Electric Cars don't park at gas pumps to go Shopping…

My friend Alex Santos in Canada recently went to get petrol at a gas station and snapped this photo.  I couldn't resist the image as one of the biggest concerns we Electric Car drivers have is the problem of ICEing, which is when a driver of a car, typically powered solely by an Internal Combustion Engine parks in a spot designated for Electric Vehicles and containing an easily accessible EVSE.  Signs informing the driver that the location is reserved usually don't help and notes without enforcement are often thrown away as my friend Lanny Hartmann has video to testify.  And although enforced towing does tend to succeed, that can sometimes cause a backlash among a business's customers.  To that effect, sometimes pictures speak louder than words and in that I hope this Public Service Announcement can help bridge a gap and explain why we Electric Car drivers are so concerned about the issue of ICEing.

Being Green on Arlington Weekly News

Last week, my friend Denis Dineen and I were interviewed by the lovely Miriam Gennari for a taping of the Arlington Weekly News at the Arlington County Independent Media studios in, naturally, Arlington, VA to appear in one of her wonderful Being Green segments.  We were there chiefly to promote the International Plug-In Day event on 28–29 September of this year.  The episode is schedule to premier today, Thursday, 22 August at 18:00 (6 pm), with repeats Saturday, 24 August at 10:30 (10:30 am) and Monday, 26 August at 20:30 (8:30 pm) as well as 3 overnight airings.  Arlington County Independent Media can be recieved on Comcast Channel 69 and Verizon FiOS channel 38 for Arlington residents.

Denis drives a Chevy Volt and is always prepared to give folks advice about electric cars.  Feel free to email him at virginiavolt@yahoo.com; he's more than happy to answer any questions as a Volt driver about how great it is to drive an electric car.  He has a wonderful information sheet he loves to share with folks that I should likewise share here at some point.  He often encourages me to write a similar sheet for CO2 Fre, but then, isn't this website enough??  ☺

1,500 mi (2,400 km) on just $25

In my interview I quoted my estimated mileage cost as 1,500 miles per month and a household electric bill on the order of $25.  My regular readers may remember my excitement for and analysis of the current Dominion Virginia Power Time-of-Use (ToU) power rates two years ago.  Since then, I've picked up my Nissan LEAF and driven over 34,000 miles in 21 months of ownership and have a much better handle on how much it costs to drive electric.  As I announced that October, I went with the Schedule EV dual meter rate plan.

A month at MOM's

Once I signed up for the ToU rate plan, I asked the electrician who installed my Clipper Creek CS-100 to split my EVSE's (Electric Vehicle Service Equipment) subpanel from the main subpanel in order to be hooked up to the second, electric-vehicle-only meter to be installed by Dominion, which would happen later.  MOM's Organic Market in Herndon had just opened, replacing the vacant suite that had many years ago hosted the only Hard Times Cafe near my home—I was gutted to see this restaurant go and for the space to be empty for so many years.  Had it been any other store than MOM's which would have replaced it, a boycott of the new occupant would most assuredly be in place!

Now, MOM's is a very EV (Electric Vehicle) friendly business.  Employees even get a $5,000 rebate towards a qualified electric car like the Nissan LEAF.  Part of MOM's commitment to EVs is that at most of their stores, including Herndon, they have free EVSEs where a patron can charge his electric car.  So I went over to MOM's and introducing myself and explained my situation.  That's when I met extremely affable and helpful store manager JP Exon who was more than happy to have me leave CO2 Fre plugged in over night while I waited for Dominion to install the second meter.  I needed the EVSE at MOM's because I drive almost 70 mi (113 km) a day, which is most of my Nissan LEAF's battery pack.  Because a wall outlet could only charge my car to about 90% of the amount used in a day in the 12 hours I'd have it plugged in at home, it meant I had to use a full, Level 2 EVSE with at least 3.8kW power.  Thank goodness, therefore, for MOM's!

So in early December of 2011, my EVSE was disconnected, after just over one month of at-home charging, and I started to plug my car in every night at MOM's in Herndon, then walk home.  In the morning, when I couldn't get a ride, I'd walk all the way back and then drive my car to work only to do it all over again the following night.  This went on for weeks while Dominion dragged its feet about installing my second meter.  As the year drew to a close, and Dominion still hadn't scheduled my second meter install, I started getting anxious.  After a number of calls and e-mails they finally installed my second meter just before the end of the year and I could finally plug in at home again.

20 Months of 30-minute ToU Data

As a part of Dominion's Time-of-Use EV Rate plan experiment, I'm able to view my electric usage in 30-minute increments in terms of both net energy and peak power since the meter installation.  Recall that the 2011–2012 Nissan LEAF has an inefficient 3.8kW charger that in turn feeds the battery at merely 3.3kW, meaning up to 500W of energy is wasted in the process.  Since the power is measured at the plug, these numbers don't reflect the energy the battery receives, rather they reflect the energy used including powering the EVSE and the LEAF internal charger.  Because the increments are in half-hour intervals, the total energy is half that used in an hour, or about 1.9kWh at most for a given interval.

As you can see from the chart, my power spikes at around 01:00 (1:00 am) because that's when the Super-Off Peak rate begins.  There's a small component before that when I want want to get a little extra charge to cover a severly depleated pack but for the most part I start at 01:00 (1:00 am) and finish by 06:00 (6:00 am) on weekdays, just before Peak rates begin, or 05:00 (5:00 am) on weekends, just before the regular Off-Peak begins.

One interesting aspect of my ToU data is there's always a gap at 02:00 (2:00 am) when Daylight Savings begins.  The data has blanks for the two periods from 02:00–02:30 (2:00 am to 2:30 am) and 02:30–03:00 (2:30 am to 3:00 am).  Interestingly enough, when we gain an hour by going back to standard time, there's no corresponding double entries for those same hours.  What my power utility and EVSE are doing then, I have no idea.

For any reader interested in the full, massive data set of charging events, please send me a note and I'll be happy to share it.

My Ride Just Keeps Getting Cheaper

One thing I've noticed over time, watching how my itemized electric bill has changed over the past 21 months is how in general, at least in the short term, my costs for driving CO2 Fre have more or less been steadily decreasing.  So while my fuel cost was $28.32 in January, 2012, my most recent, July 2013, cost only $23.61.  So while I may have averaged $25 per month early on, I'm now paying slightly less.  The following table summarizes all the Riders associated with my Electric Bill and how they've changed over time:

Dominion Virginia Power Electricity Riders

Description	Rider	Initial	Current	Change
Table 1: Schedule EV Distribution Constants
Basic Customer Charge	EV	$2.90	$2.90	Unchanged
On/Off Peak	EV	2.5200¢⁄kWh	2.5560¢⁄kWh	Increased on 2012-12-01
Super Off peak	EV	0.0000¢⁄kWh	0.0360¢⁄kWh	Charge instituted 2012-12-01
C1	EV	0.0110¢⁄kWh	0.0000¢⁄kWh	Phased out on 2012-12-01
Peak Shaving Increment	C1A	0.0000¢⁄kWh	0.0070¢⁄kWh	Instituted 2012-05-01 at 0.0100¢⁄kWh; Decreased 2013-04-01
C2	EV	0.0250¢⁄kWh	0.0000¢⁄kWh	Phased out on 2012-12-01
Energy Efficiency Increment	C2A	0.0000¢⁄kWh	0.0460¢⁄kWh	Instituted 2012-05-01 at 0.0240¢⁄kWh; Increased 2013-04-01
Schedule EV Supply Constants
On Peak	EV	10.7690¢⁄kWh	10.7690¢⁄kWh	Unchanged
Off Peak	EV	1.4290¢⁄kWh	1.4290¢⁄kWh	Unchanged
Super Off Peak	EV	0.6840¢⁄kWh	0.6840¢⁄kWh	Unchanged
Transmission	EV	0.9700¢⁄kWh	0.9700¢⁄kWh	Unchanged
Fuel
Fuel Charge	A	3.2890¢⁄kWh	2.9420¢⁄kWh	Decreased 2012-07-01 to 2.6970¢⁄kWh; Increased 2012-10-15 to 2.7060¢⁄kWh; Increased 2013-07-01
Other ESS Rider Constants
Biomass Conversion	B	0.0000¢⁄kWh	0.0230¢⁄kWh	Instituted 2012-04-01 at 0.0120¢⁄kWh; Increased 2013-04-01
Bear Garden Generating Station	R	0.1460¢⁄kWh	0.1470¢⁄kWh	Decreased 2012-05-01 to 0.1420¢⁄kWh; Increased 2013-04-01
Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center	S	0.3730¢⁄kWh	0.4660¢⁄kWh	Increased 2012-07-01 to 0.4740¢⁄kWh; Decreased 2013-04-01
Base Rate Credit	BRC/BRX	-0.1320¢⁄kWh	0.0000¢⁄kWh	Decreased 2012-10-15 to -0.1850¢⁄kWh; Ended 2012-12-31
Transmission	T1	0.0000¢⁄kWh	-0.2670¢⁄kWh	Instituted 2012-08-01 to replace Rider T
Warren County Power Station	W	0.0000¢⁄kWh	0.1560¢⁄kWh	Instituted 2012-04-01 at 0.0660¢⁄kWh; Incremented 2013-04-01
Tax Rate Constants
Sales and Use Tax	Surcharge	0.0500¢⁄kWh	0.0610¢⁄kWh	Increased 2013-01-01
Consumption Tax (< 2.5 MWh)	Tax	0.001520¢⁄kWh	0.001520¢⁄kWh	Unchanged
Consumption Tax (> 2.5 MWh; < 50 MWh)	Tax	0.000970¢⁄kWh	0.000970¢⁄kWh	Unchanged

Given that, here is the breakdown of my monthly electrical usage:

Table 2: Monthly Electrical Usage

Month	On Peak (kWh)	Off Peak (kWh)	Super Off Peak (kWh)	Cost
January 2012	3	95	296	$28.32
February 2012	7	79	351	$30.69
March 2012	0	60	330	$26.57
April 2012	2	44	351	$26.81
May 2012	0	41	376	$27.70
June 2012	0	37	350	$25.97
July 2012	0	33	376	$25.27
August 2012	0	30	324	$22.13
September 2012	0	17	175	$13.06
October 2012	0	30	356	$22.70
November 2012	5	34	342	$23.21
December 2012	7	47	354	$25.24
January 2013	7	29	224	$17.70
February 2013	5	29	219	$17.30
March 2013	7	35	322	$23.38
April 2013	7	37	364	$26.02
May 2013	7	26	275	$23.22
June 2013	7	22	343	$23.64
July 2013	7	15	340	$23.61
Totals	71	740	6,068	$452.54

Vampire Power

On 30 October 2012 I finally became a member of the EV Project.  My good friend and absolute favorite elecrician, Sean Ryan, came out that day to add a second circut to my sub panel and install the free Blink charger from ECOTality.  Obviously I'm biased but not a better electrician could I ever recommend, so thank you Sean!

Now the Blink unit is a great charger, apart from perhaps a overly flimsy connector.  With it, I can schedule a charge on the EVSE and leave the LEAF set to always charge when plugged in.  And I can schedule the EVSE timer remotely so if I need to make a change I don't have to walk down to the car, turn it on and fiddle with the timers.  The only problem is the LEAF doesn't realize it's plugged in and then sends me pedantic and eroneous text messages to tell me to do so; so bad is this that when I do forget to plug in I neglect the message because more often than not it's in error.  When I get up the next morning, let's just say the shock and horror on my face would make you think I was in the scariest movie possible.

Of course the disadvantage of being able to schedule a charge remotely is that the Blink EVSE is always on.  In itself this isn't a problem but the unit is even on during Peak Time-of-Use rates.  As you can see in Table 2, since the install I've consistently had to pay about a dollar a month to cover the cost of the EVSE's daytime power.  Since this is power I'm not actually taking advantage of, it's called Vampire Power, indicating that it's power being sucked out of my wall in order to feed a hungry device.

Interestingly, last week I plugged in CO2 Fre to find my Blink unit in a constant rebooting loop.  I called ECOTality to let them know about the issue and since then I've been using my Clipper Creek CS-100 again, so at least the Vampire Power should be low next month.  But now that I'm back on the car's timer, I need to be extra cautious to press the charge timer disable button when I want to charge at a public EVSE.

One year, 19,000 mi (31,000 km)

On 2 November 2012, CO2 Fre celebrated her first birthday!  🎂  For that entire year, apart from a fortnight spent visiting the favourite landing spot of the TARDIS, the birthplace of the Beatles and home of Nessie—for the first time in my life I got to watch Doctor Who live: Asylum of the Daleks and Dinosaurs… On a Spaceship!

Yes, this author is a huge Doctor Who fan and runs a mailing list, a facebook group and a meetup site dedicated to it.  Let it not be said I'm only interested in Electric Cars and I'm well aware and have been psyched about the fiftieth anniversary special, and have been since around the twenty-fifth and Silver Nemesis!  And for the record, Peter Capaldi is going to be the best Doctor ever.  All that said, my heart will now and forever still be with Project Kronosphere.

In any case, since my first 19,000 mi (31,000 km), I've added another 15,000 mi (24,000 km) for a total of over 34,000 mi (55,000 km).  And of course 19,000 mi (31,000 km) divided by 12 months comes to about 1,500 mi (2,400 km) per month of average driving, which is where my favorite statistic derives its other value.

$25 a month for 12 months does not equal near $200

Folks, this is a round-about way of getting to a correction I wanted to make in my broadcast interview.  I somewhat erroneously stated my annual electric cost was near $200.  Clearly $25 × 12 months is $300, not $200.  But then, as you can see from Table 2, I actually pay a little less than $25 per month, and thus less per year, which is why I was thinking about $200.  In fact, if you sum the last 12 rows of the table, you get an exact cost of $261.21, closer to $300 than $200, to be sure, but then that's what I meant by near, as long as near classifies about 31%.  ☺

$261.21 doesn't equal $486.66

Back in October of 2011 I estimated my annual cost to run CO2 Fre would be $486.66.  As you can see above, however, it's turning out to be substantially less than that.  Part of the discrepancy stems from not taking into account vacations like my UK trip or CO2 Fre's stint in the D.C. Auto Show earlier this year.  Falling Electric Fuel costs have also contributed, but the main effect is that I just drive less in my EV than I did in my old ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) Vehicle.  I do probably drive just as much or even more around town with my LEAF, but when you cut out the odd trip to New York or Asheville, NC, you cut out a lot of the miles I used to drive in my old car.  Those kind of trips are just too impractical in my LEAF.  I could, to be sure, probably make it to Rehoboth Beach, all be it with about a 5 hour layover on the way, maybe 2, but the number of 5 hours stopovers to get to New York are just not practical.  Maybe with more CHAdeMO, this'd be different—and thanks to eVgo more CHAdeMO is coming to the area, and quickly—but for now, my range is about 70 mi (113 km) one-way from my home for any comfortable day trip.  But even then, I'd not be charging at home so those costs wouldn't be reflected in my Dominion data.

Conclusion

I just hope even if you can't see my segment on the Arlington Weekly News that everyone, whether you have an EV or not, try to make one of this year's International Plug-In Day events!  This is your Northern Virginia PiD Captain, signing out—take care and let those electrons roll!

International Plug-In Day! Bring out your Plugs!

Generous readers, I'm happy to announce it's that time of year again!  Time to show your friends, neighbors and general passers by our shared love for Electric Vehicles.  Yes, it's International Plug-In Day, the day we all go out and display our love for cars powered by the ubiquitous plug.

This year, Plug-In Day is a two day event, and here in the greater Washington, D.C. area, we're taking it to the neighborhoods!  So mark your calendars, 28 September 2013!

View Plug In Day 2013 in a larger map

Because we have 2 days of events, we've decided to have regional events on Saturday and one huge event in downtown DC on Sunday.  We hope everyone can show their support at their local Saturday event and then everyone come down to Washington for the regional event Sunday on the steps of the U.S. Capital.

Saturday, 28 September 2013, 10:00–14:00: Herndon, VA

Hello from your Herndon Event team captain!  As the organizer of this event, I hope it to be the biggest of all the regional events.  This is the only gathering scheduled for Northern Virginia.  As such, I hope folks from Arlington, Alexandria, Loudoun, Prince William, Manassas and even Stafford Counties and Cities can make it out to western Fairfax to join us in sharing our love for EVs.  Come and commiserate over our failed attempt for equal taxation regardless of propultion and the $64 tax we now have to pay for as both hybrid and electric vehicle owners.  We're planning to have LEAFs, Volts and Tesla Model S a plenty to show, as well as all kinds of electric vehicles.  Learn about Dominion Virginia Power's Time-of-Use Rate Schedules and the Green Option for energy credits.  And teach folks about the around 50% Personal Property Tax discount for Electric Vehicles in Arlington, Prince William and Loudoun Counties.  (Sorry fellow Farfaxians, we still have to pay full price for our tax in our unprogressive county.)

Saturday, 28 September 2013, 10:00–14:00: Waldorf, MD

Overall Waldorf event organizer and my friend Mark Czajka from MDVolt (the current source for LEAF Meetup events).  Ironcially, Mark doesn't own a Volt—he has a Ford Fusion Energi—but is an amazing event organizer and without him this year's Plug In Day wouldn't be nearly as amazing as it's turning out to be.  The MOMs in Waldorf is in a beautiful, new building and will be an amazing place to discuss all the exciting things going on for EVs in Southern Maryland.  This is a must-see event for anyone in the area, I guarantee.

Saturday, 28 September 2013, 10:00–14:00: College Park, MD

The College Park event in suburban Maryland, just on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., is at one of my favourite MOM's Organic Markets, being about half-way between work and the normal EVA/DC meeting in Silver Spring, MD.  Word of warning that the EVSE (Electric Vehicle Service Equipment) stations at this location, two out-of-the-way units around the left side of the building, are often either broken or occupied by a completely occupied by an often full electric vehicle.  However, anyone needing a charge just contact my friend and Team Captain Lanny Hartmann who will help you find a unit that's available and working as well as work to make sure these units are function come Plug-In Day and beyond.

Saturday, 28 September 2013, 10:00–14:00: Timonium, MD and Baltimore

The Timonium event is our closest planned event in the greater Baltimore Suburbs.  Located in Central Maryland, the event is just north of the Baltimore Beltway and just off of I85.  As such, I've never personally been there since getting my LEAF, which was before MOM's in Timonium opened.  However, my friend Barry Larkin is hosting this event and I've every confidence he's going to do an amazing job so please show your support Baltimore and bring out your EVs!

Sunday, 29 September 2013, 10:00–16:00: Washington, D.C.

For the regional Sunday event, we're extremely fortunate to be getting permission to have our display right in front of the U.S. Capital building, on Third Street SW, in front of the Reflecting Pool and near the US Botanical Gardens.  This is thanks in no small part to the work of Maryland's Senior Senator Barbara Mulkulski (D).  This website would therefore like to express their personal thanks to Senator Mulkulski.  We're working on sixty spots to display our EVs so that visitors to the Capital can see just how affordable, obtainable and ubiquitous Electric Cars have finally become!

Everyone Welcome

At each event, we hope to have opportunities to test drive our electric cars including, in Herndon and Washington, CO2Fre, yours truly's very own Nissan LEAF.  So come one, come all, see how easy it is to plug in your car at the 2013 International Plug-In Day events!  And if you'd like to show off your car, just click on the link at the start of each event to register with the Plug-In Website.  Hope to see you there, and thank you!

Happy Birthday to MOM's

Yes, MOM's Organic Market is about to turn 25!  The Washington region organic grocery story is an area icon for it's forward-thinking in bringing organic food to the nation's capital.

But MOM's is more about organic nutrition; MOM's is also a great area advocate of Electric Cars.  After all, MOM's of College Park and of Herndon were some of the first places J1772 EVSEs started showing up in this area.  And the newly-reopened Rockville store, the one where it all began, is also sporting it's own EVSE.

To celebrate, MOM's is calling on all Electric Vehicle drivers to show their cars off during the birthday weekend celebration 30 June and 1 July 2012!  The list of store locations are as follows:

• Bowie, MD
• College Park, MD
• Frederick, MD
• Jessup, MD
• Rockville, MD
• Timonium, MD
• Alexandria, VA
• Herndon, VA

Hope to see you there!

More Level 2 Charging coming to Maryland

Last Friday, a woman calling herself Amanda on the MyNissanLEAF forum posted an urgent request for help in organizing the distribution of one hundred Level 3 Charging Stations.  Needless to say, this caused quite a local buzz as these would be the first L3 Chargers South of the Mason-Dixon Line East of the Mississippi, outside of Tennessee and certainly the first in the Mid-Atlantic region.  Between that and my copy of the Diablo III Collector's Edition arriving it has been one incredible weekend for this EV Reporter!

Amanda reported that the stations in question will be the ChargePoint Level 3, CHAdeMO / SAE J1772-DC dual-gang equipment as pictured.  While the QuickCharge Wars rage between TEPCO's CHAdeMO and the SAE's J1772-DC extension heat up, this unit hedges its bets by supporting both, making everyone happy.  Great choice!

After a bit of digging I found more information about the company Amanda represents.  Thier full name is actually EV Green Stream and they're a Baltimore-based company.  I spoke with Zack at EV Green Stream and he confirms they're looking for homes for about 30 or so units, but nothing is concrete until contracts are signed.  However, some urgency must be added because they need to have signed documents by 1 June so it behoves us all to help out and make sure those wonderful L3 stations find homes that our Nissan LEAFs and Mitsubishi iMiEVs would like to visit!

But wait, the title says Level 2, not Level 3!?

You are very astute or just read the comments and realized that we were in fact being taken for a ride.  You see, on Monday, after I'd posted this, Amanda amended her request to say that in fact it was one hundred Level 2 stations being installed, not Level 3.  Yes, she confirmed Level 3 on Friday even after someone posted a link to the unit pictured above, but what's done is done, and now we know the truth.  Level 2, though great, is pretty common in Maryland and to a lesser extend in Virginia—less so in Washington D.C. since most of the units there are in garages that aren't even opened on weekends.  None the less, we should all help to give these Level 2 stations homes even if they're not quick charging.

But there is a catch; the locations must conform to the following rules:

1. They have to be installed in the State of Maryland somewhere.
2. They have to be accessible to the public (this is supposed to be infrastructure buildout.)
3. It cannot be in an automotive dealership.
4. It has to be a commercial business.
5. We will charge for the installation but the charger is free.
6. We have to have a signed contract on installation by June 1^st.

So, no locations in Virginia, Deleware, West Virginia or Pennsylvania!  Also, note that Amanda estimates the cost of installation to be about $3,000.  As for the electricity cost, we know the LEAF for instance takes about 20kWh to go from 0% to 80% on a quick charge (more like 16kWh according to some posts in the MyNissanLEAF forum) and at 13^¢⁄_kWh that's only $2.60 at Level 2, the Nissan LEAF draws about 3.8kW of electricity so in one hour that represents about 49.8¢ based on 13^¢⁄_kWh, the regional average rate.  For the Ford Focus Electric with its 6.6kW charger, it comes to about 85.8¢ but most EVSEs can't put out more energy than that so at $1.⁰⁰ per hour, you won't be making the LEAF and Volt (3.3kW) drivers happy but at least the Focus Electric folks are getting their money's worth.  Overall not a huge loss for the free advertising you get on sites like PlugShare.

Now, for me, my main goal would be to see them put in at the National Harbor, where they held the first Nissan LEAF event in the area and as the perfect first rest stop on the I95 corridor in Maryland going North.  I've also suggested Maryland House and Chesapeake House—need to contact HMS Host about that— but they don't really make sense for Level 2, only Level 3 as people don't stay there for hours.  Others on the MyNissanLEAF forum have suggested the US Route 50 corridor and I would add the I270 / I70 corridor and a site around Bethesda.  Finally, I'd suggest one in Silver Spring where we hold the EVA/DC meetings, though alas not the Library as the Library isn't a commercial business—and hopefully not The Blairs if they're gonna have the same connectivity problems the current EVSEs there do.  What would you suggest?

Oooh!  So excited!  Squee!

Manassas City Utilities Public Comments

My friend and fellow Nissan LEAF enthusiast Kayne Karnbach maintains a wonderful blog about electric vehicle.  In his latest entry, he investigates the charging infrastructure in Prince William County and Manassas city.  I believe Kayne is right about location but would add that movie houses and all those strip malls on VA 234 Business would also make great locations.  The sad thing about the railway station parking is most people will be leaving their cars there for 8–10 hour stretched which would fill even a LEAF from empty.  Seems to me the perfect situation where valet parking would be an advantage, where a Volt could get the first 4-hour shift, and a LEAF the second 6-hour shift on the same outlet, with the Volt coming from thirty to forty miles away and the LEAF from seventy to ninety.  And is the usual case will be much less, the time at the outlet could be even more greatly reduced with the valet managing how long to charge each one to a minimum of need.

Manassas City Utilities Public Comments

Last week I took the opportunity to address the Manassas City Utility Commission regarding their public charging stations.  Manassas has recently debuted public charging stations for EVs and PHEVs.

Here’s the gist of my address.

Don’t trust that data!  Two years from now, the city of Manassas will review usage data on each charger.  The conclusion that data will lead decision makers to is probably one of little or no benefit to having public charging available.  If reached, that conclusion will be wrong, and here’s why.  Public chargers are being installed with little thought on where and why to install them in the first place.  Because of this, EV owners will neglect to use the stations, since they don’t fit their charging needs.

Why don’t they meet EV owners’ needs?  EV owners are looking for places to charge that allow them to be plugged in for at least two hours, providing the kind of charge that will allow for at least 30 miles of range.  Plugging into a charger for anything less will result in 15 – 20 miles of range, hardly a reason to make a special trip to Manassas.

The only viable placement of public charging in Manassas at the moment is in the parking garage at the Virginia Railway station.  It is conceivable that someone could plug in while parked in the garage, presumably during work.  While this does make sense, it assumes EV owners are driving to Manassas from a distance of + 45 miles, since anything less wouldn’t necessitate a charge to make it home.  That would be the equivalent of someone driving from Front Royal to Manassas.  Not likely.

Almost made the 100 mile club…

Coming back from the EVA/DC meeting yesterday I almost achieve what I thought impossible: entry into the elusive 100 mi club.  Normally when I attend the EVA/DC in CO2 Fre Nissan LEAF I need to top off but thanks to my LogCARWINGS.py script I was able to verify after a half-hour of battery leveling my LEAF settle on 70.091 mi (112.800 km) range under normal drive (though I drive ECO) or 58.876 mi (94.752 km) with climate control.  In the spring I generally don't use climate control and a quick check on Google showed that the trip home with the stop off in Silver Spring would only be about 54.1 mi (87.1 km) so I should be able to make it.

This, after all, is the ideal option because when I charge at Silver Spring, I have to use the Sema Connect stations at the Blairs and pay $3.00 for three hours of charging when I only need about one.  Of course, that assumes they're actually able to communicate with the network that night, otherwise I don't get to go home!  And yes, that had happened but my friends at the EVA/DC had helped me out so of course I had arrived home and am able to tell you about it.  Thanks to Bryan and Rob (that's Bryan's Volt in the picture to the left), we had been able to get CO2 Fre the necessary electricity even though the sun had long since set at the solar EVSE at Suntrust in Bethesda.  Needless to say I don't like those EVSEs at the Blairs.

Yesterday I got home with 9 miles (14 km) left in ECO mode and one bar remaining.  I didn't even get to the first low battery warning.  But the car did report 6:30 of Level 2 Charging (18 hours of Level 1, 19 after the battery leveling 40 minutes later).  Since I try to keep my charge window at 01:00–06:00 to avoid higher electricity rates, my car finished charging with 30 minutes of Level 2 (50 minutes of Level 1) remaining and eleven of twelve bars.  Knowing that I could probably manage a normal commute with ninety percent battery charge I decided to risk leaving without topping off.  I'm guessing I should have no problem getting home as my car now reads seven out of twelve bars and 3:00 hours of Level 2 charging (8:30 of Level 1), more than half a pack.

The official registrar of the 100 mi / 161 km club is the MyNissanLEAF community which works on the honor system.  As I can't say what I started with nor remember exactly what I ended with even if I had driven 100 mi I wouldn't post it unless I could be sure.  But it's nice to know even with my mostly highway driving that goal is possible.  Who knows, maybe someday.

EVA/DC May 2012 Meeting

EVA/DC Meetup

Dear Electric Vehicle (EV) fans and members, Please join our rowdy crew on Wed, May 16 from 7–9 PM and stay for networking afterwards as long as you like.

Please forward this message to others you think might be interested.

Unfortunately, I have a business trip out of town that I could not avoid, so I will not be in attendance, nor will our VP Eric Cardwell, so our President Emeritus and Program Director, Dave Goldstein, will be leading the discussion, with your help.

Here is what I think we should have on the agenda:

1. Jean Gough from 350Green will discuss their plans for chargers.
2. Chip Gribben and updates on the 200 mile per hour motorcycle in the &fra14; mile drag race.  Finished in under 7 seconds.  Gobs of postings on this.  Chip will fill us in.
3. Bryan Murtha has updates on our EVADC license plates for MD.  Bring your checkbook.
4. Lanny Hartman will tell us about the Maplelawn meet up of EV owners/leasors.
5. George Lopez, Doron Shalvi, Dave Goldstein and others who brought EVs to the Solar and Wind Expo in Timonium MD this last weekend will tell us about how it went.
6. John Alder and Lanny have purchased Th!ink all electric cars for the LOW LOW price of $15,000 after the federal tax credit.  Wow.  As seen at the Solar and Wind Expo.  I drove it.  Feels good.  2 seater.

Hang on Charlie.  I guess you were in a hurry here: it's the Mitsubishi iMiev that's a 2-seater.  the Th!nk is a 4-seat (2+2) coupe.  Okay, my good friend and Th!nk driver Lanny has set me straight.  His Th!nk is definitely a two-seater and I've certainly been in an iMiEV 4 seat sedan.  In any case, moving on…

7. I'm sure I forgot some important items, but you all can work it out.  See you next time.

Charlie Garlow… and now it is joke time!  Get ready for groaners:

• I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.
• Velcro is a rip off!
• A cartoonist was found dead in his home.  Details are sketchy.
• Venison for dinner again?  Oh deer!
• The earthquake in Washington obviously was the government's fault.
• They found a body covered in corn flakes.  They suspect a serial killer
• I'm reading a book about anti-gravity.  Its impossible to put down.
• Need an ark to save two of every animal?  I Noah guy.

Very punny Charlie. 

Also of note I'll be bringing my newest, oldest charger to show off my NEMA flexibility!

The EVA/DC 2011 Holiday Party

All are welcome to join in at the 2011 EVA/DC holiday party this Wednesday, 21 December 2011, 19:00 at the Patent Office in Alexandria, Virginia.  Food will be provided and there will be a bowl if you wish to contribute to defray the costs.  You'll also have an opportunity to join the EVA/DC with a tax-deductible donation to the organization, though that isn't required to attend.

I'm especially happy to hear my friend Mahi Reddy will be speaking about his company SemaConnect which now has a contract for 1400 EVSEs in the Washington and Baltimore region thanks to 350Green!  Well done Mahi!

Now here's EVA/DC president Charlie Garlow to tell you more!

We are pleased and privileged to tell you that Mahi Reddy of Semaconnect has accepted our invitation to be our keynote speaker.

Mahi has been a long time EVADC member, and after he joined, formed his new EV Charging Station company, Semaconnect, out of Annapolis.  www.semaconnect.com

Mahi will be sharing with us his vision for EV infrastructure roll-out and EV markets, and anything else he wants to talk about!

Please RSVP if you are coming and how many friends you will be bringing.  Can't come?  Time to send some love: http://www.evadc.org/members.html

Update: Veggie and meat lasagnas will be the main course.  Beverages of various "octanes".  Salad.  Desserts.  Want to bring a special dish?  RSVP.

Here are the details we sent you earlier for the Holiday Party

---

Hello everyone,

You are invited to the 2011 EVADC Holiday Party.  I have secured the National Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum at the Patent and Trademark Office in lovely Alexandria, VA for our party.  The event will be on December 21st, starting sharply at 7:00pm and going until 10:00pm.  The museum is located directly inside the Madison Building located at 600 Dulany St, Alexandria, VA, 22314.  The location is metro accessible from King St. Metro.  There are two Level-2 Chargers located within a short walking distance from the PTO as well as there are plenty of 110 outlets located in the adjacent parking garages.

The National Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum features a display of the 460 National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductees.  Large panels present the names of all Inductees, and an interactive kiosk allows visitors to learn more about each Inductee.  The Hall of Fame and kiosk shares with visitors the significance of the inductees’ life-changing work and also the importance of their induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.  The Museum currently features: Exercising Ingenuity: Inventions in Health and Fitness.  This new exhibition is a tribute to the importance the health, fitness, and nutrition industries have played in American lives over the years.  Exercising Ingenuity highlights the historic advances, current trends, and future technologies relating to a healthier body and mind.

Further details, including food, and detailed maps including location for the meeting and chargers will follow shortly. If anyone has any food ideas they would like to bring please contact me directly.

Mark your calendars and bring friends.  RSVP with the number of people coming.

Have a great week,

Eric Cardwell
Vice President EVADC

Charlie Garlow,
President, EVADC

Dave Goldstein,
President Emeritus, EVADC

and a cast of thousands.

View Patent Office Parking in a larger map

Walking from the King's Street Metro?

We've got you covered:

I hope everyone can make it to the holiday party at the USPTO this Wednesday. I highly recommend taking metro since it is very convenient. The USPTO is about a 7 minute walk from the metro.

When you arrive at King street and exit through the main metro station doors you should be looking at the kiss and ride parking lot and the bus pickup. Across the street you will see the Embassy Suits hotel. When you exit the King street station, just follow the side walk to your right, it will take you up a short hill and from there you will see a red light and main busy intersection of Duke street, just keep walking to the right and follow the side walk through big iron gates, it will lead you down to an underground tunnel that will take you under Duke street so that you don't have to cross that busy intersection. When you come out the other side just continue to follow the side walk (to the right). You will come up on another red light. Continue walking straight across. Follow the side walk straight a block further and you should be within the USPTO Campus with a green grassy middle area surrounded by buildings. Straight a head of you should be a building with a huge glass atrium, that is the madison building, just keep following the side walk until you get to the main entrance of that building. When you enter madison building, turn right and there is the USPTO Museum where the meeting will be held.

The EV Project in Washington, D.C.

For a number of months as I've read wonderful news about the progress ECOTality has made with The EV Project in terms of both improving the charging infrastructure here in the United States as well as working with we EV owners to try and learn how a typical EV Driver uses his EV.  One of the ways ECOTality is helping EV Owners is by providing them with the free installation and use of an EVSE in their home.  In return, via a networking connection on the EVSE and the car, the EV owner provides The EV Project with detailed statistics on their vehicle's at-home and around town charging pattern.

The EV Project has been very active on the West Coast in California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona as well as Texas and Tennessee.  They've worked closely with both Nissan LEAF and Chevrolet Volt buyers to identify homes which qualify for their program.  In these states, ECOTality contracted Blink to provide the EVSEs for the program.  However, the Washington, D.C. region has been mysteriously absent from all but a handful of press releases.  In fact its hard to find any press release about the capital region beyond the one announcing the region's addition.

For months now I've been trying to get answers from ECOTality as to why there's been no news of installations in the D.C. region.  Yet every inquiry I made was met with silence.  And until recently I thought I was alone in this curiosity, but the topic is now become quite popular in the Capital LEAF Owners Facebook page as well as among the EVA/DC members.  So I was happy to finally hear back from Robert Nowaczewski from the Blink Network Support with some information that can finally shed some light on The EV Project in D.C.

officially only the Chevy Volt qualifies… not even the Nissan LEAF

It turns out that The EV Project won't will be using Blink chargers for the home EVSE program; the SPX EVSE isn't part of the program.  However, they are subcontracting the installation to SPX.  SPX produces the the official EVSE recommended by GM for the Chevy Volt.  What's more, officially only the Chevy Volt qualifies under The EV Project in the D.C. region, not even the Nissan LEAF.

The reason for this is likely due to Nissan's seven month delay in opening up orders for the D.C. region.  But now the LEAFs are popping up like weeds in the D.C. region and there's no excuse why this car can't also be part of the project in the nation's capital.  Unfortunately, this isn't the only injury the LEAF delay has caused.

As for which zip codes qualify for The EV Project, these need to come from SPX.  I've yet to hear from Mr. Nowaczewski or SPX with a list of qualifying codes.  Thus, I'm unable to provide any details for Chevy Volt owners to apply, however I will update this post when new information arises.

Meet your Dealership: Priority Nissan/Mazda

Welcome to RosenthalPriority Nissan/Mazda, in Tyson's Corner (Vienna), Virginia

Hello again everyone and welcome to another edition of the Meet your Dealership series, my seventh installment.  "Seventh?" you ask, when so far there is but one other?  Okay, you caught me.  My apologies go to the other 5 dealerships who's photos are waiting for a story but now I'd like to present a more current tale.

Image Missing

It was Friday, 18 November.  I started out making good mileage in my Nissan LEAF on my way to work.  I'd used 4 bars and my LEAF was reporting over 50 miles (80 km) remaining range on my car, more than enough to see me home again.  However, to get to work I have to cross the Potomac River and on that 34°F (1°C) day as I reached the far side of the bridge my car's range dropped by half to 26 mi (42 km) and only 3 bars — not enough to get home!  I can only guess that despite my hypermiling with no heater, no heated seats and no heated steering wheel, the car must have activated the heater beyond my control in order to heat the traction batteries.

Image Missing

Even though it's well know that the estimated range of the LEAF is quite inaccurate, the 3 bars remaining pretty much proved I needed a boost to get home.  Since my job site has no policy against charging an electric car on site, yet chooses to enforce a no charging policy, I had to make other arrangements to get home.  Knowing my car could probably make it to Tyson's Corner, I decided to give Priority Nissan/Mazda a call to see if I could us their Aerovironment EVSE.  So I phoned up and left a message with the service department and the Service Manager, Gary, called me back and told me it was a-okay!  Thank you so much Gary!

Image Missing

So I left work around 15:30 and made it to Priority around 16:15, about 15 minutes earlier than expected.  There I met Gary and showed him my LEAF.  We chatted a bit about how fun it was to drive and then he showed me to their one public AeroVironment EVSE, which they have behind the dealership.  They have a second EVSE for the Service department which I didn't see.  We immediately plugged in and after a moment of confusion I pressed the charge now button and we got the electrons flowing!

I thanked Gary for his help and proceeded to the dealer showroom to get some reading done for my Loudoun County Writers meetup on Saturday.  The folks at Priority were kind enough to let me borrow one of their desks and do my reading though I was very happy whenever one of them came up and asked me how I enjoyed my LEAF.  Unfortunately, by this time Gary had left for the day which is why his image is missing.

The showroom is long and thin and on the left as you face the wall you have a selection of Mazdas and on the right and a variety of Nissans on the right.

After I finished my reading I went to find my old friend Mohamed Wadood.  I first spoke to Mohamed over the summer when I was trying to compile a dealer reservation list to help customers find dealerships opened LEAF quotas.  Mohamed agreed then that Priority Nissan would not sell the LEAF for above MSRP and would not include any surprise options when buying the car.

Mohamed has worked hard to keep Priority Nissan/Mazda clean, spotless and honest.  He stands by Rosanthal's Fair Price guarantee.  Mohamed is well-versed in the nuances of leasing and promises a 62% residual.

He's achieved the Platinum Elite Award and a near perfect rating.  And Priority is quite honest and upfront about their $389.00 processing fee: it's printed right on the wall.

Priority may not have been the first Washington area dealership to become LEAF certified, but with folks like Mohamed they know the LEAF and are ready to bring the automotive industry into the 21^st Century.

Priority Nissan/Mazda has been in business since 1988 when it was one of Washington's main Datsun dealerships.  The current building was constructed in 1989 and has been a Tyson's Corner landmark.

Need a test drive?  I didn't learn until the end of the March Drive Electric event that Priority had a Blue LEAF for test drives on Wednesday, 16 March.  None the less, I was very happy for Mohamed (telephone: 703-867-7087, email: mohamedwadood@me.com) to show me the Grey LEAF Priority has available for anyone to take a test drive.  Give Priority a call and schedule yours!
Priority Nissan/Mazda is located at:

8525 Leesburg Pike
Vienna, VA 22182
703-442-8700

View PRIORITY NISSAN MAZDA OF TYSONS CORNER in a larger map

Priority Nissan/Mazda, your source for the Nissan LEAF in the heart of Tyson's Corner.  Welcome.

Electric Vehicle Calculator by Dominion

I wanted to post this sooner, but a post that has been waiting 8 months for me to complete for once had to take precedence.  And although I could have included this there, it would've been buried and it's bad enough how long that last post is!  Schedule 1EV is complicated!

From Affordable Electric Car NOW

Anyway, I digress.  The point is, now you can get a rough estimate of how much it will cost to charge your vehicle under Dominion's new EV rate programs.  Simply visit the this site and enter information about your vehicle, the length you typically drive and how you plan to charge.  Dominion offers 3 vehicles in their HTML application: the Ford Focus Electric, the Nissan LEAF and the Chevy Volt.  In terms of charging, you choose between your standard wall outlet running 120 V, which you would typically connect to via the car's included EVSE, or 240 V which assumes you already have an EVSE pre-installed which is set up to use the higher voltage.  Finally, you can set the time to start charging.  Personally, I like to work backwards from the end since I know when I need my car by, but even cars like the LEAF don't let you do that so the start time is quite reasonable, even if it does mean I may not be taking full advantage of all 4 hours of super-off peak.

One final note should be made of the Ford Focus Electric cheating with it's expected range numbers.  This time last year, the LEAF was rated at 100 mi per charge and many of it's promotional materials still maintain that.  The EPA, however, though on an environmental penalty of about 30% when they derived the 73 mi per charge rate used by the Dominion calculator.  The Ford Focus has yet to be tested by the EPA and thus it's marketing of 100 mi per charge is taken as an official value, making it look like a more efficient car than the LEAF.  The truth is, when the EPA evaluates the Focus it will likely receive a grade of about 70 – 75 mi per charge with its 23 kWh battery as opposed to the LEAF's 24 kWh pack.  The Volt values are also based on their EPA evaluation.

Dominion EV Pilot Program opens today!

Dominion Virginia Power Electric Vehicle Charging Pilot Program Begins

As I've indicated numerous times before, I'm very keen to make my Power Utility, Dominion Virginia Power, aware of my intent to use an Electric Vehicle so that they can better prepare for the load I would be drawing and be able to provide sufficient power at times optimal for charging.  Fortunately, like most EV drivers, my intention is to charge my car overnight, when the demand for electricity is already at its lowest, which allows my PU to balance generation between the peak daylight hours and the nighttime hours when my car draws energy.

In return for this, I've asked my PU to set me up to be charged a Time-Of-Use rate which would reduce the cost to charge the EV when it's charged over night versus during the daylight hours.  Back in February, I reported that Dominion Virginia Power was proposing two new pilot program rates specifically for electric vehicles which would use new smart meters and allow the calculation of rates based on Time-Of-Use.  Excited, I sought more information and was able to calculate a $200 savings by switching over to either of the new EV-based TOU rates.

Dominion Virginia Power EV Rates Revealed (Part 2)

I explained how rates are calculated back on Valentine's Day because I ♥ calculating this kind of stuff.¹  And although the rate for Fuel has gone up slightly since I wrote Part 1 — it's now ^3.289¢⁄_kWh — all the calculations remain the same.

So take for example the Nissan LEAF with its 24 kWh battery pack.  If we estimate the LEAF's wall-to-wheel efficiency to be 3⅓ ^mi⁄kWh (5.364 ^km⁄_kWh), with a 38 mi (61 km) commute each way, this represents 22.8 kWh (2 × 38 mi ÷ 3⅓ ^mi⁄kWh) or 95% of the 24 kWh pack on the LEAF.  I then assume the weekend driving consists of more local, around town driving equivalent to exactly half of the weekday driving or about 38 mi (61 km) per day or 11.4 kWh.

In addition to each of these, it's important to remember that the EVSE also draws power to maintain its status and remain in a ready state.  My EVSE only draws 5 Watts to maintain its ready state — EVSEs with more Internet connectivity and wireless capabilities will draw more power than a plan nuts and bolts EVSE like my Clipper Creek CS-100.

Since I plan to only charge my vehicle over night and be out of the house around 5:00 am, I set my calculations to assume I can finish charging by that time.  This would be different if I could charge my car at work, but with a 3.3 kW charger on the Nissan LEAF, it will take 6.09 hours (22.8 kWh ÷ 3.3 kW) to charge the LEAF during the weekdays and 3.45 hours (11.4 kWh ÷ 3.3 kW) on the weekend.

The Missing 4 cents revisited

Once the total electrical energy required for charging the EV is known, we can calculate the cost for Transmission and Fuel rates and Use, Consumption and County Tax, as well as the various Distribution and Supply riders to get the base price for charging our EV.  These rates are summarized in the following table:

Name	cost in ¢⁄kWh	Annual Cost
Rider C1: Peak Shaving	0.009	$0.65
Rider C2: Energy Efficiency	0.044	$3.16
Rider S: Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center	0.280	$20.11
Rider R: Bear Garden Generating Station	0.117	$8.40
Rider BRC: Base Rate Credit	-0.1322	-$9.48
Rider T: Transmission	0.616	$44.24
Fuel Charge Rider A	3.289	$236.21
Sales and Use Surcharge	0.056	$4.02
Consumption Taxes (Tier 1) (< 2.5 MWh)	0.155	$7.68
Consumption Taxes (Tier 2) (2.5 MWh ≤ x < 50 MWh)	0.099	$2.20
Consumption Taxes (Tier 3) (≥ 50 MWh)	0.075	$0.00
Fairfax County Tax (Min 56¢; Max $4)	0.605	$0.00
Totals	4.417	$317.19

Now, the Fairfax County Tax will typically hit the $4 maximum without the EV so the EV won't add to that tax.  Also, for the Consumption Taxes, many months my household never goes over 2.5 MWh.  Generally, I still do come close to if not going over in the warmer months of June, July, August and September, even after going to R-49 attic insulation but not in the winter since I have methane-based (natural gas) heating.  In my calculations, I use my actual historical household data to compute the Consumption Taxes, so in months where the usage does go over 2.5 MWh, I calculate my EV's electricity rate accordingly using the Tier 1 or Tier 2 Pricing as necessary.

Total energy usage [is] about 7,138 kWh.

Now, to compute my total electricity usage, I take the average usage per day using a weighted average of ⁵⁄₇ × 22.8 kWh each weekday and ²⁄₇ × 11.4 kWh each weekend day for an average of 19 ¹⁹⁄₃₅ kWh per day.  If we multiply that by the number of days in each month, we can get an estimate of how much energy we use per month and if we multiply by 365.2425 days per year, we have the total energy usage of about 7,138 kWh.  This is the value multiplied by each of the rates in the above table to get the total cost per year.

In the case of the Consumption Taxes, this further breaks down by my estimates to about 4,957 kWh taxed at Tier 1 and about 2,225 kWh taxed at Tier 2.  The Consumption Tax part of the Total in the table above is weighted using these estimates as a percent of the total electricity usage annually.

Taking these numbers, we can see a total cost of $317.19 to run my Nissan LEAF not including the base rate schedule.  Thus, no rate schedule can come to a total less than $317.19 per year.  However, depending on the Rate Schedule chosen, the additional cost could vary between $150 and $350.

The Base Rate Schedules

Dominion Virginia Power customers have 3 basic choices when it comes to their base electricity rate: Schedule 1, Schedule EV and Schedule 1EV.  Each of these is outlined below.

Schedule 1

Most Dominion Virginia Power residential customers are under this rate schedule.  Thus, these numbers represent no special EV rate and just plugging your car in under the normal rate schedule.  Since the monthly fee of $7 is already covered by your current electric bill, this can't count toward the cost to charge the EV since you have to pay it either way.  For Distribution and Supply, Dominion Virginia Power breaks the bill up into summer and off-summer months as well as usage under 800 kWh and usage beyond that.  In the case of the EV, my house never uses less than 800 kWh per month so I'll always be paying the above 800 kWh rate for my EV.  Thus, the rate for Distribution is ^1.26¢⁄_kWh.  The rate for Supply varies throughout the year so from June to September it's ^5.773¢⁄_kWh and ^0.02927¢⁄_kWh the rest of the year.

Thus, the total base Distribution cost is $90.49 for the entire year and $138.49 for Supply for the Summer months and $139.99 for Supply the rest of the year.  The total Supply annually is therefore $278.48 for a total of $368.97 per year under Schedule 1.  Adding this to the fixed result, we get the total annual cost to run your EV under this rate schedule of $686.16.

Schedule EV

Technically, the Schedule EV rate plan isn't a primary rate schedule.  Instead, a dual meter is set up at your household with the main residence still under Schedule 1 and a dedicated line to EV metered using the Schedule EV rider instead.

Because Schedule EV is a Time-Of-Use rate, the time at which electrical energy is drawn becomes significant.  Fortunately, this is easy to calculate because we know from above how long it takes to charge the LEAF under my scenario, and thus how much power is required each hour.  When the EV is charging, since it's using a 3.3 kW charger, it will require that much power per hour and thus use 3.3 kWh per hour in use.  You also have the base EVSE power of 0.005 kW which comes to 0.005 kWh per hour, each hour.

In the case of Schedule EV, there is an additional Distribution charge for the second meter of $2.90 per month for a total of $34.80 per year.  The Distribution and Supply rates are then given by:

Hours	Distribution rate in ¢⁄kWh	Supply rate in ¢⁄kWh	Net Cost
01–05 (Super-Off-Peak)	0.000	0.684	$31.74
05–06 (Off-Peak)	2.520	1.429	$0.07
06–22 (Peak)	2.520	10.256	$3.73
22–01 (Off-Peak)	2.520	1.429	$99.12

For simplicity, I've show the results for the entire period blocks, which generally fall into the following categories: 01–05 is full 3.3 kW charging, 05–06 is only the EVSE, as well as 06–22 and finally 22–01 is used to charge the EV during weekdays since at 3.3 kW the LEAF required more than 4 hours to charge to 95% from 0.  For that final block, it breaks down into no charging on weekends and 2.09 hours during the weekdays, where the rest of the charging occurs in 01–05 on both Weekdays and Weekends.

The Distribution and Supply results together for each of the time blocks yields $134.67.  Add to that the monthly Distribution charge and we get $169.47, less than half the cost for base Distribution and Supply under Schedule 1.  Because the final bill is a combined bill between the household and the EV meters, the taxes are cumulative, so if under Schedule 1 the Tier 2 Consumption Tax threshold be reached for the household, it would also do so under Schedule EV.  The final result is a grand total of $486.66.

One final thing to note is the $99.12 spent from 22–01 could be avoided if the LEAF had a 6.6 kW charger instead of the cheap 3.3 kW charger it currently has.  With this charger, it wouldn't need to draw electricity in the more expensive off-peak period; all the needed energy could be added and metered during the Super-Off-Peak time for a mere $48.87 during that period and only $0.22 for the 22–01 Off-Peak.  Thus, the total cost with a 6.6 kW Charger would be $404.89, an over $80 per year in savings.

Schedule 1EV

Schedule 1EV is a household rate plan that replaces the Schedule 1 with a special Time-Of-Use rate specifically tailored to EV owners.  As such, it is far more complicated than anything I've discussed thus far and as such I shall hold off to discuss this in its own post.

Conclusion

As you can see, there's a lot of savings that can be made by just switching to one of the 2 experimental EV rate programs.  I'm personally looking very much forward to participating in the program; won't you join me?  Just sign up here and be a part of the future!

---

¹Okay, technically the posting date was just a coincidence but sometimes I like to embellish to make these posts more readable.

²For Schedule 1, Schedule EV and Schedule 1EV.