Clean Energy SF: San Francisco, fog then sun, est. 2026

Vol. 1 - No. 14 - Thursday, September 24, 2026 - Free to readers

Grid ยท Analysis

Charging at the curb: SF's pilot season on city streets

San Francisco put Level 2 chargers at the curb in several neighborhoods to test whether street parkers can finally plug in. The usage data is mixed, the parking fights are real, and the cost of going bigger is the open question.

Filed October 7, 2026 By the Clean Energy SF editors Reading time: 6 minutes

I. How a curb charger actually works

These are Level 2 chargers (240-volt service, the same kind of circuit an electric clothes dryer uses, adding very roughly 20 to 30 miles of range an hour). They are not the highway fast chargers that fill a battery in half an hour. You park in the marked space, plug in, and pay through an app or a tap card, usually at a rate set by the charging network and the electricity provider behind it.

Siting is the whole battle. A charger needs a sidewalk wide enough to keep a clear path for wheelchairs, a power source close enough that trenching does not cost a fortune, and hardware that survives bay fog and salt air. Even where all three line up, the plug only helps you if the space in front of it is open when you get home.

II. The honest math on who uses them

Utilization swings a lot by block. Dense neighborhoods full of renters with no off-street parking and a growing number of EVs tend to show more use; quieter residential streets can see a charger sit idle for long stretches. At last public report, SFMTA has described usage that varies widely from site to site, which is exactly what you would expect from a first pilot placed partly to learn where the demand actually is.

A curbside plug only pays its way if it is used often enough, and SF street parking turns over in ways no one fully controls. The electricity itself likely comes through CleanPowerSF or Hetch Hetchy Power, the public power programs run by the city's utilities commission. That keeps the supply relatively clean, but it does not change the basic problem: a charger nobody can reach is a charger nobody uses.

III. The curb is already spoken for

Every curbside charger quietly converts a general parking space into one reserved, in practice, for charging. Neighbors who do not own an EV notice, and they show up to SFMTA hearings to say so. Changing what a stretch of curb is for (the color-curb process the agency uses to mark spaces) is a public, contested step, not a quiet install.

There is an equity knot here too. Curbside charging is aimed at exactly the renters who cannot wire their own garage, which is the point. But a handful of plugs on a long block cannot serve everyone, and deciding which blocks come first is a fairness question the city has not fully answered.

IV. What scaling up would cost

Each installation is more than the price of the hardware. Add electrical work, possible trenching to reach power, permitting, and ongoing maintenance, and a single curbside plug can run on the order of several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars, depending mostly on how far away the nearest power is. Multiply that by the hundreds or thousands of plugs a citywide network would need, and the number gets serious fast.

Money to close that gap tends to come from outside the city budget: competitive grants from the California Energy Commission, utility make-ready programs that PG&E runs under California Public Utilities Commission oversight, and sometimes parking revenue. None of it is guaranteed year to year, so the pace of any expansion depends on funding that can change with each budget cycle.

V. Worth watching this month

1. SFMTA board and engineering-hearing agendas for any item on curbside or public EV charging and color-curb changes, usually posted about a week before the meeting (routine, but the place expansion decisions would surface).

2. California Energy Commission funding solicitations under its clean transportation program, which periodically open application windows that could pay for more plugs (this one actually matters for scale).

3. California Public Utilities Commission proceedings on transportation electrification and utility make-ready, where PG&E's role in curb charging gets decided (slow-moving but consequential).

4. Any published evaluation of the curbside pilot from SFMTA, which would show whether the city plans to build more or quietly wind down (the report to watch).

5. CleanPowerSF rate updates from the city's utilities commission, since the price of the electricity flowing through these chargers rides on them (routine).

Frequently asked questions

Can I reserve a curbside charger near my home?

No. The spaces work first-come, first-served like any public parking, so the charger helps only when the space in front of it happens to be open. That unpredictability is one reason utilization is hard to plan around.

How fast do these chargers work?

They are Level 2 units, which add very roughly 20 to 30 miles of range an hour. They are meant for the hours a car already sits parked, not for a quick top-up on the way somewhere.

Who pays for the electricity, and is it clean?

You pay through the charging network's rate, and the power most likely comes through CleanPowerSF or Hetch Hetchy Power, the city's public electricity programs. Both carry a relatively clean mix, though exact rates and content change over time.

Will the city build a lot more of these?

It depends, mostly on outside funding and on what the pilot's usage data shows. If grants come through and the busy sites stay busy, expansion is plausible; if the numbers are weak, it could stall.

References