Today’s entry: Maybe this is a stupid question, but when we saw that more than 2 million people are without electricity from the hurricane, we were joking that they won't be able to charge their electric cars. I know that the federal government is funding a tremendous amount of electric charging stations in order to push the electric cars along. Which got me to wondering who is or will be operating and maintaining the charging stations?
Will it be independent operators, which is how most gas stations operate now, or will it be the government? And right now, as I understand it, Florida law mandates that the gas stations have generators to power the pumps in case a hurricane shuts down their electricity. Will the electric charging stations also be mandated to have backup generators in case the electric grid shuts down after a hurricane?
Just random thoughts after seeing the effects of the hurricane.
Bottom Line: That’s not a stupid question, especially for those who might own EVs and may someday find themselves in an evacuation situation. And this very topic was a point of contention in this year’s state legislation session. As is common with emerging markets and industries, there’s a lot of grey territory and that’s been the case with EV stations in Florida to date. Under law, the third-party sale of electricity is illegal. It’s a highly regulated industry, for mostly obvious reasons, controlled by the Florida Public Service Commission, but through a combination of investor and municipal owned utilities. Given that EV’s require electricity and that Florida’s law banning the third-party sales of electricity, it effectively locked out any entity but regulated utilities from operating in the EV market. However, the state legislature acted with a great deal of foresight passing legislation, signed into law by Governor Scott in 2012, exempting EVs from state law. This enabled any third party to operate EV charging stations in the state. It also effectively created a competitive market between Florida’s utility companies and gas station owners to begin to scale infrastructure and operations. As a result, there’s been a fair amount of investment in the space – especially by the utility companies.
With Florida’s early legislative action on EVs, now over a decade ago, our state has become a national leader in EV infrastructure. While the industry is still young, Florida’s third nationally behind only California and New York in EV infrastructure with approximately 6,000 charging stations across the state, powering the greater than 100,000 EVs registered within our state, the second highest total in the country. The two biggest operators of the charging stations in Florida just so happen to be Florida’s two largest utilities. FPL has the largest EV charging footprint with Duke Energy right behind. And both utilities are currently in a rapid expansion phase with charging stations. The Florida Public Service Commission authorized $175 million for FPL’s current buildout plans, with Duke Energy approved for $63 million in new stations across their footprint. But their days as the largest operators of EV charging stations may soon come to an end.
Due to the ability for any third party to invest in and operate EV charging stations, New Zealand based Invisible Urban Charging announced a plan to rollout over 6,000 new charging stations across the state in parking lots and commercial sites. Upon completion of the plan, they’ll be the largest operator in the state. Though that may not last long either. You’d mentioned government grants. Just two weeks ago the Federal Highway Administration approved Florida’s plan to add 6,772 charging stations across the state funding it with $71.5 million - a number which will grow to nearly $200 million over five years. The state’s plan outlines a procurement process which will match federal funds with state funds collected by tolls and private investment. There will be a bidding/procurement process with maintenance requirements for those who may bid/participate in the buildout. The state’s plan specifically did name Duke Energy, FPL, Florida Public Utilities Company and Tampa Electric Company as interested parties. As for evacuations...
The state formulated its first Emergency Evacuation of Florida Electric Vehicles report in 2020, and in short, all government regulated stations are to be available during emergencies. That includes all operations maintained by the utility companies and that will be part of the roadmap for all future subsidized stations. So, as it pertains to the stations, the largely unregulated ones, a la the Urban Charging stations won’t come with evacuation power mandates, the ones operated by the utilities companies do and will.
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