Electric Car Charging Stations Coming to Downtown Rochester

If you need to charge your Chevrolet Volt, your options in Rochester may soon be expanding.

City leaders on Monday approved an agreement with DTE Energy that would put two electric vehicle supply equipment charging stations in downtown parking lots.

The effort is part of a Department of Energy grant the Detroit energy company received; according to Rochester City Manager Jaymes Vettraino, DTE officials were looking for "forward-edge communities" with downtowns to install two of the charging stations.

They chose Rochester.

"This would be, for the city, an opportunity to experiment with this type of technology," Vettraino said.

There are already two similar charging stations at the .

The grant would cover the $25,000 installation of the charging stations; still unknown is which parking lots the charging stations would be located in.

Also unknown is how users would pay for using the charging stations. According to the agreement between DTE and the city, users for these particular stations cannot be charged by kilowatt-hours, but they could be charged a flat fee or hourly rate for the use.

In suburban Ann Arbor, the Saline City Council agreed in January to allow DTE to install one of the charging stations in a city parking lot; as of last week, leaders there were still debating whether to charge users, .

According to the story, it would cost 71 cents an hour in energy costs; a credit card swipe machine would cost about $500, in addition to about $200 in yearly transaction fees. A group of anonymous donors had offered to cover the electricity costs for two years, but the City Council did not accept that request.

In Rochester, city officials plan to meet with DTE representatives Wednesday to discuss the user fees and placement of the charging stations.

"Aside from the 'cool' factor, this is great," said council member Ben Giovanelli. "It appears we're being cutting-edge."