I charge at a remote site and a parking garage. The remote site readily gave me permission to L1 charge whenever I am there without cost.
The parking garage was a totally different story. They had been approached by one of the big public charging companies and told “so many thousands of dollars, so many parking spaces needed, and only where they wanted to put them” and was totally against any electric car charging. I talked to him quite a bit about it when I finally got my message across that L1 for just me would have no installation costs and only $.15/hr for the power, he agreed to consider it.
I wrote up a primer on EV charging levels, related equipment costs, types of users that might want each level, and on going costs for each level. After reading that and thinking about it, they gave permission for me to L1 charge off of the existing 120 outlets. That was last July.
Fast forward to last week. They contacted me again and said that property owner has reconsidered EV charging (perhaps based on my primer?) and wants to install some chargers if the cost isn’t too high. And since you were such a good resource last time, can you recommend some charging hardware? Talk about elated…
Back to the original post though, to pay or not to pay can go both ways. Since it is government owned, all users should pay. But since it exists to provide public benefits, a case can be made for free too. I’d write the policy both ways and let your employer pick between them. As for paying, I don’t think you have to rely on metering (if you do, consider a Kill-A-Watt from Home Depot for about $20
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...3&langId=-1&keyword=kill a watt&storeId=10051) as you can estimate the cost of a full day at ($.06 x 1.5 x 8 = $.75 – man you have cheap power!) Just put up a sign and rely on the honor system. Up to 3 hours, put a quarter in the jar. Up to 6 hours, 2 quarters. Up to 9 hours, 3 quarters.
It’s tempting to extrapolate that into a monthly rate, but I wouldn’t. Not at a public school. Make sure you pay every day and preferably at lunch, or when others will see you paying. Keep the jar highly visible to encourage others to charge and pay for usage, and as a visible reminder that it’s not a freebie for you. At some point, more outlet circuits will have to be installed and the money paid could help offset that cost.