Electric fleet in county’s future

Albany County working with Westchester and Suffolk on 2030 goal

An all-electric fleet in less than nine years?

That’s the aim under a three-way agreement announced Tuesday by Albany County Executive Dan Mccoy and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone.

The agreement, to include Westchester County, was created to increase the combined buying power of the counties and to cut costs that come with switching from fossil fuels. It also allows local municipalities among all three counties to buy electric vehicles.

“Through this plan, all three counties will be able to transition to 100 percent electric fleets no later than 2030,” Mccoy said. “Not only will we cut our emissions through this plan, we will also be cutting the price tag, which ultimately benefits our taxpayers. It’s my hope that more counties will partner with us, and this progress will encourage those in the private sector to follow suit.”

Bellone and Westchester County Executive George Latimer announced their shared services initiative last month, and now with three counties working together, they are hoping that the rest of the state will follow.

“We recognize the importance of working together to tackle big challenges and obviously COVID has gripped our attention for the last 19 months. But as we emerge from that, these other challenges are here and this is as big as it gets — climate change,” Bellone said at the press conference.

A request for proposals will be sought by Albany County for the fleet inventory and electrification plan. There will also be seven new dual-port public charging stations installed at six different locations in the county. Details on costs and number of vehicles was not available Tuesday.

“We are in the midst of a climate crisis right now,” said Albany County Legislature Chair Andrew C. Joyce, who was also in attendance in support of the initiative. “We have an opportunity here through this partnership to be good stewards of the environment and to also save taxpayer dollars.”