New York Utilities Pay EV Drivers to Charge Off-Peak, Ease Strain on the Grid

NEW YORK—Electric vehicle drivers in and around New York City are earning cash for charging at off-peak times. The program, dubbed SmartCharge, is the nation’s largest of its kind, and it offers a potential model for how other US cities can prepare for the shift to electric vehicles.

SmartCharge is a partnership between two utility companies, Con Edison and Orange & Rockland, and EV tech company ev.nergy(Opens in a new window), whose technology taps into the car’s connected telematics to log charging details and calculate payments.

Over 5,000 EVs are enrolled in SmartCharge. The program operates in all five boroughs of Manhattan, Westchester County, Orange County, Rockland County, and parts of Sullivan County. Drivers can register their vehicles on the Con Edison(Opens in a new window) and Orange & Rockland(Opens in a new window) websites.

“It’s a real mix of areas,” Joseph Vellone, Head of North America for ev.energy, told us at the New York Auto Show here. “You have the dense urban areas of of New York City and also a number of suburban and rural parts of upstate New York.”

SmartCharge customers meet with representatives from Con Edison and ev.energy at the New York Auto Show. Pictured: Dan Nainan, Muir Kumph, Sherry Login Samaiya Alhuraibi, and Joseph Vellone.
(Credit: Emily Dreibelbis)

Last year, 24% of the EVs in the Con Edison service area were enrolled. “That’s really robust participation for a program like this,” says a Con Edison spokesperson. “We have really engaged EV owners who see the impacts of charging on the grid and want to help out.”

The main threat EVs pose to the grid is overuse during peak times, according to a recent MIT study. For example, in the early evening, many people return to their homes and begin turning on lights, streaming content, and, now, charging EVs. The grid is designed to accommodate these peaks while the infrastructure sits under-utilized overnight.

“If everybody charged in the middle of the day we would have to put a lot more money into building out the grid because it would exceed capacity,” says Sherry Login, manager of electric vehicles programs at Con Edison, who spearheaded the program. “[This program] is the calculated avoided cost of having to upgrade the electric system to handle EVs.”

SmartCharge defines “off-peak” as between 12 a.m. and 8 a.m. If drivers charge their fully electric or plug-in hybrid electric cars overnight, they will earn $0.10/kWh of electricity with Con Edison and $0.07 with Orange & Rockland.

We spoke with three SmartCharge participants who say they are currently making $20-$30 per month. Their earnings will double in the summer months when a $35/month incentive kicks in for not charging between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.

Ev.energy app shows a monthly payment summary and charging session history.
(Credit: Muir Kumph)

“I tried to get everyone at work to sign up for it,” says Muir Kumph, who drives a Chevy Bolt and Volkswagen ID.4. Payments come once a month, via Venmo or PayPal.

“It really makes a difference,” says Samaiya Alhuraibi, an Uber driver who discovered SmartCharge when she found a flier for incentive programs in the glove box of her new Hyundai Kona Electric. Another customer, Dan Nainan, owns two Teslas, says he earns money on both cars—either from driving himself and from his renters on Turo(Opens in a new window).

Drivers don’t need to make any changes to their routines or regularly access the ev.energy app. They simply charge as usual. If it’s an off-peak time and the charger uses electricity from Con Edison or Orange & Rockland, ev.energy logs the session for payment.

This is made possible by a connection to the vehicle’s onboard telematics system. “Ninety percent of electric vehicles on the road have a little SIM card that connects them to the 4G network,” Vellone says. Ev.energy maintains a list(Opens in a new window) of eligible vehicles as well.

“That means all of these vehicles are leaving the factory already with smart technology enabled and all ev.energy does is connect to it,” Vellone says.

With the driver’s consent, the app collects a few data points. This includes vehicle make/model, VIN, battery size, charging time, kWh consumed, and charging location. The ability to seamlessly tap into the car for this information is an evolution from the program’s earlier solution of providing drivers with a dongle to put in their cars. While this has made the program more viable, it’s an ongoing technical challenge.

“The toughest thing is that the electric vehicle industry is highly dynamic and we’re seeing lots of new manufacturers and makes and models coming to the market that we need to be able to support, as well as new cloud and software platforms,” Vellone says. “One of the biggest focuses of ev.energy has been continuing to build out APIs to support that market evolution.”