Employers and Property Owners

Electric vehicle charging stations at work can help attract and retain employees, demonstrate a company's support for a cleaner environment, and increase fuel cost savings when changing from gasoline to electric fleets. 

SDG&E helps you navigate the process of choosing and installing EV charging at your business. Employers, business owners and property owners looking to provide charging services are faced with a broad range of options.  They include equipment type and location, billing costs, methods for controlling access, and providing for pay-for-use of the charging service.

SDG&E helps businesses determine the potential billing impacts of adding electric vehicle load and consumption.

Key points to know when considering workplace charging

1. Start by working with facility management to define a policy and implementation plan that supports your company’s objectives, while serving EV drivers’ needs at the lowest cost

2. To develop a workplace charging policy and plan consider:

   1. Vehicles that are all-electric depend on charging, while for plug-in hybrids its optional

   2. As charging speed increases, so do equipment and utility costs

   3. Most employees can fully recharge their cars at work from a standard, 120-volt circuit like the ones feeding common household outlets – this is a low-cost option

3. Know that the closer you locate charging equipment to existing electric service, the lower your installation costs.

4. Buy buying equipment that takes advantage of the full time employees are parked you can minimize your equipment and utility costs.

5. Once you settle on equipment that comes with new load for your facility, by using load management equipment and procedures you can minimize your utility bill.

6. Understanding pricing options for employees is key and SDG&E can help you with this – for example the price of $5 a gallon gasoline is equal to $.30 per kilowatt hour electricity, therefore you most likely would want to price below that.

7. Employees can pay with a pre-paid balance system, you can bill them directly or you can pay someone else to bill them

Additional Resources

• Free workplace charging seminars through SDG&E

• GoElectricDrive.com: California’s “DriveClean Buying Guide” 

• The EV Project