I reviewed all of the above and I don't believe anybody suggested an installation without going through the permitting process. (But thank you for the cautionary note.)
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Local Electric Company wants EV owners to pay for upgrading neighborhood infrastructure.
- Thread starter RSpanner
- Start date
Wow. This is crazy FUD being created by the utility. Houses almost never draw their maximum load, and also will seldom all draw at the same time.
Since an L2 charger can use less than an oven or a dryer (2.8kw at 12A/240VAC is what I use), there is no risk of "dimming the lights" of everyone in the neighborhood. If they say this threatens all homes, then they underwired everyone and the feed to that block and someone made a huge mistake.
In addition, we all know a majority of extra power will be used overnight when everyone tends to use less energy overall.
And permits don't go to the utility, only the municipality. This is only for people who somehow need to upgrade service to their house because they are already under-wired. I only have 100A service to my home (24kw) and I've never seen my meter draw more than 15kw and that was when the backup electric heat on my geothermal heating was running because of a pump failure ( electric heat at 10kw in January).
Got a link @RSpanner? I picture of the notice? I need a good laugh.
Since an L2 charger can use less than an oven or a dryer (2.8kw at 12A/240VAC is what I use), there is no risk of "dimming the lights" of everyone in the neighborhood. If they say this threatens all homes, then they underwired everyone and the feed to that block and someone made a huge mistake.
In addition, we all know a majority of extra power will be used overnight when everyone tends to use less energy overall.
And permits don't go to the utility, only the municipality. This is only for people who somehow need to upgrade service to their house because they are already under-wired. I only have 100A service to my home (24kw) and I've never seen my meter draw more than 15kw and that was when the backup electric heat on my geothermal heating was running because of a pump failure ( electric heat at 10kw in January).
Got a link @RSpanner? I picture of the notice? I need a good laugh.
Nobody is saying to do that. Don't install an EV charger, just get a permitted 50A outlet installed, and then use a mobile EVSE to charge your Tesla.
You are correct in that two FUD scenarios seem common: EVs will crash the grid, and charging takes ages. And I guess to be fair to the city of Eugene they may be sensitive to older homes with 100A or even 60A service and are being proactively cautious. But most homes are 200A and largely over-specified.
One of my neighbors thought Teslas at a nearby supercharger stayed on all day while the owners worked nearby.
In this case, I say leave it to the experts (aka licensed electricians) to evaluate and pull the permits. The city/utility does not need or care about the 48A usage, whether for HVAC, electric range, dryer, etc.
I wonder if the OP ran into a clerk who watched Fox too much
as you seem to be saying...
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That seems to go to the heart of this, and my answer is that I don't know. And I applaud the OP for checking in with them, but I don't think in my limited experience that there is much interaction between city permits and utilities (but open to being corrected).
The role of the electrician is to balance the existing consumption with new demand on a house-by-house basis, but who knows regarding an entire neighborhood.
We may be living in a new age where that is now the case given the FUD mentioned earlier. I do hope the OP keeps us updated so we can learn the result.
Since it's a public utilities company I believe there's grounds for a lawsuit here. The supreme court has ruled that there must be actually basis behind fees in 'sheetz v. county of el dorado, california'. While that case doesn't 100% line up with OP is dealing with I'm sure a competent lawyer could spin it for your favor or find some other caselaw that might apply.
EWEB is a non for profit company. Why would the PSC dispute the current policies that have been approved already?
Knowing the politics of Eugene, you can be fairly sure it isn't a Fox news issue. They tend to have a tax-and-spend socialist leanings that are undoubtedly seeing EVs as a new way to tax the middle class and the rich to buy more votes.I wonder if the OP ran into a clerk who watched Fox too much
I actually have heard of public electric companies banning new A/C installations. Their wiring was way overloaded already due to deferred maintenance to where overloaded transformers were blowing up on hot evenings. They had been able to get by counting on the transformers cooling at night but A/C and new Televisions and similar loads weren't letting that happen.
I figure this is more of a new tax on the rich opportunity rather than a real issue though.
This sounds like a reasonable approach, however, we haven't seen such a thing from our government in my lifetime. It's easier to just try to pit everyone against everyone and try to figure out what you have to say to please 51% to vote for you by taking from 49%.
How do you know it has been approved? Policies like this aren't necessarily "approved" like rates are.
If nothing else, notify them of being upset.
New power lines work like that here. There's a price per foot for pole/buried and then you have amortized equity in the new line if used for anybody else.
Oh, and BTW, non-profit really means next to nothing. Most hospitals are non-profits. And the only industry allowed to gouge you, fix it and gouge you again to fix it.
Because the pool isn't replacing something else, putting a lot of people out of work, or killing/reducing existing huge revenue sources.
ie, it has no enemies.
strider
Active Member
How or why? Around here, the power company is not involved in the permitting process for new outlets. It is purely a code inspection by the county. Obviously if it's new service the utility is involved and also if you are doing solar or a generator install there is a utility sign-off that the transfer switch is wired correctly so you can't fry their workers by backfeeding the grid. When we had 2 14-50s installed in our garage, the electrican came out, decided we needed a sub panel, pulled the permits, did the install, county inspector came out and signed it off, electrician closed it up, and never looked back. Same thing happened when we put in a pool.
This is ridiculous. They are the ones that decided on the oversubscription factor when they sized the system. If they need to upgrade lines or transformers that is their problem. You are paying for the electricity - that pays for the upgrades.
I agree w/ @Zer0t tell them you are putting in a hot tub.
If you are in an area in which the utilities are limited, then municipalities have enforced different policies to keep the "lights on"
There are often building restrictions on new developments in water distressed areas.
In NYC, there are limitations in many building about how many kW/sqft that you can use.
So, correct, in most areas, the utility doesn't see or concern itself with limits or permits, because the more there is, the more they make.
But there are some areas that are just out of some resources. And the municipality has no choice but to impose limits.
I'm under a burn ban during the summer, because there is not enough air exchange to keep the pollution levels from getting too high.
A few years ago, we have water bans. No outdoor watering allowed.
We've got one community with a similar problem near me, sewage and waste-water drainage. When the system was built 70 years ago, it was dramatially overbuilt for the cottage community. Now that it is a dense urban area, it's out of capacity.
Sure, replacing pipes isn't necessarily a big deal. But closing major roads on top of the pipelines and ripping up building and houses that got built on top of the pipelines is a big deal. Definitely a NIMBY issue.
strider
Active Member
No question that there are limits and as I said in my post, for new construction, the utilities definitely need to be involved so they can plan for the increased usage.
I think what has everyone flustered is that in your examples above, the costs of those expansions were born by everyone in the community. In the OP's case, they are forcing system-level updates on single users. That is not how it's supposed to work. In your sewage example above, it would be like making a person who is doing a remodel and adding a laundry room sink pay to upgrade the pipes from their house all the way to the treatment plant; whereas everyone who had already done remodel/expansions up until that point didn't have to pay. That is nuts.
Similarly, I added two 14-50s many years ago. It wouldn't be fair if my neighbor wanted to add an EV and they made them pay to upgrade the wires for the whole street.
Or maybe actually put in a hot tub, and then add a switch so you can charge your car when you're not using it.
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