“Consistently delivering on your promise reinforces trust.” ― Bernard Kelvin Clive
Will people develop trust that electricity can replace gasoline as “fuel” for their transportation? This must happen before electric vehicles enter mainstream adoption. Sure, we are told by advocates that 90% of charging is done at home. But we also know that ubiquitous public charging is important to ensure equity so that all citizens may benefit from driving electric. After all, many people do not have access to charging at home or work. For those folks, DC fast chargers are practically their only option. And those chargers better deliver on the promise of convenience, reliability and affordability. Otherwise, people won’t trust the chargers. Consequently, they won’t trust electric cars.
On January 14, 2019, the Maryland Public Service Commission approved a five-year pilot program to allow utilities to install public EV charging stations in their service territory. The utilities promised to maintain a high standard of uptime. BGE was quoted in the Carroll County Times saying, “BGE is being held to the same reliability standards as our electric distribution system, so they must be operational at all times.”
Some EV drivers have raised concerns that the utilities’ public EV chargers are not as reliable as we’d hoped they’d be. The Maryland Public Service Commissioners heard that a charger at Howard County Community College had been down for weeks while the one next to it only delivered a fraction of its promised charging speed.
EV Charger Reliability Standards
In January 2022, the Commission directed the utilities to work with a stakeholder work group to develop public charger reliability standards. The standards, if approved, would be used in the semi-annual progress reports that utilities are required to submit. The standards were to be filed prior to the next semi-annual reports which are due August 1, 2022.
Work Group Asks to Delay Uptime Reporting Until Next Year
The Work Group requests the Commission postpone the new reliability reporting requirement until the Utilities’ February 1, 2023 semi-annual reports.
The work group released an Interim Reliability Summary Report today. They requested that the Commission postpone any new reliability reporting requirement until February 1, 2023. The work group wants to wait until the federal NEVI program guidelines are finalized before recommending a reliability standard.
Charger Reliability Standards in Other States
The work group studied reliability standards in other states as well as those proposed at the federal level. They support adopting the same standard required by NEVI which is 97% uptime. That excludes factors outside the control of the charging station operator such as cellular service interruptions.
Utilities’ Reliability Reporting Template
The utilities proposed a template for reliability reporting to the work group. The draft template is shown below.
The utilities recommended that uptime be reported at the station level rather than at the port level. According to the report, some work group members were concerned that data about troublesome ports could be concealed if uptime is not calculated at the individual port level.
The work group plans to meet after the NEVI rulemaking is finalized to develop a supplemental report to present to the Commission.
Read the Electric Vehicle Work Group Reliability Interim Summary Report PDF file here.
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