Donna Genie explores how campgrounds are adapting to electric vehicle charging and larger motor coaches, covering billing challenges, meter upgrades, and integrating metering with reservation systems. Campground operators face decisions on EV pricing and policing excess power use.
Metering electricity in campgrounds is something that most people relate to monthly stays. But I think we're seeing a change in the industry. There are a lot of things going on with electricity that make it ripe for some change. First off, electric cars. I have seen personally that people go and plug in their electric car at the campsite. What should we do about that? What if they're just spending the night and they're legitimately plugging their car in? Most places don't have any expenses for the electricity on a daily or weekly stay. So do we look the other way? Is there a surcharge? How do we decide when too much electricity is more than their fair share? Well, I think we're going to see some new policies coming. I am also already seeing some campgrounds have a charge, a daily charge for charging an electric vehicle at your site. Now, how do you police that? That's a whole new thing. There's also some other things going on with a lot of bigger motor coaches now using just a lot more electricity. You may see some big motor coaches come in with three air conditioners, the doors wide open, and at 65 degrees inside their RV and 90 outside. They wouldn't do this at home, but they do it in their rv. It's a matter of people thinking about the fact that I'm not paying the bill, so why should I conserve? I think we're going to see a trend of moving towards metering electricity for all stays in parks. Now, what does that mean from a cost perspective? Well, first, you also have increasing cost of electricity right now based on all the fossil fuel crisis in our country. So that along with metering may be the impetus for change in the campground industry. If we talk with folks over at Wild Electric, I've dealt with them and they are putting in meters like crazy at sites with the metering. If it's digital and it doesn't require a lot of human intervention, that could be an easy change that we'll see. Come to both daily and weekly sites to stays at campgrounds. Now, the cost for the campground owner means that you have to switch out your utility pedestals to include the ability to monitor. You also need to include that into your reservation system and make sure that there's a way to handle the billing of the electricity automatically and without a lot of a lot of human intervention. It has to be something that is integrated into your point of sale and your reservation system. But take a look around and assess what you'll do long term. Don't wait for it to become a problem before you start thinking about solutions. You know this one's coming. Let's open up the conversation. If you have a policy at your park about how you charge for charging electric vehicles or excess electricity, please let us know. Let's get the conversation started. Please follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Please make sure to check out our blog and our website linked below. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell to be notified when we post. You can email me@donnacampgroundaccounting.com.
