Sustainable Transportation

There are 7 public spots at City Hall, along with 3 for future police fleet and employee vehicles inside their gated lot, and 10 at Mission Blue Center.  These are Chargie brand "managed" Level 2 chargers. L2s are medium speed chargers, the most common in use, meant to fully charge a battery overnight.  Ours have 7.68kW capacity and if multiple chargers on the same circuit are in use at the same time, they will step down to limit the electrical demand needed.  This “managed” feature helps avoid electrical upgrades (which can be expensive and take a long time) and minimize any increased demand charges on the City’s utility bills, but results in slower speeds.  If you’re coming to charge, avoid parking right next to someone else for faster speeds.

Ten more chargers of the type described above have been installed at the Bayshore Park and Ride lot.  However, this site required an electrical service upgrade.  The PG&E application was submitted in September 2022 and has been approved, but we are still awaiting a schedule for PG&E to complete their work, after which the chargers will be connected and activated.  In addition, a 50kW fast charger, or DCFC, will be installed at City Hall adjacent to the L2s.  City staff is also looking for funding to replace the Brisbane Village DCFC.

In 2020, CALeVIP was rolling out grants that would cover up to 75% of the cost of EV chargers, and Peninsula Clean Energy was providing technical support to develop preliminary designs and help with applications.  City staff decided to take advantage of the resources available and maximize charging access.  We anticipated that dwell times at L2 chargers would be longer – for City fleet vehicles, workforce use, perhaps overnight charging for residents living in multi-family units that do not have access – and thus a larger number of chargers might be warranted.  We didn’t know if we’d have high demand initially but expect the number of EVs to grow; our goal is to facilitate charging access and EV ownership!

The City Council allocated funds to cover our portion of the cost and staff released an RFP which was distributed widely.  We received just three bids and the Chargie proposal was the lowest by a good margin, and the only one within reach of our budget.  The City Hall DCFC was not initially funded by CALeVIP, but we installed conduit during the L2 construction and that grant was recently approved, so installation will be moving forward soon.  Make sure you’re subscribed to the Blast for the latest updates: brisbaneca.org/blast.

Users pay for charging through the Chargie app. The City initially set the price at 30 cents/kWh. Our electricity cost varies by time of day, season, and location, but pricing that changed all the time or between our sites seemed confusing, so we went with an average. We will monitor and adjust as needed. We are not trying to profit, just cover our expenses.

Signage will be installed to limit these spaces to EV Charging only, in alignment with municipal code §10.24.246.  At City Hall, additional parking is available on Park Place (however, please note the designated “City Vehicle Only” spots adjacent to the driveway), or in the 25 Park Lane lot just across the street which the City has leased for expansion of administrative and North County Fire Authority staff.

In these initial stages, some users encountered issues with throttled speeds which were determined to be an incorrect setting that had been tripped.  It has been corrected and close monitoring since indicates it has not reoccurred, but Chargie is still investigating to identify and address the root cause.  If you encounter problems, reporting issues to Chargie directly ensures they can be addressed quickly, and resolutions communicated to you. Contact Chargie Support through the Chargie app, at chargie.com/support or by calling 1-800-266-0027.