PG&E seeks $654 million to build 25,000 EV charging stations

Julia Pyper, GREENTECH MEDIA
February 10, 2015. Pacific Gas & Electric filed a proposal yesterday for $654 million in ratepayer dollars to build 25,000 electric vehicle charging stations across its service area in northern and central California.If approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, the program will be the largest deployment of electric vehicle EV chargers in the country. California, the leading market for plug-in cars in the United States, currently has about 6,000 public charging stations.
Consumer advocates, however, including the Utility Reform Network TURN, are concerned that the program puts an unfair cost burden on ratepayers for infrastructure that only a small percentage of customers will use. A typical residential customer would pay an additional 70 cents per month to cover the costs of the program from 2018 to 2022.
“We are very skeptical about the value of investing so much ratepayer money and betting it all on electric vehicles,” Mark Toney, executive director of TURN, told the San Jose Mercury News.
PG&E estimates it will incur $551 million in capital costs and $103 million in operating expenses over the course of the five-year program. Pending approval, installation would begin in 2017.
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