Seattle City Light announced a new service which plans to install electric vehicle chargers, along curbside locations, throughout the city. Their aim is to give drivers who may not have access to off-street parking the ability to charge their vehicles.
City Light will install, own, operate and maintain the Level 2 EV chargers within city limits. The chargers will be available on a first-come, first-served basis and cannot be reserved. Each charger will provide a typical EV with over 30 miles of range per hour of charge time.
Drivers will pay a 20 cents per-kilowatt-hour (kWh) fee to use the chargers. The fees are designed to pay for the electricity, operations, maintenance and repair costs while offsetting the initial purchase and installation costs, which Smart Cities Dive reported to be an estimated $11,000 to $25,000.
City Light has said that the service is needed as many older single-family homes do not have off-street parking like a driveway or garage. Therefore, this can make it extremely difficult to install at home charging for their own EVs.
Locations for the chargers will be selected based on resident requests and whether those locations meet program requirements. Criteria include: Single-family homes, including properties with detached single houses, duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes, and accessory dwelling units. These requests must be for properties that do not have off-street parking (like driveways or garages) and any multi-family housing property with five or more units, including apartments, condominiums, houseboats, or mobile home parks.
This is great progression for the city and also will create more widely accessible chargers for all of its residents. EV adoption is now in full force and therefore, as more people buy vehicles, chargers are needed all across the country. we are excited to see the success of City Lights charging points!
