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Requirement to register EV with power company

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In the process of relocating I noticed that my new utility has a requirement to register a Level 2 EVSE. The purported reason is to help the utility ensure that the electric service to the home is up to the task. Seems reasonable, Anyone have any experience/expertise with this? Could there be a more sinister reason for asking for the registration?
 
In the process of relocating I noticed that my new utility has a requirement to register a Level 2 EVSE. The purported reason is to help the utility ensure that the electric service to the home is up to the task. Seems reasonable, Anyone have any experience/expertise with this? Could there be a more sinister reason for asking for the registration?
I told them. No problem happened as a result
 
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If you have your Level 2 charger installed by a licensed electrician, they check the power going into your circuit breaker box and power distributed to house to make sure there is enough supply available. That person will also usually put the level 2 charger on a separate breaker. Most places do not require you to notify utility company that you installed a level 2 charger.
 
I have worked with a lot of utilities. They all want to know how many EVs are joining for growth planning, and most of them want to know locations so they can watch for clustering and if necessary upgrade transformers.

It's just to help plan for servicing their customers in the future.

They may send you information about off-peak charging, and possible savings there...
 
I told mine and they actually came and put larger service wires from the street to my meter. Had I not told them, I would be dealing with voltage sags and other issues and would have needed to call them anyway. The original wire was just too small for charging the cars and running the rest of the house. There was no charge since it is on their side
 
Could there be a more sinister reason for asking for the registration?

Reading these posts, it doesn't look like there is any possible averse affect that could happen to you by registering. They are likely collecting data to understand how EV charging affects their infrastructure.

Each house on your street may have 200 amps service, but those 200 amps are just the "peak" usage if you ran your A/C, drier, washing machine, TV, lights, hot tub, welder, etc, etc at the same time. An EV will add a decent load to the system that they might have to plan for.


I told mine and they actually came and put larger service wires from the street to my meter. Had I not told them, I would be dealing with voltage sags and other issues and would have needed to call them anyway. The original wire was just too small for charging the cars and running the rest of the house. There was no charge since it is on their side

I guess that makes sense. They maybe put in a wire that would be safe to use, but which would have a significant voltage drop when actually used.

Otherwise, it is a bit strange that they put in a wire that was too small.
 
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I told mine and they actually came and put larger service wires from the street to my meter. Had I not told them, I would be dealing with voltage sags and other issues and would have needed to call them anyway. The original wire was just too small for charging the cars and running the rest of the house. There was no charge since it is on their side

Well that's a beautiful thing. When I was living in San Diego, the electric company SDG&E had sent out a couple emails about informing them if there was an EV at your residence. I elected not to, as I had zero issues charging and I was plenty happy with the cost of my electric bill. I am a cynicist when it comes to that kind of thing and only foresaw this as a way to inflate rates if you charged at peak times, etc.
 
While regulations vary, I am not aware of any utility under regulations that would allow them to penalize a customer based on what they are plugging in. Nor can I imagine a scenario under which a utility would want to. (They may indeed charge more for high or peak electricity use because both of those affect utility costs, but that has nothing to do with whether that electricity goes in to an EV or not. Such a rate would apply to all customers, not just EV owners).

Every utility I've ever talked to loves the extra sales and stickiness (and, generally, willingness to try new models) of EV owners. Off-peak charging allows for more income without capex - better utilization of their existing capital, which means lower costs. A more steady load also makes it easier to integrate intermittent renewables. Utilties offer encouragement (like lower rates - off-peak, of course - or EVSE subsidies) when they are allowed to (which more and more they are being allowed to, because encouraging EVs lowers costs for all customers). If their regulators don't allow that (they don't by default, so most places with few EVs haven't changed regulations yet), at least they can use their knowledge of EV locations for capacity and transformer upgrade planning to provide better service at the lowest cost for all their customers.

An EV is a very significant addition to the electric load at most homes, and it really helps utilities (and by extension their customers) if they know how and where their loads are changing. Planned change is smoother and cheaper than reactive change.
 
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I told mine and they actually came and put larger service wires from the street to my meter. Had I not told them, I would be dealing with voltage sags and other issues and would have needed to call them anyway. The original wire was just too small for charging the cars and running the rest of the house. There was no charge since it is on their side
Wow, I'm jealous! I can't believe they just ate the cost of that upgrade. We have 125 Amp service, and were hoping to upgrade it, but apparently it'd cost us thousands of dollars to do so! For now the 125 Amp service is fine, but the future proofing would be nice, if not so expensive! Do you know what Amperage of service you used to have, and what they upgraded it to?