Date: August 2024

This work presents causal evidence of a high degree of customer responsiveness to dynamic prices at level 2 workplace and multi-unit dwelling (MUD) charging sites in San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) territory. SDG&E is an ideal setting to study these effects because of the well-established market for EVs: 26% of 2023 light-duty vehicles sold were plug-in hybrid or electric. SDG&E owns and operates over 250 workplace and MUD charging sites at which consumption is billed under a dynamic hourly rate that incorporates hourly market prices and dynamic adders for high system load hours and high distribution circuit load periods. For sites where drivers paid for charging, we estimate a price elasticity of demand for charging of -0.35. We find no evidence of price sensitivity at sites where drivers do not pay for charging.

Speaker:
Marshall Blundell, Demand Side Analytics