SDG&E Electric Vehicle Charging Program Gets Go Ahead

San Diego Gas & Electric can install 3,500 electric vehicle chargers at 350 locations over the next three years at a cost of $45 million under a California Public Utilities Commission decision approved unanimously Jan. 28.

CPUC Commissioner Carla Peterman noted that the decision scales back the utility’s initial plan to install 5,500 chargers at 550 sites at a cost of $65 million.

She told her fellow commissioners that scaling back the plan will prevent the utility from dominating the emerging electric vehicle charging market and maintain room for competitors that want to offer charging services.

At the same time, the decision will provide better distribution of chargers to eliminate “range anxiety” on the part of electric vehicle owners in San Diego.

The decision will allow the utility to recover operation and maintenance costs for the chargers in future rate proceedings.

Ten percent of the chargers are to go into disadvantaged communities under the decision.

Approval for SDG&E follows authority granted earlier this year for other investor-owned utilities to roll out their own charging facilities.

Commission President Mike Picker said that developing electric transportation is crucial to meeting the state’s greenhouse gas reduction goals, since 40 percent of the state’s carbon emissions come from cars and other vehicles.

In other action, the commission voted to liberalize its energy storage procurement guidelines. For instance, utilities will be allowed to satisfy more of their targets with storage on customer premises, versus embedded in their transmission and distribution systems, and also allowed to take credit toward their targets for storage voluntarily installed by customers.

The commission also backed a new electric utility pilot project to procure demand response negawatts by auction in 2017. Expenditures under the program will be limited to $13.5 million total among the three investor-owned electric utilities—Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison. —William J. Kelly