comment...comment...As the owner of two electric vehicles, I was excited to hear about Xcel, (or Northern States Power Company) offering a new EV program. I’d like to offer some thoughts that may lead to a more successful relationship with Electric Vehicle [EV] owners.
I have reviewed this PUC document. I’m afraid you will have a difficult time convincing EV owners to pay an average up-front cost of equipment in the neighborhood of $2,625 in exchange for reduced off-peak electric rates. Many EV owners have converted from gas vehicles for the lower fueling and maintenance costs, making an unexpected investment of thousands of dollars unlikely. I would not pay a gas station thousands up front for lower gas prices. Electric vehicles are very energy efficient and an EV driver would need to drive about 58,000 miles, (or ~4-1/2 years) just to break-even on this arrangement. This program may be better than something previously offered, however, I’m thinking it may remain a tough sell.
I think you’d have much better success if Electric Vehicle Service Equipment [EVSE] were not a mandatory part of the initiative. Also, there are far more cost effective ways to account for electricity directed to an EV, than installing another meter & wiring.
All electric vehicles are sold with a charging cord, which makes an EVSE optional and sometimes unnecessary, (depends how fast you need to recharge the car).
Also, the docket explains you attempted to find vendors that could track the electric usage outside of EVSE, but gave up. To me this is really the only realistic approach. This could be something as simple as a Wi-Fi capable monitoring using a current transformer, on the appropriate wiring circuit inside a customer's breaker box. This would make the extra electric meter and new wiring unnecessary. I suspect a company like eGauge could develop something to suit your specifications.
Also if you do proceed with supplying/selling EVSE to your EV customers, at least one of the choices should have a low phantom draw/stand-by-mode draw of < 1 watt.
Thanks and I'm open to being contacted by Xcel energy.
As a current EV driver, this rate plan is not at all compelling to me.
Even if I ignore for now the need to replace my existing EVSE equipment at a high price, the remaining $13.88 monthly fee would still erode nearly all savings from the off-peak rate.
I drive roughly 1000 miles/month at about 3 miles per kWh, so my monthly EV charging comes out to about 333 kWh/month. By my calculations, the break-even point to offset the monthly fee would be about 262 kWh/month, leaving 71kWh/month of actual savings at the reduced rate, which would be less than $4/month savings.
$4/month savings to replace my existing EVSE and restrict my available charging hours simply would not motivate me to consider this rate plan.
It occurs to me that this proposed pilot is, in effect, allowing a submetered EV service via a relatively complex and expensive 3rd party metering and data collection agreement.
The existing EV rate plan has a reasonable $4.95 monthly fee, but does not allow submetering; for many customers, the up-front installation cost of the parallel service is again prohibitive.
A rate plan which allows for a normally submetered circuit with a reasonable monthly fee would, to me, be the best of both worlds.
Gary Schettl about 7 years ago
comment...comment...As the owner of two electric vehicles, I was excited to hear about Xcel, (or Northern States Power Company) offering a new EV program. I’d like to offer some thoughts that may lead to a more successful relationship with Electric Vehicle [EV] owners.
I have reviewed this PUC document. I’m afraid you will have a difficult time convincing EV owners to pay an average up-front cost of equipment in the neighborhood of $2,625 in exchange for reduced off-peak electric rates. Many EV owners have converted from gas vehicles for the lower fueling and maintenance costs, making an unexpected investment of thousands of dollars unlikely. I would not pay a gas station thousands up front for lower gas prices. Electric vehicles are very energy efficient and an EV driver would need to drive about 58,000 miles, (or ~4-1/2 years) just to break-even on this arrangement. This program may be better than something previously offered, however, I’m thinking it may remain a tough sell.
I think you’d have much better success if Electric Vehicle Service Equipment [EVSE] were not a mandatory part of the initiative. Also, there are far more cost effective ways to account for electricity directed to an EV, than installing another meter & wiring.
All electric vehicles are sold with a charging cord, which makes an EVSE optional and sometimes unnecessary, (depends how fast you need to recharge the car). Also, the docket explains you attempted to find vendors that could track the electric usage outside of EVSE, but gave up. To me this is really the only realistic approach. This could be something as simple as a Wi-Fi capable monitoring using a current transformer, on the appropriate wiring circuit inside a customer's breaker box. This would make the extra electric meter and new wiring unnecessary. I suspect a company like eGauge could develop something to suit your specifications.
Also if you do proceed with supplying/selling EVSE to your EV customers, at least one of the choices should have a low phantom draw/stand-by-mode draw of < 1 watt.
Thanks and I'm open to being contacted by Xcel energy.
Eric Sandeen almost 7 years ago
As a current EV driver, this rate plan is not at all compelling to me. Even if I ignore for now the need to replace my existing EVSE equipment at a high price, the remaining $13.88 monthly fee would still erode nearly all savings from the off-peak rate. I drive roughly 1000 miles/month at about 3 miles per kWh, so my monthly EV charging comes out to about 333 kWh/month. By my calculations, the break-even point to offset the monthly fee would be about 262 kWh/month, leaving 71kWh/month of actual savings at the reduced rate, which would be less than $4/month savings.
$4/month savings to replace my existing EVSE and restrict my available charging hours simply would not motivate me to consider this rate plan.
Respectfully, Eric Sandeen Saint Paul
Eric Sandeen almost 7 years ago
It occurs to me that this proposed pilot is, in effect, allowing a submetered EV service via a relatively complex and expensive 3rd party metering and data collection agreement.
The existing EV rate plan has a reasonable $4.95 monthly fee, but does not allow submetering; for many customers, the up-front installation cost of the parallel service is again prohibitive.
A rate plan which allows for a normally submetered circuit with a reasonable monthly fee would, to me, be the best of both worlds.