As Bellingham expands EV charging stations, this is what drivers will pay

Nov. 21—Electric vehicle owners will soon start paying to use city-owned charging facilities, under a fee schedule approved recently by the Bellingham City Council.

It currently costs 75 cents an hour to park any car, including an EV, and the cost of charging is included in the parking rate, said Seth Vidaña, the city’s climate manager.

Bellingham is expanding its EV changing capacity citywide, adding 45 new charging stations that can serve two cars at a time.

Several stations will be DC fast chargers and some will be solar-powered.

So it makes sense to begin billing car owners for the amount of energy used based on kilowatt hours, Vidaña told the Bellingham City Council at an Oct. 24 meeting of the Public Works and Natural Resources Committee.

“We’re really doing this for reasons of equity,” Vidaña said. “Electric vehicles do vary in their ability to receive power, depending on how full the battery is and — more importantly — the age of the vehicle itself. Older vehicles tend to receive power more slowly and their batteries do degrade over time.”

New fees will start next week at the city’s three charging stations, said Amy Cloud, spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works.

Fees will apply as each new EV charging station is installed, Cloud said in an email.

As approved, the charging rate will be 25 cents per kilowatt hour plus a $1 an hour additional charge for level 3, or DC fast-charging stations.

There also will be a $1.50 an hour surcharge at paid city parking lots and at street meters. That’s because of an expected rise in the cost of parking citywide starting Jan. 1.

A penalty will be added to discourage drivers from staying at a charging station after their car’s battery is topped off.

EV drivers will get a 10-minute grace period and then pay an extra 25 cents per minute — up to $23 maximum — when they occupy a charging spot with a full battery.

A smartphone app can notify drivers when their battery is full or nearly full, Vidaña said.

“These sorts of charges that we’re talking about are highly unlikely given that the rate of charging really slows when an EV battery is almost full. That last 5% of charging takes a lot longer than that first 5%,” he told the committee.

As an example, Vidaña told the committee that an EV driver would spend $3.60 for parking for two hours at a level 2 station in Juliana Park, gaining 42 miles of range. The equivalent amount of gasoline would cost $8.74 at $5.39 a gallon, he said.

Vidaña also described a hypothetical traveler using a DC fast charger at Civic Field for 30 minutes, getting 90 miles of range for $8.75. A gasoline equivalent would be $18.80, he said.

“These measures call for advancing electrification of transportation across the entire city, equitably, and promoting a shift from internal-combustion engines to large-scale adoption of electric vehicles,” said Public Works Director Eric Johnston in a Nov. 7 memo.

Johnston said the first new EV charging stations are being installed this month, and the project will continue through the middle of next year.

Cost of the project is about $2 million, paid for with a $1.5 million state grant and $500,000 from the city’s voter-approved transportation tax.

Locations will include city buildings, busy commercial locations and those with tourist interest, public parks, city streets and the Interstate 5 corridor through town.

Taylor Dock, Cornwall Park and City Hall are among the first locations where the new charging stations are being added.

Ultimately, the goal is to reduce pollution from combustion engines, Johnston said.

Transportation makes up 32% of emissions according to the 2015 city’s greenhouse gas inventory, and city officials hope for a 40% emissions drop from 2000 levels by 2030, he said.

(c)2022 The Bellingham Herald (Bellingham, Wash.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.