1.14.21 SESSION NOTES/HIGHLIGHTS
Municipal Outreach/EV needs
- Bernardsville has four chargers, they’re trying to do their own EV needs assessment; two practices to facilitate the transition that are in beginning stages
- Green credits for developers after installing charging as part of their LEED certification
- Board of Adjustment requiring pre-wiring and being “charging infrastructure ready”
- Somerville got a grant to install another charger (the one in Somerville is the County’s)
- Watchung charger is at Borough Hall; they’d like more, especially where there’s commerce and along Route 22; they’d like to get businesses involved
- Warren Twp. asked for a breakdown of costs to install wiring/charging pre vs. post-construction that they could share with developers
- Franklin Twp. has two chargers at their municipal building has talked about requiring multi-use developments to at least have the wiring for charging
- Price for charging for a plug-in hybrid (which charge slower) can be more expensive than driving on gas; they want to ask their manager to lower the cost to charge
- Switch pricing to amount of electricity used rather than time to charge
- Put into ordinance that any new multi-family housing (> 10 units) be required to have a charger (and how can they subsidize existing m-f developments to install chargers)
- Sustainable Jersey website under actions for EV charging infrastructure; their public charging action has resources for pricing and order of operations for installation; the presentations page includes webinar recordings relate to EVs
- Different levels of charging discussed; it’s possible to have multiple cables from 1 charger; Level 1 charging is a much lower cost option often overlooked; good option for places like workplaces and multi-family residential; you can get many more parking spaces converted to EV charging at lower cost w/o people having to move their cars around to charge (6-8 hours); It Pay$ to Plug In funding also covers L1 charging and is available for multi-use housing, which most developers won’t know about, so spreading the word is important
- Streamlined ordinance and permitting process discussed
- N. Plainfield ordinance – requires certain size commercial developments /certain level of residential units to have pre-wiring and parking spaces devoted to charging; once they reach a certain number of EVs or the state gets to a certain percentage of registered EVs, the property owner has to add more charging to the pre-wired spaces
- Somerset County received an NJTPA grant to update their circulation element; they asked for funding to expand their broad EV readiness plan. Goal is to provide a framework for how charging infrastructure can be rolled out. What can the county do as part of the planning process and what resources can they provide to make implementation happen?
- Next meeting can pick up here – giving feedback on what the county can factor into its planning process, and what suggestions/needs should be included in the needs assessment process; it was suggested that municipalities figure out the barriers to planning and zoning first
Auto Dealer Ed & Outreach
- NJ Car program mentioned. They partner with ChargEVC, Plug in America and EAA on the PlugStar dealer training
- Dealers are a good priority for education and outreach; first point of contact for EV consumers
- Salespeople often have good manufacturer-specific training but don’t have broader knowledge about EVs and EV driving (charging, installing charger at home, rebates, etc.). Sometimes only one staff person is trained in EVs; we need more staff with greater breadth and depth of knowledge, and they need to be shown that the training is worth the cost of being off the sales floor (better dealer reviews/ratings and more EV sales)
- PlugStar certification includes customer facing website and training
- PlugStar website gives user local info (EV dealers/availability) and their pricing factors in rebates; there’s an EV support line also; dealers can be searched by brand, not by zipcode or county
- Plug In America hoping Ford does the PlugStar training; Ford is coming out with an electric F150, its #1 selling truck
- EV owners/drivers are a big part of educating people by talking about their experience/vehicle
- After dealers get certified, it was suggested that further assistance for salespeople can be provided by EV owner volunteers and others, such as members of CJEAA
- ChargEVC can let coalition know which dealers in which county have been certified
- Warren Twp. has an EV charger on municipal its grounds with its library; ball fields are nearby
- Warren has done some general public education that’s included their charging station but would like to do further education exclusively devoted to the charger
- A main consideration for Twp. staff was researching whether the charger would be for residents only or the general public. One of the Sustainable Jersey requirements for getting points for EV infrastructure is posting on their website that your municipal charger is available to the public
- EV owners will find chargers. When you show people looking to buy an EV the existing charging network they’re always surprised how many chargers there are. A large part of the value of public chargers is just advertising their existence. This counters consumers’ range anxiety.
- Dealer outreach also includes getting them to understand where the chargers are so they can pass this info on to the consumer. Salespeople often don’t know the basics about the charging network, or that most driving is local and that EV drivers typically won’t need public chargers
- 64% of NJ residents are homeowners and 36% rent. Access to charging is also an equity issue
- Workplace charging and businesses that install chargers make it easier for people, especially those without access to home charging
- RideWise can check to see if Somerset County is installing more chargers (libraries, parks were mentioned)
- RideWise can post EV info and resources on its website’s expanding EV pages or in a newsletter article (for any community in Somerset County)
- Battery life for EVs – among surveyed Plug in America members, battery degradation is much less than anticipated
Charger Installation
- Bruce documenting workplace charging installation process (Hillsborough):
- NJDEP “It Pay$ to Plug In” grant to install 4 workplace chargers: $16,000. Would like to expand to 8 chargers
- ChargEVC, Plug In America helped with their project; had a bid for companies to help with the installation and site preparation
- Charging site is home to 4 companies, including a fitness center
- Charging is for company employees, co. vehicles and the general public – mainly members of the fitness club
- $32,000 budget (out of pocket expenses will be around $7,000)
- NJDEP grant covers 60% of entire project; max. reimbusement of $16k
- Will apply for federal government’s Alternative Fuel Infrastructure tax credit, capped at $30,000 (covers 30% of project cost); this runs through 9/2021
- Step 1: determining charger location (4 centrally located spaces near property’s electric hub)
- Step 2: type of charging: decided on Level 2 (40-60 miles of charge in about an hour)
- Step 3: determine access and billing requirements they wanted:
- 3 different billing levels: company vehicles at cost; employee rate of cost plus small % and public rate of cost plus premium %
- Charging available to all through a smart phone app or credit card
- 24/7 customer support
- Step 4: identify vendors that offer chargers with reliable hardware and software that meet above requirements
- Got vendor recommendations and narrowed list down to five; requested bids
- Also and asked for pricing to expand from current 4 charges to 8
- Step 5: assess onsite power capacity; get bids from co’s that specialize in charger installation
- Expanding existing service is expensive (about 50% of his project cost)
- Didn’t need to go through the utility because service on site could handle extra capacity; if not, it adds significant cost; could BPU and local utility share these costs
- Bids for 4 chargers that were covered by the grant and site–prep cost for expansion to 8 chargers (cheaper to do initially than later (expansion will be about 60% of budget)
- With 8 chargers, project cost will be around $48-50k before subsidies
- Step 6: select vendor to supply chargers and vendor to install them
- Fuel Force/EV– Princeton vendor will supply chargers/hardware/software (2 pedestal chargers, dual port = 4)
- EV Installers of America, installation vendor from Mountain Lakes; will upgrade existing power service on property, do trenching, connecting, pour concrete and install pedestals/chargers)
- Step 7: applying for township permits
- David K. In Hillsborough is working on streamlining permit process locally and also statewide
- Target date for completion – hoping to be done by Spring; it depends on permit process, install needs to be complete w/in 6 months or you lose the grant money
- Cost-savings benefit to the employees
- Also encourages people to buy EVs and take advantage of the state and federal rebates ($5,000 and $7,500 respectively, with some restrictions)
- Ed installed 8 workplace chargers at Advanced Solar in Flemington donated by Tesla over a year ago (they may not support private projects like this anymore); Ed can supply plans and work with Bruce on an outline of steps to anticipate
- The Nature Conservancy NJ chapter is looking to install chargers at their worksite and at preserve (off grid-accessibility mentioned)
- From safety standpoint – is it possible to get hurt, or is the whole charging process so simple that this isn’t an issue for the workplace?
- How to pitch this to a municipal council, since they don’t follow the traditional corporate installation model. Bryan Electric, the designated installers of Charge Point; they have an ROI sheet and can help with factoring the costs and ROI of public chargers.
- Is there data on more people visiting a business site (ex: strip mall) if there’s a charging station? IKEA example was given that their customers driving EVs visit approx. 10 times more per year than their average customer
- Manasquan has public chargers, possibly subsidized, so they are also a potential resource
- Richard Lawton from NJ Sustainable Business Council – NJSBC would like to scale up EV charging and is interested in a guide Ed is working on for this purpose
