BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: SB 730
SENATOR MARK DESAULNIER, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: kehoe
VERSION: 3/22/11
Analysis by: Mark Stivers FISCAL: yes
Hearing date: March 29, 2011
SUBJECT:
Electric vehicle charging equipment
DESCRIPTION:
This bill requires local building inspectors to make available
an online permit application for the installation of electric
vehicle charging equipment, issue such a permit within 24 hours
of receipt, and conduct an inspection within seven days of
completion of the work. The bill also makes local governments
that comply with the above requirements eligible for funding
from the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology
(AB 118) Program.
ANALYSIS:
Current law authorizes but does not mandate cities and counties
to require building permits for the construction, alteration,
improvement, demolition, or repair of any building or structure.
If a city or county does require such building permits, current
law requires them to use a statutory form for permit
applications. Current law also allows cities and counties to
charge fees of applicants to cover the costs of the permit and
inspection program.
AB 118 (N��ez), Chapter 750, Statutes of 2007, created the
Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program,
which the California Energy Commission (CEC) administers, to
provide grants, revolving loans, loan guarantees, loans, or
other appropriate funding measures to public agencies, vehicle
consortia, businesses, consumers, recreational boaters, and
academic institutions to develop and deploy innovative
technologies that transform California fuel and vehicle types to
help attain the state's climate change policies.
Funding of approximately $100 million annually for this program
comes from additional fees on vehicle registrations, special
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identification plates for various vehicles, and vessel
registrations, plus $10 million annually from the Public
Interest Research, Development, and Demonstration Fund, which is
derived from a portion of electric utility rates.
Existing law makes the following projects eligible for funding
under the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology
Program:
Alternative and renewable fuel infrastructure, fueling
stations, and equipment.
Projects to develop and improve vehicle technology that
provide for better fuel efficiency and lower greenhouse gas
emissions.
Alternative and renewable fuel projects to develop,
improve, demonstrate, deploy, produce, and commercialize
alternative and renewable fuels, plus reduce the overall
carbon footprint of these fuels.
Vehicle retrofit projects to create higher fuel
efficiencies.
Infrastructure projects that promote alternative and
renewable fuel infrastructure development for existing
fleets, public transit, and existing transportation
corridors.
Workforce training programs related to alternative fuels
and vehicle technology.
Block grants administered by not-for-profit technology
consortia for specified purposes.
Analyses and assessments performed by state agencies to
determine the impacts of increasing the use of low-carbon
transportation fuels and technologies.
Programs to provide funding for homeowners who purchase a
plug-in electric vehicle to offset costs associated with
modifying electrical sources to include a residential
plug-in electric vehicle charging station.
The CEC, through a competitive process, allocates these funds to
alternative fuel and vehicle technology projects. To set
priorities for the allocation of funds, the CEC must develop an
investment plan in consultation with a wide array of
stakeholders. In February of this year the CEC released a draft
of its plan for the 2011-12 fiscal year. The draft plan
proposes allocating $8 million for plug-in electric vehicle
charging infrastructure, including $1 million for "projects that
will support the streamlining of permitting, installation, and
inspection of residential charging infrastructure." According
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to the draft plan:
The permitting, installation, and inspection of residential
charging infrastructure needs to be seamless. The process
will vary for each community and for each installation, but
on the whole, it is complex, costly, and protracted. The
average residential installation time between ordering and
installing charging equipment can be more than four weeks.
Although the actual charging panels may take only a few
hours to install, the entire process depends on a series of
site visits including the utility company, licensed
electrician, city permitting office, and city building
inspector. Regions are currently brainstorming to find
ways to streamline the process and reduce the time for
installation. It is also important to provide education to
local government jurisdictions that often lack knowledge
about the permitting process for PEV charging
infrastructure and provide assistance to permit and
inspection offices facing workforce reductions.
This bill requires local building inspectors to make available
an online permit application for the installation of vehicle
charging equipment, issue such a permit within 24 hours of
receipt, and conduct an inspection within seven days of
completion of the work. The bill also makes local governments
that comply with the above requirements eligible for funding
from the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology
(AB 118) Program.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose of the bill . According to the author, electric
vehicle manufacturers and service providers have identified a
serious delay between the time someone purchases an electrical
vehicle and when the necessary permit, installation, and
inspection of electric vehicle charging equipment is complete.
These delays range between 20 and 40 days. Lengthy delays in
this process have the potential to dissuade perspective EV
purchasers from that purchase. In order to promote the market
penetration of zero-emission electric vehicles, the author
asserts that it is in the state's best interest to ensure
there is a process in place at the local government level that
enables the smooth deployment of electric vehicle charging
infrastructure.
2.More complicated than it may appear . As the CEC's draft AB
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118 investment plan for 2011-12 describes, permitting electric
vehicle charging stations is complex. One reason for this
complexity is that, unlike most building permits, and electric
vehicle charger essentially requires sign off from two
entities: the local building permit department and the
electric utility. This is because obtaining a permit is not
just a matter of having the correct building plans. If an
electric panel upgrade is required, as will probably be the
case with an EV charger, the electric utility must certify
that the power lines to the home have sufficient capacity to
handle the increased demand, which may not always be the case.
In most areas, the building department and the utility are
entirely unrelated, so streamlining the timing of a permit
requires efficient communication.
The City of Los Angeles recently announced an initiative to
reduce permitting, inspection, and meter installation times
for home electric vehicle chargers to less than seven days.
Under the initiative, the city's Department of Water and Power
(LADWP) will be available to conduct home pre-inspections to
identify potential issues with an installation and assist
customers who may have problems. Vehicle owners may then
obtain permits instantly online, and the city will inspect the
installation within 24 hours of request. Once installation of
the charger is complete, LADWP will expedite a new meter. In
addition, LADWP has upgraded 1,223 distribution transformers
and replaced 479 poles in its vast power grid to address
potential system impacts related to EV charging. This
initiative is possible in part because of the proactive grid
upgrades and the fact that the building department and the
utility are under the same city umbrella. Especially
considering that the bill does not require utilities to
fulfill their obligations in any specific timeframe, it is not
clear that 24 hours will be sufficient to approve permit
applications even when a city and county has sufficient staff
for the workload.
3.Local fee authority . This bill on the one hand requires local
governments to streamline their permitting processes for
electric vehicle chargers and on the other hand offers them
funding to do so. Traditionally, incentive funding has been
used to motivate behaviors not already required by law. This
bill takes the opposite approach of paying local governments
for an activity that the bill requires anyway. To the extent
that only some cities and counties will be able to secure AB
118 grants, this could lead to inequities in which all have to
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streamline their processes and only some are paid for it.
Moreover, local governments have and use the authority to
charge fees of all building permit applicants to cover their
building permit programs. The committee may wish to consider
whether incentive funds should be used to pay for a required
activity.
4.Already an envisioned use of AB 118 funds . Under current law,
the CEC staff is proposing to allocate $1 million of AB 118
funds for projects that will support the streamlining of
permitting, installation, and inspection of residential
charging infrastructure. It is therefore unclear how this
bill affects the AB 118 program because it simply declares
such expenditures as eligible, not required.
5.Arguments in opposition . The League of California Cities
states that the vast majority of cities do not have any form
of on-line building permit system and that creating an online
portal from scratch for one fairly infrequent type of permit
will be costly. Moreover, an online application may actually
delay issuance of a permit because the building inspector will
not be able to ask questions of and interact with the
contractor, as would be possible at the counter. The 24-hour
turnaround requirement will not be possible in many
jurisdictions, especially smaller cities that may only have
one staff person for all permits. Lastly, the League argues
that it is improper to give priority status to one type of
permit because other types of permits, such as rehabilitation
of a substandard home, will have to be delayed.
6.Possible alternative approaches . To address the various
issues described above, the committee may wish to consider one
of the following two alternative approaches to promote the
streamlining of permits for electrical vehicle chargers:
Delete the requirement for online applications and delay
the effective date of the 24-hour permit issuance
requirement by six months. Deleting the online requirement
would significantly reduce the cost of the mandate, lessen
the nature of the preferential treatment for EV charger
permits, and continue to allow for interaction between the
building inspector and the contractor. Cities and counties
could still develop online systems if they so choose.
Delaying the effective date would give cities and counties
more time to staff up and put systems in place to meet the
24-hour mandate, as well as synchronize implementation with
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the beginning of most cities' and counties' fiscal year.
Delete the mandate entirely but limit the availability
of AB 118 funding to those cities and counties that do
choose to implement online applications with a 24-hour
turnaround. This approach would provide an incentive for
cities and counties to meet the goals of the bill without
requiring all jurisdictions to assume the costs of the
mandate.
RELATED LEGISLATION:
SB 209 (Corbett) provides that a prohibition or restriction on
the installation or use of an electrical vehicle charging
station in any of the governing documents of a common interest
development is void and unenforceable. This bill will be heard
in the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee on March 29,
2011.
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the Committee before noon on
Wednesday, March 23,
2011)
SUPPORT: Plug In America
OPPOSED: League of California Cities