26 Feb 2024 Council meeting Transportation

Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment Cost Recovery Bylaw

Motion

1. That Council give first reading to “Electric Vehicle Recharging Bylaw 2024 No. 7365” (a bylaw to collect electric vehicle supply equipment and energy cost charges within the City of Nanaimo). 2. That Council give second reading to “Electric Vehicle Recharging Bylaw 2024 No. 7365”. 3. That Council give third reading to “Electric Vehicle Recharging Bylaw 2024 No. 7365”.

Sources

Agenda itemCity agenda, whole meeting

Staff reportPage 1

Purpose

To seek Council direction to recover costs associated with City owned, public-facing electric vehicle charging stations.

Staff report, page 1

Staff recommendation

Electric Vehicle Recharging Bylaw 1. That Council give first reading to “Electric Vehicle Recharging Bylaw 2024 No. 7365” (a bylaw to collect electric vehicle supply equipment and energy cost charges within the City of Nanaimo). 2. That Council give second reading to “Electric Vehicle Recharging Bylaw 2024 No. 7365”. 3. That Council give third reading to “Electric Vehicle Recharging Bylaw 2024 No. 7365”. Fees and Charges Amendment Bylaw 1. That Council give first reading to “Fees and Charges Amendment Bylaw 2024 No. 7336.07” (a bylaw to add electric vehicle charging connection fees). 2. That Council give second reading to “Fees and Charges Amendment Bylaw 2024 No. 7336.07”. 3. …

Staff report, page 1

DocumentsStaff report about Economic Development

Paul Manly Yes

Spots around the community. I have no problem at all with this. I think it's appropriate. To pay cost recovery for this kind of system, so thank you. For the report. And supporting this. Thank you.

Questions and answers

Councillor Janice Perrino
Yes

asked

You. Your worship and through you to. Ms. Gilt mccaskill I wasn't even close. That's okay. I don't currently have an electric vehicle. I'm just wondering, how does it work? When people go there and when will it start working? Should this pass tonight. When will it begin? Excellent question.

City staff answered

Through your worship, the proposed start date is June the first. This gives them opportunity for communication to the public and users. The infrastructure that we use is from a manufacturer called chargepoint, and they do have a dashboard. That staff has access to that we can use for digital messaging right at points of sale. So we can message out through there. Also communications plan to make sure everybody knows that as of June the first, should this pass tonight. We would be implementing a cost for service. In terms of. How it works is anybody who has an electric vehicle typically has some sort of app on their phone and. You would tap that phone next to the charger. You can also tap your credit card. Currently. You still have to tap a credit card to activate the station because it cuts down on vandalism. But you would then tap your card, and then it unlocks the charging head. Plug it in. And then the whole thing is managed through our service provider. Perfect. Thank you so much.

Councillor Paul Manly
Yes

asked

That's great. Councilor Manley, thank you, your worship. I'm just curious about the cost. Is two and a half cents per minute? Is there a comparison between what the hydro rate is and was there kind of a cost analysis between what we're charged by Hydro and what we would

City staff answered

be collecting through this fee. Good. Question again. Thank you. Through your worship. The cost. Electric services through large corporations are actually quite complicated compared to residential. These chargers are connected to what are called medium and large services, and they're billed differently. And so, approximate numbers, we pay about thirteen cents per kilowatt hour for the power. We do have other things called demand charges that are associated with our costs. So. The cost analysis was completed based on. The. But the problem that we ran into when running the analysis is we could not recover the cost. Of the infrastructure at $0.13, we pay back to hydro. Thirteen cents. And right now. That is the amount that the BC utility commission has. Capped BC Hydro at charging. They have recently petitioned for some additional leeway for specific electric vehicles. And they have not been granted that permission yet, so there isn't really any precedent to be using anything greater than thirteen cents a kilowatt hour, and that wouldn't allow us to then recover the cyclical renewals ass. Associated. So not only is there a cost for the service, but we as staff continue to renew. These assets. They have a twelve year service life. There's vandalism. There's maintenance costs, there's cloud networking costs that go with this stuff. And so, because of the way it's structured, we have to choose between. Cost per kilowatt hour or a time cost. And so when we did the analysis, the time cost was the way that we could actually get a reasonable approximation to what it's costing the city. And then that two and a half cents was based on a report that we received from KPMG that outlined for those municipalities that. Are charging. It's kind of middle of the road for what folks are charging, but it is flexible. If council were to decide that a different number would

followed up

be appropriate. Okay. I was always under the impression that we can't charge for hydro, we can only charge. For a meter time, for a parking lot time. Is that

City staff answered

there was an amendment to the utility act that specifically allows. Folks that have been deemed to be resellers, and because we sell. Gas and power. For our existing fleet vehicles, we have the appropriate designation. So we could go that route, but then. We're bound under. A different stream,