[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 140 (Thursday, August 5, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5926-S5927]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              RECHARGE ACT

  Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Mr. President, I recently introduced the RECHARGE 
Act, S. 2241, with my friend and colleague, Senator Whitehouse, and we 
are very pleased that this bill, as amended, is included in the 
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act as Section 40431.
  Section 40431 amends section 111(d) of the Public Utility Regulatory 
Policies Act of 1978, 16 U.S.C. 2621(d) in order to establish a new 
requirement that all public utilities--investor-owned utilities, 
customer-owned cooperatives, and public power utilities--must consider 
establishing EV-specific rates for residential customers, EV drivers, 
and commercial customers, who operate public and fleet EV charging 
stations, to promote greater electrification in the transportation 
sector.
  Lowering emissions in the transportation sector will hinge upon the 
electrification of our country's motorized vehicles. Large investments 
in electric vehicle, or EV, charging infrastructure of the type 
included in other sections of this legislation will provide a catalyst 
for mass EV adoption.
  The successful adoption of EVs will depend not only upon modernizing 
America's grid and charging infrastructure, but also upon updating our 
electricity sector rates, so that the infrastructure funded by this act 
can operate in an economically sustainable manner for decades to come. 
The commercial rates present today were not designed with the unique 
electricity load profile of a growing EV fleet in mind.

[[Page S5927]]

  Public EV charging stations, and particularly high-powered DC fast 
charging stations designed for highway corridors and for heavier-duty 
EVs like buses and trucks, face a distinct set of hurdles imposed by 
the current regulatory system and traditional, demand-based electricity 
rates.
  Most prominent among barriers to deploying commercial EV charging are 
demand charges, which are electricity rates set by public utilities on 
their customers, including EV charging station owners, based on the 
maximum amount of power, kW, drawn for any given time interval, 
typically 15 minutes, during the billing period, multiplied by the 
relevant tariff demand charge.
  Demand charges are designed to capture the marginal costs imposed on 
the grid by high-capacity, high-utilization infrastructure such as 
factories. However, when traditional demand charges are levied upon 
high-capacity, low-utilization infrastructure such as EV charging 
stations, they can place a disproportionate cost burden on the station 
owners.
  The high-powered, fast-charging stations our Nation needs to serve 
the EV driving public, public and private fleet vehicle operators, and 
the trucking industry have different load profiles than most commercial 
entities, with periods of dormancy punctuated by spikes in activity. 
And unlike most commercial operations, their demand profile is driven 
by real-time customer activity. So it is difficult for these stations 
to optimize their load profiles.
  The burden of demand charges varies by State and by region and can 
fail to accurately reflect the marginal costs imposed on the system by 
EV charging stations. For example, in the Colorado PUC Electric Vehicle 
Working Group Report published in 2019, the Colorado Public Utilities 
Commission found that demand charges result in the annual cost to 
operate a direct current fast charging, DCFC, station in one Colorado 
utility territory being 35 times higher than the cost in a neighboring 
service territory. The problem will only worsen for the still higher-
demand and lower-utilization application of EV truck charging.
  Demand charges, if not reformed, may also introduce new issues of 
inequity as America electrifies transportation. For example, homeowners 
are able to charge an electric vehicle on very affordable residential 
utility rates, which currently average $1.16 per gasoline gallon 
equivalent according to the Department of Energy. But those who live in 
multiunit housing and rent their abode, a population that is 
disproportionately low-income and minority, often cannot charge an EV 
at home. They will charge their EVs at public charging stations, and 
those public charging stations must pay much higher commercial utility 
rates, including commercial demand charges, which make up as much as 90 
percent of public charging station's utility bills according to RMI.
  In recent years, some States and utilities have recognized this 
inequity and taken steps to reform their utility rates, to reduce and 
reform commercial demand charges and to adopt rates designed for low-
load or electric vehicle charging infrastructure. These utilities and 
regulators should be commended for their forward-leaning approach to a 
complicated issue. Utilities in Colorado have begun to do this, as have 
utilities in quite a few other States.
  Section 40431 requires only those States and utilities which have not 
already done so to take up the issue of how demand charge rates affect 
EV charging in order to encourage new private-sector investment in EV 
charging stations.
  These States and utilities are allowed 2 years to consider the 
establishment of new rates that A, promote affordable and equitable EV 
charging options; B, facilitate deployment of faster charging 
technology that improves the customer experience; C, accelerate third-
party investment in EV charging infrastructure; and D, appropriately 
recover marginal costs.
  Our intention is to ensure that alternatives to traditional, demand-
based electricity rates are made available to EV charging station 
owners with appropriate oversight by State public utility commissions. 
To remove any doubt, section 40431 does not empower, encourage, or 
allow State public utility commissions to regulate the prices that 
third-party owned EV charging stations charge their customers for EV 
charging services. Those prices are set in a competitive marketplace 
that benefits consumers, and this legislation does not affect that 
marketplace.
  Section 40431 should prompt forward-looking change at the State and 
utility level which appropriately reflects and accommodates the real 
differences in geographies, electricity markets, and business 
environments which exist between and within States and utility 
territories. It ensures that attention will be paid to this problem 
nationwide, but also that each State and utility can decide how to 
address the problem its own way. Ultimately, it should lead to new rate 
designs that enable the private sector to make economically sustainable 
investments in the high-powered charging stations that will help 
drivers, fleet operators, and truckers go electric, while more 
appropriately reflecting the actual marginal costs added to the grid by 
EV charging stations.

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