The Boondoggles In Green Energy

On Friday, The Sun Journal (the local paper in New Bern, North Carolina) posted an article about an electric charging station built in the city.

The article reports:

In October, two electric vehicle (EV) fast charge stations were installed in the Red Bear Parking lot in downtown New Bern.

Each station cost $60,000 not including installation and were funded through the DEQ Volkswagen Emissions Grant the City received in Nov. 2020 for $128,716 total. 

Another $32,826 of in-kind contributions from the City of New Bern funded their installation.

However, travelers and passersby may have noticed their digital screen still saying “unavailable”.

“Since October, staff has been testing and commissioning the equipment as well as working on rate designs. With new technology, there isn’t a lot of comparison out there, so collecting data on utility successes and failures with DC Fast Charging has been a challenge,” said Charles Bauschard, director of public utilities for the City of New Bern. 

The article continues:

The stations are not open for use by consumers visiting New Bern during the popular Beary Merry and Tryon Palace holiday events and will also not be ready by the Bear Drop on New Year’s Eve.

“They are installed in there and ready to be available to the public as soon as we establish the rate that we will charge to customers who want to charge their vehicle,” said Bauschard.

…Bauschard said both stations should be ready for use by the end of January or early February.

Typical prices per kilowatt hour vary widely between pumps, anywhere from $1 to twenty cents per kilowatt hour. Unlike gas prices, EV charge rates do not change daily or weekly.

Plugshare.com reports:

EV Charging in New Bern, North Carolina. The city of New Bern in North Carolina has 36 public charging stations, 5 of which are free EV charging stations. New Bern has a total of 10 DC Fast Chargers, 8 of which are Tesla Superchargers.

If five of the charging stations already in New Bern are free, how much revenue will the city generate from the two it installed? It is possible that New Bern is ahead of the curve, but it is also quite possible that New Bern just funded a $128,716 bridge to nowhere.