Work Charging Policy

[EVBill]

My employer is planning to install charging stations and asked for inputs to their policy for using them. Does anyone have examples of policies that have worked well?

 

[fromport]

My employer is planning to install charging stations and asked for inputs to their policy for using them. Does anyone have examples of policies that have worked well?

Some googling found these documents
https://www.pca.state.mn.us/sites/default/files/charging-while-you-work-guide.pdf
http://www.pevcollaborative.org/sites/all/themes/pev/files/WPC_2.0_web.pdf
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/uploads/publication/pev_workplace_charging_hosts.pdf
http://energy.gov/eere/vehicles/workplace-charging-challenge-install-and-manage-pev-charging-work
http://www.calstart.org/Libraries/Publications/Best_Practices_for_Workplace_Charging.sflb.ashx

 

[rav4buyer]

Early on we had an e-mail distribution list for EV owners. It's first come first serve in the morning, and when they are done with it, they unplug, move their car and let the next person on the list get the charger.

Recently we deployed a waitlist where you tap your Chargepoint card onto the charger and it puts you in a queue. It will e-mail you when a charger is available and e-mail you with 10 minute reminders to move your car when you are done.

We have a lot of level 1 trickle chargers though too which is almost just as good if you have a shorter commute and spend 9+ hours a day at work. No need to walk to your car and back and you get like 15 miles of charge in a day.

 

[smkettner]

Two stations(free), four vehicles. Each gets half day. No official policy.

 

[cwerdna]

Recently we deployed a waitlist where you tap your Chargepoint card onto the charger and it puts you in a queue. It will e-mail you when a charger is available and e-mail you with 10 minute reminders to move your car when you are done.

That program was in beta. I spoke to Chargepoint reps last year (IIRC) and they asked me why my work wasn't on that beta. My response was that I didn't know about it, esp. since I'm not the facilities person.

I hear that might be out of beta now.

My work doesn't have an official policy. We're generally well-mannered and self-policing. We used to have way more plug-in vehicles than J1772 handles, and eventually, we had a parking problem as well (no place to park) and had to have valet parking, including EV valets that got 6 handles.

We have an internal list/sheet where you're supposed add your car model, its color, license plate and owner, so that we can contact them if we have trouble plugging them in, need them to move/swap parking spaces or have some other issue. We also an internal email list for plug-in drivers and had a Hipchat channel, now Slack instead.

When we had the shortage, people might have to email the DL (distribution list) saying something like "I need to charge. Can someone move/swap spaces with me?" Or, we could go down to the garage, see who's done and email those folks privately.

We also have a list of how to tell at a glance as to whether a vehicle is done charging or not (via lights on the car, if any) since indicators vary depending on the model.

We also had a few 120 volt outlets where people could use their L1 EVSEs.

We ended up also getting some Tesla HPWCs added, so those folks have their own DL since non-Teslas can't use them anyway.

Generally speaking, on our internal EV page, we basically asked people to be polite and also to tend to prefer to plug in a BEV first before a PHEV, if there came to be a choice. And, that if your charging door is open, it means "plug me in and start a session for me" when you unplug and leave, to better utilize the equipment. There was no obligation or expectation you'd go out of your way to the garage to do that your car was done charging, only when you leave.

On our EV page, we say that it's never considered normal to interrupt any vehicle's charge if it's not done. And, if you need to do so in an emergency or accidentally (and can't restart it), you should notify the driver of the car immediately, so that they're not surprised (esp. since not all vehicles have telematics (w/cellular radio) or they may not get cellular reception in the parking garage).

Also, we say that it's nice, but not required to notify someone that you've unplugged them, in the event it was by mistake. We also noted in our internal page how to tell on the station if charging is done, since there seems to be no user manual for Chargepoint CT4000-series stations. We figured out that blue power flow animation and solid blue lightning bolt == charging. When it finishes, the animation stops and the lightning bolt becomes a non-filled one w/dotted outline.

Now we have more handles than we cars that charge each day, so some of the above stuff isn't needed as much anymore. We still do maintain the list, DL, channel, etc. Unfortunately, some people choose to ignore the above convention and leave without plugging people around them in. It's annoying.

Our charging is free. So, it's no issue to start a session for other vehicles. It may require 2 cards though, due to some Chargepoint UI quirks.

Some companies which charge money make the rate reasonable/cheap for the first 4 hours or so and then make it a MUCH higher rate for any time spent beyond 4 hours, to encourage space turnover.

A company that shares a garage and building w/us at another location has their EVSEs restricted to that company (I think we actually own those EVSEs, long story...) set to charge 10 cents/kWh, which is an excellent price compared to PG&E rates but very close to Silicon Valley Power rates (city of Santa Clara only, which has very good rates for the Bay Area).

As for installation, if a stations has 1 or 2 handles, I STRONGLY suggest placing them in center spots in the parking lot so that 4 to 6 vehicles can park around them and one only needs to move the handle and cable to the next vehicle, to reduce the amount of car shuffling. I don't recommend placing them in corners or up against a wall, where only a limited set of vehicles can reach them.

If there are budgetary limitations esp. when it comes to electrical capacity, you may wish to install some 208/240 volt 15 or 16 amp EVSEs for vehicles w/lower wattage OBCs (3.x kW or less OBCs on virtually all PHEVs, '11 to '12 Leaf, '13 to '16 Leaf S w/o charge package, Smart fortwo ED, etc.) and tell folks w/those vehicles to use those.

Also, you might consider L1 EVSEs like http://www.l1powerpost.com/products/.

All of our J1772 EVSEs are Chargepoint, some old while most are current CT4000 series. AFAIK, each handle has a 40 amp feed, so they're not using the power sharing feature that those can have. Long ago, we the first 3 CT4000 stations we had only had 3 40 amp feeds, so they were using power sharing.

I don't work in facilities so the setup, equipment choices, etc. are not up to me. I and others have given some suggestions... We're not getting any more EVSEs at my location but it will be more than enough for a very long time. Our ratio of PEVs to J1772 handles used to quite bad (e.g. ~100 vehicles on the list (not all of them charge every day) vs. ~14 handles). Even then, charge rage was rare.

Now, we'd need to have MANY times more vehicles in order for it to return to as bad as before as we have over 90 handles and ~200 vehicles on the list. Despite the ratio now, somehow not all the handles are even used everyday. For sure not all of them are showing up (some people have 2+ PEVs) and some on the list are "mystery cars" where we don't know who owns them and we're not sure if they even show up to our work anymore. We have no more charge rage, but there is sometimes charge annoyance (e.g. people not plugging in cars and starting sessions for those w/their charging door open, upon leaving).

 

[dstjohn99]

Ours has 4 chargers, 240V 30 amp, charging is free. Policy is 1) Not intended as a primary charging source. 2) Sign in and out, with contact number. 3) 3 hours max. 4) Move the car on your time.

 

[michael]

The best policy is to have enough charging stations installed that everyone can plug in and then forget their car for the day.

My company installed 24 TurboDocks. These are 3 kW smartphone activated units. In a normal working day, everyone can get up to 24 kWh. Even 80 mile class cars can arrive empty and refill before going home.

Another advantage of 3 kW class charging stations is that they are not wasted on Volt, Energi, and other 3 kW capable cars. If the company had installed the same number of 6 kW charging stations, the installation costs would have been much higher...they likely would have installed only 12 or so and we would be forced to play "plug jockey"

http://www.evsolutions.com/turbodock


Later addition:

Actually, a very easy and inexpensive option for your company is to install a bunch of 120/220 V outlets, one per parking space. Let the employee provide his/her own portable EVSE, either 120 or 220 V whichever is needed. Make the parking spots reserved for a particular person, everyone is guaranteed of a spot every day. Charge by the month or not at all, whatever they want to do.