San Diego Gas & Electric submitted a proposal to the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to add charging infrastructure in multi-family housing and workplaces — two areas where charging is lacking, according to the utility.
The project would add to the Power Your Drive Program, which has been approved for the deployment of 3,000 charging ports across SDG&E’s service area in San Diego and Orange counties. So far, more than 250 of those chargers have been deployed, according to SDG&E’s proposal to the California PUC.
Installing charging infrastructure in apartment buildings and workplaces has long been considered an important step by utilities and others advancing the adoption of EVs because having easy access to charging is seen as a crucial benchmark for consumers interested in considering an EV purchase. Some 50 percent of SDG&E customers live in multi-family housing, according to the utility.
“Our customers are telling us that they want to see more electric vehicle chargers where they live and work, and we’re enabling customers to save money by charging their vehicles at the right time — when renewable energy is high and demand on the grid is low,” said Estela de Llanos, vice president of clean transportation, sustainability and chief environmental officer at SDG&E, in a statement. “By building more EV chargers, we are not just meeting customer demand and managing the grid more efficiently, we are also supporting state mandates to accelerate clean transportation, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality.”
More than 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in California originate in the transportation sector. Reducing car use, increasing public transit ridership and electrifying the transportation sector has been identified as essential steps to take if the state is going to meet its goal to reduce climate-warming gases 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
EVs make up 7.8 percent of cars on California Highways, according to a report by the National Governors Association. Similarly, 2.1 percent of light-duty vehicle registrations nationwide were for electric vehicles in 2018. The San Diego metro is home to about 47,000 EVs, SDG&E reports, with the goal of growing the number of zero emission vehicles to 500,000 by 2030.
