College expands electric vehicle chargers and charges per use – The Ithacan

Ithaca College will expand its electric vehicle charging stations on campus. In the past, using an electric vehicle charger on campus was free, but now the college will introduce a fee that will charge users per kilowatt-hour.

By spring 2025, the campus community and the general public will have access to three new stations on campus, which will be connected to the college’s electrical grid during the winter break of the 2024-25 academic year. Two superchargers were added to the south end of the Athletics and Events Center, and a Level 2 dual-port charger (a charger with two ports on either side to accommodate two users) and a Level 26 charger were installed behind Terrace 13 -two chargers in the Farm Pond Road parking lot.

Tim Downs, vice president of finance and administration and chief financial officer, said the A&E Center, Terrace 13 and Farm Pond Road were all selected as ideal locations because they are open to the public and have optimal power access for the chargers. He said most of the electric vehicle chargers were added to Farm Pond Road because the college hopes to expand its electric vehicle fleet.

Level 2 electric vehicle chargers, also known as superchargers, charge at 240 volts and typically take 4 to 10 hours to charge an electric vehicle from empty to 80%. According to US News & World Report, a compressor’s voltage can vary from 10 to 73 minutes depending on the charging time of an electric vehicle.

Scott Doyle, director of energy management and sustainability, said the average cost per Level 2 charger is about $5,000, while superchargers can cost between $30,000 and $100,000 per unit.

Doyle said the college received grants from New York State Electric and Gas and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority for the expansion project. The grants require the college to make the chargers available to the public. The grant also requires the college to collect data from electric vehicle charger users and send it back to the grants that fund the chargers.

Doyle said the college is in the process of establishing a formal electric vehicle parking policy that will set rates and rules, but has yet to clarify what that will mean. He said the policy will include electric vehicle access to the campus community, visitors and the greater Ithaca community.

Doyle said the units will be connected to the college’s power grid once there are fewer people on campus.

“(We) don’t want to be a nuisance, so we need to make sure (the power) is shut off,” Doyle said. “We haven’t officially connected them yet, but they’re being set up … and we need to coordinate power shutoffs, so you’ll probably see them in (December) or maybe January.”

The university’s existing charging stations are located on the visitor area and in the Circle Apartments Community Center. Both stations are equipped with level two chargers.

Students like sophomore Gavin Garver, who has a Tesla on campus, said they didn’t know the college had electric vehicle chargers on campus.

“I should have researched it more considering I have an electric vehicle, but me and my family mostly thought, ‘There are the Superchargers down in town that you drive to for an hour a day every weekend,'” says Garver said.

Garver said he uses the Supercharger at Trader Joe’s on Meadow Street. He said charging takes about 40 minutes and he typically pays about $20 per charge.

While the college’s chargers are the ChargePoint brand, Teslas are becoming more compatible with other brands of electric vehicle chargers, according to Garver.

“You can get charger attachments so you can use different brands of chargers,” Garver said. “And the same goes for Tesla superchargers with various electric cars.”

While the college previously had no cost per charge, Downs said any new chargers would function like a gas station.

Typically, electricity costs are variable and change throughout the day. Electricity is more in demand and more expensive during the day, while electricity costs less at night. Downs said the college will not charge based on these different electricity prices, but will charge a fixed rate of several cents per kilowatt.

Although the college has not yet determined the exact cost per load, Downs said the price per load will not deter people from charging.

“We’re going to make sure that people with electric vehicles don’t pay more than they pay to charge at home,” Downs said. “I would be surprised if we charged prices that high, so I expect we will be below what people are paying at home.”

The average cost per charge for a home electric vehicle charger is about 16.63 cents per kilowatt-hour, or about $67 per month. Installation costs for home charging ports vary depending on the charger. A Level 1 home charging port costs an average of $400. A Tesla Level 2 charging port can cost between $200 and $500, and installing a supercharger at home can cost up to $50,000, depending on how the car is used.

“(Homeowners) pay a residential retail price,” Downs said. “Our commercial rate is lower than your residential rate because it depends on how much you buy. We essentially get a volume discount because we buy so much more.”

Downs said the cost per charge would help the college generate revenue for the installation and electricity costs of the electric vehicle chargers. He also said there would be additional penalties for exceeding the college’s set four-hour charging time.

Doyle said the NYSEG grant, called the Make Ready Program, provides funding to communities to install more electric vehicle chargers and help install units. He said the college also took advantage of NYSERDA’s federally funded Charge Ready program, which he said will be used for rebates after level two chargers come online.

While the Internal Revenue Service is still working on implementing the federal inflation reduction law, Doyle said there may be another New York State rebate the college can receive, the Property Credit for refueling vehicles with alternative fuels. The rebate allows tax-exempt institutions such as college to receive compensation for their investments in electric vehicle chargers. The units installed by the university include network systems that collect user data.

“NYSEG, for example, covers a few thousand dollars per Level 2 charger,” Doyle said. “So they document that they are in action. They ensure that they are the correct unit types. But they also collect user information, such as how much power they use and how often they use the devices. Then we throw (that data) back into the state. So if you do that, you’ll get a few thousand dollars more for it.”

Doyle said the estimated cost, excluding grants and subsidies, was around $700,000.

“We fully recognize that our electric vehicle charging infrastructure is unlikely to be at full capacity when it becomes operational in 2025, although these subsidies have convinced us that building out a larger system would help us achieve this in one “To build a scale that the campus community can grow into,” Doyle said in an email.

While the college receives grants to expand the number of electric vehicle chargers at the college, about $100,000 is still spent, according to Downs.

“To put it bluntly, this is pretty darn cheap,” Downs said. “Once you break ground and start laying electrical cables, it’s much better to install as many as possible.”

News editor Prakriti Panwar contributed reporting.