On November 2, 2020, I received a manilla envelope via certified mail. It was a notification that the California Department of Food and Agriculture, Division of Measurement Standards (CDFA DMS) had determined that Green Water and Power operates as a Registered Service Agency (RSA). An RSA is a business and its employee(s) who installs and repairs commercial weighing and measuring devices for hire or payment of any kind.
In California, an electric vehicle charging station (aka electric vehicle supply equipment, EVSE), when used to transfer electricity to a vehicle for a fee, is a commercial measuring device. CDFA DMS must approve the devices, and owners of the devices must annually register their devices with the local county Department of Weight and Measures. This law would go into effect on January 1, 2021, one day shy of two months from receiving the notice. When adopting a business strategy, two months is a blink of an eye and not commercially reasonable.
The purpose of the law was to protect consumers, similar to regulating gas pumps or deli counter scales, ensuring that what the device said it dispensed was what it actually dispensed. The irony of protecting consumers in this context is that the market for EV stations is not yet developed; prices vary widely, reflecting its infancy—contrary to gas stations, where price deviations citywide are minimal.
When I received this notice, I had many questions and few answers. The chargers I was using were not yet on the CTEP list. The manufacturer applied for certification. However, the CDFA was experiencing extensive delays in certifying equipment due to reduced staffing and COVID-related issues. This policy was failing out of the gate.
Six months after the law was supposed to go into effect, on June 1, 2021, the CDFA issued an update. As there were still only two CTEP-certified chargers across the industry, ChargePoint and Evercharge, the CDFA suggested county officials postpone their enforcement until September 1, 2021, for a list of manufacturers who had applied to be certified. CDFA was now bending its laws because it could not support the policing of the policy it created.
Becoming a Registered Service Agency (the folks that can place the chargers into service and notify the county) was a bureaucratic nightmare – as the CDFA had a relatively new SalesForce platform to manage, which experienced a myriad of technical issues preventing us from submitting a credit card payment, without trading a dozen emails and missed phone calls. After two weeks, CDFA managed to accept our money.
Then came the admission fee – $50,000 for the Tesco testing machine. To my knowledge, Tesco is the only testing equipment manufacturer that can be used for the CDFA regulations. As they are based in Pennsylvania, and the machine must be calibrated once a year, to avoid 4 weeks of interruption of any EV charging business complying with CA law, the true cost of admission to complying with this legislation is $100,000 – you need two machines.
Oh, and the only way to measure a DC charger is with a special adapter that connects the tester to a car, so you ALSO need an EV for testing that can accept 80% of the rating of the DC chargers. Let’s say, for example, you want to commission the new Alpitronic 400 kW DCFC. You need a car that can accept 320 kW. Guess how many EVs out there can accept that? You guessed right, none! The closest capable car is the Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance, which comes in at 314 kW for the low price of $161,500 before tax and title. Remember that the special adapter we mentioned was on backorder for 8 weeks.
Our company did it all and does it all. We got the Tesco machines; we had dozens of our staff get RSA certification; we only bought and installed CTEP-certified chargers, fought through it all, and got it done. And now that we do, you would think we benefit from a huge barrier to entry. One could argue that’s true. However, state rebate programs still provide incentives for non-CTEP equipment, and the movement for level 1 smart outlets, none of which are CTEP approved, is increasing. Our company should benefit from this policy, and we might benefit from the moat it created, but I would still rather these requirements disappear. They do not offer the consumer protections they intended to, but instead increase consumer costs.
We recently received an invoice from the county sealer for one of our job sites—20 chargers at a student housing complex in Northern California. The annual cost to remain in compliance was $664/year. This site dispenses 10,000 kWh annually, so the added cost for compliance is 6.7 cents/kWh. The concerns about rising electricity costs in California are real—look no further as to why. If you have another policy that has failed Californians as much as this one, I would like to hear about it!
The end result — we will likely be decommissioning chargers due to the cost of regulation — it just makes more sense to operate five chargers at this site rather than 20. How taking chargers out of service affects the uptake of Electric Vehicles is anybody’s guess.
