While electric vehicles have big promise, devising a cost-efficient home-charging system has been elusive.
Xcel Energy discovered that the hard way after adopting a discount rate for electric vehicles in 2015, only to find that other costs were scaring consumers away.
So Xcel is rolling out a new pilot program it hopes will juice interest in electric vehicles. It features a "smart" charger, which doesn't require a customer to install a second electrical meter, a potentially costly venture.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on Thursday approved the pilot program.
"I think this is critically important," Commissioner Matt Schuerger said at the PUC meeting. "Electric vehicles are coming, and we need to have a pathway into this and evolve with it."
Electric vehicles (EVs) are still just a sliver of new car sales, though forecasts call for them to make up 20 percent of new automobile registrations by 2030. Xcel estimates there could be more than 300,000 electric vehicles in its Minnesota service area by 2030, five times more than are registered in the state today.
Electricity as a fuel is relatively cheap, costing about the equivalent of $1 per gallon of gas. But building a vehicle-charging system is a classic chicken-and-egg problem for companies and consumers. When do the financial benefits justify the costs?
In 2015, the PUC approved lower electric rates for people who charge plug-in vehicles in their garages at night. State law had mandated such rates during "off-peak" periods, when demand for electricity is lowest and supply is plentiful — particularly from wind turbines. Xcel is the nation's leading provider of wind-powered electricity.