Electric Car Chargers

On August 29, the Allele Condominium was approved for a grant from Eversource to help offset the substantial costs of upgrading the electric infrastructure and installation of conduits and wiring in the garage to support electric car chargers.

With the grant approval, we now have a concrete estimate of what the cost of installation will be. Because we have less than 30 days to confirm our intention to move forward with installation, we are making one last survey of owners who might be interested in installing a charger in their parking spot. You can still be included if you are willing to immediately confirm your interest and pay a deposit. This will be the only opportunity to have chargers installed with costs offset by a grant. Any future installations will be at full cost to the owner and there is no guarantee such an installation will be feasible or approved by the Board of Trustees.

The updated estimate from our contractor, Aetna, in conjunction with the grant proposal from Eversource makes us confident that the cost per charger installed will be approximately $1500 and will not exceed $2000. This approximates the cost of the hardware that will be installed (Cyberswitching CSE1). The cost includes five years of software license for the charger and electricity consumption will be tracked by the charger and billed back to owners.

More information is available in this document.

If you are interested in having a charger installed in your space, we need a firm commitment by Wednesday September 10, including your agreement to have a $750 deposit charged to your account. The balance will be charged upon completion of the project and may vary between $750 and $1250.

To confirm your interest, please send an e-mail to trichardson@urbanmanagement.net and alleletrustees@gmail.com with the following text by Wednesday Sep 10.

“I, [name], am the owner of Unit [unit number] and Parking Spot number [parking spot number] at the Allele Condominium. I hereby confirm that I am interested in having a Cyberswitching CSE1 electric car charger installed in my parking spot and agree to be charged a $750 deposit.”

QUESTIONS AND ANWERS:

• What additional fees in addition to the installation and the amount of electricity used each month?
  For the first five years there will be no cost other than electricity usage, which we foresee being billed at or near cost since the bid includes the software license for the five years, which is the period for which reporting from each of the installed chargers is required by the Eversource grant.
• Does all the equipment needed to charge an EV come with the installation?
  The chargers, by default, have J1772 connectors and so some vehicles like Teslas will require an adapter, but otherwise, the plug from the charger goes directly into the car.. We are looking into the possibility of giving owners the choice between a J1772 or NACS connector, the latter which is the Tesla plug standard. You can read more about the two standards in this article
• Can you have the rough installation for the wiring and install the charger when ready to purchase an EV, or is it all or nothing?
  No, there is no option to only have the rough installation of wiring. The vast majority of the cost of the project is the installation of additional transformers and breaker boxes, the installation of conduits, running of wiring and installation of a better cell repeater network in the garage. This is the cost being covered by the Eversource grant, but they will cover the cost only if the contractor can show that there is a live connection at the end of each of the cables installed, so they will not pay out the grant until they see proof of purchase of the indicated number of chargers and those chargers are online and reporting data.
• Is there a monthly minimum fee? Even if you don’t use the charger?
  There will be no fee for the first five years since all the chargers will all be online, but the cost of the AmpUp software to enable them and keep them online for five years is part of the bid. At the end of the five years, the Board will need to decide how to bill back the annual software license fee of $350 per charger. It may be a markup on electricity or a monthly additional charge on top of the electricity. A charger can be decommissioned, or taken offline, at the end of the five years so that no fees will be incurred. That will render the charger unusable. It can later be recommissioned for a fee and brought back online.
• Assuming you pay for electricity used through the app, or will it be billed through our electricity provider?
  Eversource will not meter the individual chargers. We will have to bill back the electricity directly through the AmpUp software. Users will download an app where they can enter payment information and monitor their usage and billing.
• After the 5-year period what is the expected cost?
  The current annual software license fee is $350 per charger and that same fee has been guaranteed for the first renewal after the end of the five years. We will have to decide the length of that renewal contract, which can be anywhere from one to five years.