Abstract
This research explores whether pricing structures and levels likely to provide electric vehicle drivers with financial motivation to recharge at multi-unit dwellings might provide sufficient opportunity for station cost recovery. Compared to a popular 50 mpg gasoline hybrid baseline, residential charging prices might have to be kept below $0.26/kWh, $1.00/h of charging, or $85/month—levels that only support roughly $1,000–2,000 in facility investment per vehicle served. Increasing facility utilization while minimizing per-vehicle costs is key to improving financial viability and, across pricing structures, could more than double the cost recovery potential. Further, site hosts’ choice of pricing structure will differentially affect their ability to remain financially viable in the face of input-parameter uncertainty.
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Notes
- 1.
This assumption does not fully take into account the possibility that energy purchased to charge PEVs could move the building into a more expensive tier of electricity prices and/or that the power demanded by the equipment could add to the facilities’ demand charges (if applicable). This is probably a reasonable simplification for a small number of vehicles served relative to the location’s overall electricity consumption and with a little care not to allow PEV charging during the hours each month when the facility demands its peak amount of power (upon when demand charges are set). Further, utilizing special EV rates (possibly requiring the purchase of a second meter to be included in “all-in” installation costs) may also avoid these possibilities.
- 2.
It should be noted that the only revenues represented in Table 1 are those from fees for recharging services. Other sources of revenue or broader benefits might be available, including from tax and accounting benefits, participation in utility demand-response programs, and future value streams from the intelligent control of charging rates to provide various types of grid services (e.g., participation in regional grid markets like regulation, benefits to utility operation and the transmission or distribution system, customer-side-of-the-meter benefits like utility-bill mitigation or power quality/reliability, and/or a variety of related renewable-integration services [11, 12]). Eventually, recharging systems might be upgraded to broker bi-directional power flows to and from PEVs for greater levels of grid services, onsite energy management, and emergency power.
- 3.
Both roughly in terms of cost-recovery potential, but, more particularly, to the driver—see Sect. 3.2.
- 4.
i.e., ($0.1640 + $0.30)/kWh in year 1, where the electricity cost is escalated by 3 % per year.
- 5.
i.e., equipment that can charge multiple vehicles using one circuit and/or off-board charger, e.g., through use of multiple cords and control of the amount or timing of power sent to each vehicle.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) and the generous general support of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation by Meyer and Renee Luskin. Precursor and related work was supported by the Southern California Association of Governments and the SCAQMD as part of Regional PEV Readiness Planning activities in California funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and California Energy Commission. The authors would like to thank these organizations and the individuals involved, as well Jon Overman, who conducted foundational analysis. However, the opinions, conclusions, and recommendations are solely those of the authors.
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Williams, B., DeShazo, J.R. (2015). Pricing Plug-in Electric Vehicle Recharging in Multi-unit Dwellings: Financial Viability and Fueling Costs. In: Beeton, D., Meyer, G. (eds) Electric Vehicle Business Models. Lecture Notes in Mobility. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12244-1_6
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