Act Now! Free EV Charging Stations for PG&E Customers

(By: Shelby Kelley)

If you’ve been pondering getting an electric car or you have one and haven’t installed a home charging station now is a prime time to get one. Don’t worry businesses, you can get in on this deal too so you can offer workplace charging or get started on that electric fleet. Just to be clear, this deal is offering free Level 2 Chargers.

PG&E is one of the utilities participating in a pilot set up by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to test electricity sub-metering through a separate meter, which will only measure the energy used to charge electric vehicles.  This energy may be billed at a different rate than the rest of the residence or business. A special rate will be set up for the EV charging station.

There are three companies acting as Submeter Meter Data Management Agents (Submeter MDMA) with two of those offering free charging stations: Electric Motor Werks (EMW) and OhmConnect. The third company participating is NRG and they will be installing chargers at low cost to owners.

To qualify for this pilot program, a PG&E customer must install an eligible submeter, which will only measure the electricity used to charge their EV. This pilot will be limited to the installation of 500 submeters provided on a first-come, first-served basis.
Please note that the submetering equipment for the 1st phase of the pilot must be installed and be fully functional by February 2015.

The following is an explanation of the program put out by SacEV:

A trial-specific EVSE or charging station will act as your submeter. It will communicate the energy consumption data it records through a WiFi to the charging company, which will upload it to PG&E.

To enroll in the pilot, customers must select a Submeter Meter Data Management Agent (Submeter MDMA) from the list above. The Submeter MDMA will be responsible for the following:

◦Assisting customers in completing a Customer Enrollment Agreement
◦Submitting the Agreement to PG&E
◦Collecting and transmitting submeter usage data to PG&E for billing

The trial is limited to a total of 500 submeters for each participating utility on a first-come, first-served basis. Customers, who are on a Net Energy Metering (NEM) rate are eligible, but their number will be limited to 20% of the participation cap.

Eligible customers will be contacted by the submeter data management agent (submeter MDMA) they have signed up with. These customers are expected to cooperate with the MDMA, purchase any necessary equipment, and facilitate the installation of submeters. It is expected that customers will complete key pilot milestones to help test the submetering process. The duration of the trial will not exceed 12 billing periods.

Residential PG&E customers will be billed on Schedule EV-B for the submetered EV load, and commercial customers will be billed on Schedule A-6 or A-10.

For more information please click the links posted throughout this post.