which apparently they are, according to a ton of leaked emails between the two organizations).   

[flar]

Also today, I received this email from ChargePoint:

ChargePoint has teamed up with BMW and Volkswagen to create express charging corridors along heavily-traveled routes on the East and West Coasts. We’ve set a goal of installing nearly 100 DC fast chargers by the end of this year.

We already offer you EV charging at home, at work, around town and out of town. And with our DC fast charging initiatives, you can go farther with your EV.

The express charging corridors will be along the most heavily populated and trafficked regions on Interstate 95 on the east coast from Boston to D.C., and on the west coast covering and connecting the metro areas of Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. These corridors will provide EV drivers with the freedom to go farther and enjoy all the benefits of driving an EV over long distances.

The stations will be publicly available to all drivers and can be accessed with your ChargePoint card or with the mobile app.

All the fast chargers will have the SAE Combo connector used by both BMW and Volkswagen, and many will also have CHAdeMO connectors. We’ll often co-locate the DC fast chargers with Level 2 ChargePoint stations which can charge all EVs.

Don’t live near the coasts? Don’t worry. We’re building out fast chargers across the country and there are over 110 fast chargers on the ChargePoint network today.

Keep checking out the ChargePoint map to see stations near you and let us know where you need more EV charging.

 

 

Drive Happier,

Team ChargePoint

[Richard230]

Yesterday my newspaper published a long legal notice regarding this charging station proposal and rate increase to support it.  I note that the proposal states that 2,600 charging stations would be built - not 25,000 as mentioned in the newspaper article.  The PUC proposal also states that "PG&E would install, maintain and manage the operation of electric vehicle charging stations and related electric infrastructure".....throughout their service territory.  "The sites will be located at workplaces, multi-unit dwellings and public spaces.  If the application is approved, PG&E also will develop materials to promote hosting of charging stations and to raise awareness of he benefits of clean electric transportation.  The program will help improve transportation options for electric vehicle owners and improve the environment".

A copy of this application and its exhibits can be obtained by writing to PG&E at:

Pacific Gas and Electric Company
Electric Vehicle Infrastructure & Education Program
P.O. Box 7442
San Francisco, CA 94120