Pa. aims to demystify electric car charging rules
Current regulations could be viewed as barring stations from selling electricity, PUC says
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission took steps Thursday to clarify rules that had been seen as a potential barrier to companies that want to open public charging stations for electric vehicles.
Statewide regulations generally forbid utility customers from purchasing electricity and reselling it to others at higher prices.
But those rules, which were meant to protect tenants from being overcharged for electricity by their landlords, don’t apply to vehicle charging stations, according to a new policy statement that commission Chairman Gladys Brown proposed Thursday.
The commission began exploring how utilities should treat public electric vehicle charging stations last spring when it became clear that state regulations could be interpreted as barring stations from profiting by selling electricity to drivers at a markup.
Not every charging station owner wants to sell power — some businesses and parking lots provide it free to draw customers. But for those that do, uncertainty over the regulation’s scope could have wrecked their business model.
Pennsylvania’s regional utilities differ in their more localized rules, but as of last year only Downtownbased Duquesne Light explicitly allowed electric vehicle charging stations to resell power. Others, like Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy’s utilities, including West Penn Power, were silent about such stations in their rules.
Without dictating what the
PowerSource
terms must be, the commission’s new proposal establishes that each utility should at least have some rules for charging stations.
Those rules should make it clear that the price restrictions on reselling electricity to residential customers don’t apply to public charging stations, and establish protocols for station developers to alert the utility about plans to install a new facility.
“Elimination of any regulatory uncertainty is an important step in supporting, and potentially accelerating, the continued build-out of electric vehicle infrastructure,” Ms. Brownsaid.
There were 723 electric vehicle charging stations in Pennsylvania available to the public, the commission said when it opened its review last May, and the number of electric carsand stations is growing.
The commission’s tentative order will be open for public comment for 45 days once it is published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.