Two utility subsidiaries of National Grid PLC will be unable to recover from ratepayers, at least for now, many of the costs associated with a proposed Phase II electric vehicle program.
According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, "it is premature to approve in whole" cost recovery for Phase II before the results of Phase I are evaluated.
Massachusetts Electric Co. and Nantucket Electric Co. sought to recover from ratepayers the estimated $166.5 million cost of the five-prong second phase of National Grid's electric vehicle program. But the state utility regulator on Sept. 30 only approved recovery related to a handful of elements of the broader plan, including a residential off-peak charging rebate with an estimated cost of $5.6 million and a $2.6 million advisory service to "support the electrification of its customers' motor vehicles fleet."
The Massachusetts DPU also authorized the recovery of costs related to one portion of a broader research and development plan outlined in the proposal: a study of the "economic, environmental, grid, and customer benefits of co-locating [direct current fast-charging stations] with third-party deployed energy storage systems and solar facilities." National Grid estimated that the entire research and development program would have cost $5 million, but the cost of individual aspects of the program, including the portion for which recovery was authorized, were not specified.
The state's attorney general asked the DPU to reject the entire R&D proposal because the first phase of the program, approved in September 2018, "already provides funding for these activities."
Under the full proposal, National Grid would deploy 17,700 level 2 ports, of which 9,000 would be for residential use and 8,400 would be for nonresidential spaces. Approximately half of the nonresidential ports would have been placed near "multi-unit dwellings," and 600 would have been placed in what the company called disadvantaged communities.
Several intervenors in the proceeding, even some who were in favor of at least some parts of the proposal, argued that approval of the Phase II program overall should wait until after the effectiveness of Phase I has been evaluated to determine whether it has yielded the desired results. The attorney general noted that one year's worth of data on the first phase of the program will be available in 2020 at the earliest.
According to the order, National Grid during the proceeding said it had not yet installed any EV charging stations under the Phase I program.
For its part, the ruling noted, National Grid "maintains that evaluation results from the Phase I EV Program are not essential to the design of the Phase II EV Program." The utility does not see the second phase as a "continuation" of the earlier plan, the ruling said.
Relatively few cars in Massachusetts are electric vehicles. According to the Massachusetts Offers Rebates for Electric Vehicles, or MOR-EV, program, 15,054 electric vehicle rebates have been reserved and issued in the state since June 2014, although that figure may not encompass the total number of electric vehicles in the state. According to Statista, approximately 2.3 million cars were registered in Massachusetts in 2016.
