Workplace Charging – An Underappreciated Part of EV Charging Infrastructure

UPDATE

This program featured panelists Ryan Boggio from Clean Cities, Marriott Dowden from United Illuminating, and Catherine Duncan from the CT Green Bank. Key discussion points:

• There are benefits with workplace charging that accrue to businesses, fleets, and employees.
• There are considerable financial incentives available to customers of Eversource and United Illuminating to offset the cost of the equipment and installation.
• The CT Green Bank offers affordable financing options, as well as the ability to participate in the state’s nascent carbon credit market and earn money every year for each charger that is installed.

The webinar has been posted on YouTube.

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We need more EV chargers. Lots more. Significant progress is being made, courtesy of recent federal legislation in particular, but the majority of the firepower is concentrated in expanding DC fast charging along major highway corridors, and to a lesser extent, downtown areas. Workplace charging can fill a critical gap and meaningfully contribute to alleviating range anxiety concerns, along with being a big win for employees and their employers.

Workplace charging benefits:

• Creates charging access for employees who lack it where they live.
• Attract/retain employees.
• Can include charging in employee benefits portfolio.
• Induce employees to go electric when they get their next car (especially if it is part of a program that educates them about EVs).
• Company can be seen as an environmental leader and be part of the conversation locally about moving to net-zero.

For those interested in learning more, there is a webinar scheduled for June 29th at 12 PM for one hour, presented by CT Southwestern Area Clean Cities, CT Green Bank, United Illuminating, and the Bridgeport Regional Business Council covering:

• Introduction to workplace charging: understanding the importance of workplace charging infrastructure and its role in supporting the transition to electric mobility.
• Financing an EVSE project: learn from experts at the CT Green Bank and UI as they discuss financing options and opportunities to support workplaces in implementing their EVSE projects.
• Benefits of Workplace charging: discover how workplace charging positively impacts employees, businesses, and the surrounding community.
• Q&A session: engage with our panel of experts and get technical questions answered.

Free registration at this link.

Applicants Will Have To Wait

Good news/bad news. Demand is strong but the funding isn’t there to fully meet it.

A crush of applications for incentives for DC Fast Chargers, the high-powered chargers that can recharge an EV to 80% inside of 30 minutes, most frequently located along highway corridors, has caused the program run by Eversource and United Illuminating to become fully subscribed just six months after its inauguration. This is a  9-year program that runs in three 3-year cycles. So the funds depletion could last until 2025.

Eversource and UI have requested additional funds, so there could be funds available sooner, but it is too soon to know details. Eversource and UI advise that if you had planned to submit an application to follow through with that submission. They continue to evaluate applications and this will establish your place in the queue.

There is still a substantial amount of funding available for level 2 (240 volt) chargers and grants are being made on an ongoing basis.

This does not affect the residential incentives program (which does not included DCFC).

CHEAPR Follow-UP

The increase in the MSRP cap is fully implemented. Vehicles with an MSRP of up to $50,000 are now rebate-eligible.

There are some vehicles that are eligible that are not yet on the list of eligible vehicles on the DEEP website. We have gotten a few inquiries about the Ioniq 5 in particular. DEEP is aware of that one and it will be added soon. If you are shopping for an EV and you don’t see it included where you think it should be, let us know and we’ll pass the info along. This applies not only to newly introduced models but also a new model year of an existing vehicle.

Registration Flow Fixes Made

If you have been thinking of registering your EV or charger for the incentives offered through Eversource and United Illuminating, but have been hesitant due to reports of the not-ready-for-prime-time registration funnel, the corrective website development work has been finished and it should be good to go, whether registering a new charger or going the telematics route.

As reported to us by Eversource and UI (the EDCs, a.k.a. utilities) early in the year, due to the finalization of the program occurring around Thanksgiving of 2021, and its starting point of January 1, 2022, there was insufficient time to properly build out the website. This is further complicated by there being 3 parties involved as the EDCs outsource the management of the program. After they presented to the club in January, a number of members tried to register regardless and encountered all sorts of adventures, including finding themselves on an out of state EDC website.

If you register, you will notice that you will be taken from the EDC domain to an EDC subdomain on the vendor’s domain. Your EDC account number will serve to link you. Pro tip – when you enter the account number, don’t leave spaces. If you do, the registration won’t take and the site isn’t clear regarding what isn’t working.

Have a graphic of your vehicle registration for uploading.

Keep in mind the charger incentives apply only to approved charger units and, similarly, telematics applies to approved vehicles. See this page, which has info for both Eversource and UI.

Feel free to let us know about your experiences. We can forward reports of issues to the EDCs.

This takes you to Eversource Connected Solutions. This is the page for UI residential.

Eversource UI - Commercial EV Charging for EV Club of CT 5.2022 FINAL

Commercial and Multi-Family Residential Is the Focus

The two major Connecticut electric distribution companies (EDCs), Eversource and United Illuminating, will speak to the club at a virtual meeting to be held on May 10th at 7 PM. (EDC is now the term of art, supplanting utility.) This applies to business fleets, businesses providing workplace charging, municipalities, nonprofits, and apartments/condos with 5+ units.

These incentives are part of the program called the EV Rate Design that was developed by the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.

Free registration is required at this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kdOysqDgoH9X_1SiBnVxnb75LuntzhG-_

The meeting is open to the public.

EV Club Follow Up with Eversource and UI

This post concerns vehicles with telematics. Telematics is where the utility is able to communicate directly with the vehicle, as opposed to a smart charger, the latter being the basic design of the program. This information has been developing, and in some cases, changing. This is the latest. Here goes.

The basic design of the program is to provide subsidies of up to $1000 for the purchase and installation of smart chargers. In return, the recipient is required to participate in the demand response programs where the utility can throttle the rate of charge during high demand periods. The utility pays then the customer $200 annually for full participation in the demand response.

One thing that is different than what is in the video of our meeting is that all vehicles, including Tesla, are eligible for a smart charger subsidy. At this time, there are no approved Tesla chargers in the program. That could change if Tesla chooses to submit a charger for qualification (or possibly they have and it is in the approval process). Tesla owners can use an eligible J1772 smart charger and qualify for the hardware incentive. Of course, an adapter will be necessary.

For those people who already have chargers that are not qualified chargers because they are either dumb chargers or non-approved smart chargers, another way to participate in the program is via telematics, if you have an eligible vehicle. Tesla, Chevrolet, Ford and a few other makes have eligible vehicles. This is the page that lists eligible vehicles for each company. It is subject to change and is expected to change as this is still early days. There is a $100 enrollment incentive for people participating via telematics.

Registering for Telematics

Registering for this telematics path is difficult and confusing at this point because Eversource and UI are still in the process of building out their websites and back-end integration. The back-end part of it is further complicated because there are two external vendors involved. One vendor is managing the rebates. The other is managing the telematics. Both utilities are using the same vendor for the rebates, but they are using different vendors for telematics. Consequently, there will be different vehicles that are telematics-eligible for each utility. While it is possible to stumble your way through the process, it is better to wait for the time being. As long as the program registration is done before June, no incentive amount will be lost.

We have provided detailed feedback to the utilities about the pain points in the registration funnels as they exist now.

In the case of Eversource, there is yet another layer because it is retaining its Connected Solutions branding and transitioning it to the new program. This process is not complete and there is old content still on the website. It is possible to link to that old content from the homepage and you may find yourself answering questions that are non-sequiturs. Some members have reported landing on a Massachusetts page. This is all part of the same problem, and the advice is the same – wait.

When we booked the virtual club meeting about this program for early in the year, we did not realize that there was still be a lot of developmental work to be done by the utilities to get to full implementation. Eversource and UI have advised us that in about a month, they will be able to give us more definitive information regarding the specifics of a more consumer-friendly telematics registration funnel and we will communicate that out when we have them.

EV Charging Incentive Webinars

Eversource and United Illuminating are doing a series of webinars about the new incentives, the first of them only hours from this posting. They will cover similar ground as the session with the EV Club here, though they are segmenting them as you can see below. When the club presentation occurred, there were some rules that did not seem to be fully baked, so there may be some updated information here. Also, there is more likely to be some EV 101 that was not necessary for our group.

We have been following up with the utilities on some of the outstanding questions. These are some specific items that came up at the meeting where the information was not available or incomplete. These are a few items for which we have answers.

Plug-in Hybrids

Plug-in Hybrids are eligible! At the meeting we were told that is not the case. That correction has been provided to us.

Third Party Power Supplier

It does not matter who your power generation supplier is.

Number of Incentives Per Household

Our club has a lot of multi-EV households. Each household can sign up for a maximum of 2 incentives. At the meeting, it was said that Eversource had a limit of one, but we confirmed with Eversource that 2 incentives are permitted, the same as with UI.

Make-Ready

Make-Ready is a commercial incentive that is sometimes described as bringing power to the pad or the base upon which the charging unit will be installed. The incentive includes the cost of wiring up the charging unit.

Telematics

Telematics is where the utility communicates directly with the vehicle. It is a way for people who already own a charger, which is not an eligible smart charger to participate, IF you have a vehicle that has telematics capability. Many, though not all Teslas, have telematics. There are non-Tesla EVs that also have telematics. This page includes telematics-eligible vehicles for Eversource. There could be a slightly different list for UI as the companies use different external vendors to manage this aspect of the program.

We have received feedback that it is difficult to sign up for telematics. The registration funnel on the website is confusing. We have sent detailed feedback on this subject to the utilities and await their response.

Taxes

If you are requesting incentives with a value of more than $600, you will be required to upload a completed IRS form W-9.

We have a March 4 call scheduled with them. We don’t know if we’ll hear anything sooner. If you have anything you’d like for us to ask, or if you have gone through the application process and have comments, please mention it as a comment to the post or email the club at EVClubCT@gmail.com.

United Illuminating CT EV Charging Program FINAL 02182022

Post by Barry Kresch

All are welcome to our virtual meeting on January 25th at 7 PM to hear and ask questions about the new incentive program for EV charging to be offered by the EDCs (utilities, or electricity distribution companies).

With us that evening will be Stefanie Keohane of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), which initiated this program as part of its grid modernization efforts, along with Charles Spence and Marriott Dowden of United Illuminating. Charles and Marriott are the consumer-facing individuals for the residential and commercial aspects of the program respectively.

Two recent blog posts discussed the single family and multi-unit residential parts of the program. There are also incentives targeted to workplace, commercial, and fleets, encompassing both level 2 and level 3 charging. Incentives include subsidies for charging hardware, installation (including make ready), and electricity costs (including demand charge mitigation).

This is a statewide program. Even though our speakers are from United Illuminating, Eversource customers have access to the identical program.

This meeting is being recorded and will be uploaded to the club YouTube channel.

The meeting is free but registration is required: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYrcuutrzguGdd3O4Z_k9pqFUXrxPwSBK1b