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Healey Administration Seeking Suggestions For How To Spend Portions of $50 Million On Electric Vehicle Charging Stations In Massachusetts

April 9, 2024

Massachusetts state officials are accepting feedback about how the Healey administration should best spend some of an expected $50 million to provide electric vehicle charging stations to try to persuade people to give up gasoline-powered cars.

The money comes from the federal government through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a coronavirus-era stimulus bill passed by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate and signed by President Joe Biden.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, a state agency, has announced a “Notice of Intent To Issue Funding Opportunity” seeking feedback for various schemes the state could pay for with public money, including installing streetlight, pole-mounted, and curbside charging stations and using an on-street charging station as a parking meter.

The agency’s On-Street Charging Solutions Program is “will particularly focus on serving Environmental Justice communities,” according to the notice of intent. The state defines an “Environmental Justice population” as a neighborhood with large numbers of poor people, racial minorities, and non-English speakers.

In February the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs issued a press release describing how the state might spend public money to provide electric vehicle charging stations as a way to reduce the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere by gas-powered vehicles, which state officials say is contributing to climate change, which they argue is harmful.

The planned spending includes:

 

  • $12.5 million to provide electric vehicle chargers at street level outside multi-unit dwellings, a proposal which state officials say is “limited by barriers such as regulatory hurdles, complex ownership structures, and unclear business and financial models”
  • $9.5 million on mobile charging stations on “medium- and heavy-duty vehicles,” which means trucks
  • $9.5 million for charging stations for electric vehicles at state facilities deemed “high priority”
  • $8 million for charging stations for electric vehicles used as taxis or by Uber and Lyft drivers
  • $8 million for projects designed to allow electric vehicle owners to use their car battery to provide electricity for their house or for the power grid
  • $1.5 million to provide charging stations for electric vehicles at state facilities not deemed high priority
  • $604,000 to buy testing equipment to make sure electric vehicle charging stations work
  • $396,000 to assess how electric vehicle charging is working and what the program will need through the end of 2026, which is when the federal funds must be spent by

 

To offer comments on how to spend the funds on charging stations, contact the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center by email at [email protected] by the deadline, which is Friday, April 26, 2024.

 

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