New York’s six local distribution companies split over whether to adopt “passive” or “active” approaches to managing electric vehicle charging in proposals submitted to the New York Public Service Commission last week (18-E-0138).

The PSC ordered the companies on July 16 to submit proposals for managed charging programs for mass market customers. (See NYPSC Approves $700 Million for EV Chargers.)

Orange and Rockland Utilities and Central Hudson proposed passive, or behavioral load control programs, such as time-of-use (TOU) rates to affect charging patterns. Consolidated Edison has been running a passive program since 2017.

National Grid’s Niagara Mohawk Power is proposing active managed charging, also known as direct load control.

Avangrid’s New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG) and Rochester Gas and Electric (RG&E) are proposing use of both.

Niagara Mohawk said an active managed charging program will produce greater benefits than a passive program, including “avoiding timer peaks, shifting an even greater portion of EV charging off-peak, and anticipating other managed charging use cases envisioned to support a clean energy future.”

The utilities also differed over use of on-vehicle telematics — an onboard tracking system that sends, receives and stores telemetry data — or networked Level 2 (L2) chargers.

Level 1 chargers supplied with most EVs connect to a typical residential 120-V outlet and can deliver about 4 miles of charge per hour depending on the amperage rating of the circuit, enough to meet the needs of an EV driver whose round-trip commute is less than 30 miles daily.

L2 chargers, which require a 240-V outlet, are five times as powerful, providing 25 mph of charging, but a charger and installation can cost about $1,400.

NYSEG, RG&E

NYSEG and RG&E said they prefer data collection via telematics because it is cheaper than networked L2 chargers and allows collection of charging data, and the ability to initiate DR events, regardless of where the car is located within their service territories.

The companies also said residential L2 chargers can force distribution system upgrades due to their greater power requirements. “Typical residential L2 chargers have power ratings of approximately 7 kW, while a typical residential transformer is rated for approximately 25 kW and can serve five to 10 households. Wide scale deployment of unmanaged residential L2 charging would generate the need for the upgrade of, or installation of, additional transformers and potentially feeder upgrades depending on loading conditions,” they said.

The two utilities, which have almost 1.3 million electric customers, proposed three choices for EV drivers.

The “basic” level would require participants to provide the companies with limited demographic and charging behavior information, to enroll in their EV TOU rates, and to receive behavior prompts to charge during off peak periods. They would receive a $25 annual incentive.

Drivers choosing the “intermediate” option agree to allow the utilities to receive charging data via a telematics device they install in their EV or through their vehicles’ on-board telematic systems in return for a $50 annual incentive. They can receive an additional $50 per year if at least 90% of their charging occurs during off-peak hours. They must agree to enroll in demand response but are not required to respond to any event called by the companies; those that do would receive a $20 incentive for each event they opt-in to.

“Advanced” level participants will enroll in active managed charging in which they determine the level or state of charge required and the times their vehicle is available for charging. The companies’ managed charging algorithm will combine the charging power requirements and session duration to determine how much power to deliver each participant and when. Interaction between participants and the utilities will be automated through a web-based portal or mobile app. Incentives would be based on the energy and time requirements of each participant, ranging from $24 to $70 annually.

The companies based their proposal in part on NYSEG’s OptimizEV pilot, which began in March with 35 participants, equal to 10% of the EV owners in the company’s smart meter footprint in 2017.

The companies said initial results of the program indicate that managed charging can avoid the “timer peak” — when demand spikes in the first minutes of off-peak pricing under TOU rates. They proposed an $11.8 million budget for 2021-2025.

O&R, Central Hudson

Orange and Rockland (O&R), which has less than 233,000 electric customers in the state, proposed enrolling 100 participants per year in a three-year program costing about $800,000 as a supplement to its existing TOU rates.

It proposed a $150 enrollment bonus and up to $500 annually for participants who charge their EVs during off-peak periods: $5/month for using company-provided hardware or software to monitor charging behavior, $0.10 per kWh of charging during off-peak hours, and $20/month when they avoid charging during peak hours (2:00 pm to 6:00 pm) on summer weekdays.

Fortis’s Central Hudson also proposed building on the passive managed charging programs it has offered since 2019, a whole home TOU rate and an EV meter TOU rate.

The new program would require customers to procure a networked home charger allowing them to schedule their charging and participate in DR programs. They would receive a bill credit for charging during off-peak hours based on the difference between the average energy rate and the off-peak rate. The company said it would fund the credit through its revenue decoupling mechanism.

It also said it is considering the addition of active managed charging within the non-wires alternatives (NWA) program it began in 2016, which uses distributed energy resources including demand response to defer or eliminate infrastructure upgrades. “Primary considerations will be coincidence of baseline charging loads with locational peaks, magnitude of available curtailment, and cost of implementation and customer incentives,” it said.

The utility said it would not set “hard targets” for the initiative because of the limited number of registered EVs within its territory — 1,162 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and 1,343 plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs) — and the recent decline in new EV registrations.

Consolidated Edison Company of New York

Con Edison’s SmartCharge New York program rewards EV owners with “off-the-bill” incentives for charging during off-peak hours. Initially limited to light-duty EVs, it was expanded in 2018 to medium- and heavy-duty EVs.

The program uses onboard vehicle telematics, smart charging stations, submetering and the FleetCarma connected car device, which most light-duty participants in the program use. The device, which plugs into the onboard diagnostics port of the vehicle, collects charging data, charging rate and total energy consumed during each charging session. EV owners receive cash incentives via PayPal.

Con Edison, which has 3.3 million electric customers, paid EV owners using FleetCarma $631,000 in incentives from Jan. 1 to Oct. 30 of this year, up from $65,000 in 2017. Light-duty EVs using FleetCarma have grown to 2,342 from 416 in 2017.

Light-duty EV owners using FleetCarma receive a $150 enrollment bonus, $5/month for at least one charging event in Con Edison territory and $20/month for avoiding summer peak charging.

The company said the flexibility of its program has resulted in increased enrollment. “For example, the program does not require the EV owner to install additional electrical equipment (such as a panel or meter) to participate in the program. SCNY participation is also not restricted to Con Edison account holders or home charging. Many Con Edison customers charge their vehicles at locations that are not associated with their Con Edison account and the person making the charging decision may be different from the one responsible for the electric bill. By allowing this flexibility, SCNY allows the company to manage EV load of any EV owner who charges in Con Edison’s service territory.”

It said it is considering new ways to enroll additional EV owners and lower per-vehicle acquisition costs, as well as new technologies for monitoring charging.

Niagara Mohawk

Niagara Mohawk, which has 1.7 million electric customers, proposed an active managed charging program to supplement programs it included in a rate case filing in July (Case #20-E-0380).

The new proposal would offer $500 rebates for purchasing L2 chargers and include telematics-based charging, which it said, “is expected to increase program enrollment and reduce the program cost-per-enrolled customer.”

It said most BEVs, including models from BMW, General Motors, Hyundai, Jaguar/Land Rover, Nissan, Tesla and Volkswagen/Audi, support active management.

The utility currently does only passive managed charging through its SC-1 variable time of use (VTOU) rate, which it said “has several hundred known EV drivers enrolled, a relatively small share of the total EVs in the company’s service area.”

National Grid’s affiliate in Rhode Island also has a passive managed charging program that provides enrollment incentives and per-kWh rebates. The company said preliminary results of an evaluation of the Rhode Island program showed a statistically significant increase in off-peak charging between participants that received off-peak rebates versus those that did not.

“For BEVs and PHEVs, there was a persistent amount of on-peak charging that participants who received the off-peak rebates still did not shift off-peak,” the company continued. “These results suggested, among other things, that for future programs and rate designs, the company should investigate technologies and incentives to mitigate and manage any timer or rebound peaks induced from time of use rates (e.g., charging peaks at 9:01 P.M. as the off-peak window begins).”

Niagara Mohawk’s proposal would provide EV owners using networked L2 chargers or vehicle-based telematics a flat monthly price for at-home off-peak charging: $20 for up to 225 kWh or $25 for 325 kWh of off-peak charging.

In addition to the $500 rebate for installations of new L2 chargers, it will offer $150 to participants using telematics or an existing networked L2 charger.

The company would manage at-home charging during the off-peak hours (11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.) by default, requiring a customer to override the utility schedule to charge during on-peak hours at home.

Including both L2 chargers and vehicle telematics is essential to broad participation because “neither has universal market coverage,” the company said. “Telematics provide greater present-day market coverage; however, networked L2 chargers provide a pathway for nearly any EV driver to participate.”

The company proposed a $3.2 million budget for fiscal years 2022-2025, saying it “is sized to support nearly 20% of the EVs on the road under a sales trajectory that meets the company’s portion of the state’s” goal of 850,000 EVs by the end of 2025.