DEP to spend $1M to install 4 electric vehicle charging stations
The state Department of Environmental Protection is spending almost $1 million to install 16 rapid chargers for electric vehicles at four stations in high-traffic areas near Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
A station with four of the fastcharging plugs is planned for the Sheetz store at 9002 University Blvd. in Moon.
The DEP will also begin working on rules to promote the increased availability and use of electric vehicles, and it plans to publish a booklet for consumers about the benefits of zero-emissions vehicles.
“We can turn in the direction of healthier air quality and slow down climate change by switching to electric vehicles, whether we’re government officials, business owners, school administrators, community leaders, or individual consumers,” DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell said in a news release Friday. “DEP is committed to supporting this choice by increasing public knowledge of electric vehicles, making it easier for consumers to find electric models, and helping to expand charging infrastructure.”
DEP spokeswoman Deborah Klenotic said contractor EVBuild will install one station
in Bucks County, while EVgo Services will do the other three. Money for the charging projects will come from the state’s share of a $2.8 billion national settlement that Volkswagen Group of America agreed to in 2017 for cheating on federal diesel emissions tests.
Electric vehicle sales in Pennsylvania have risen steadily, from just over 1,000 vehicles in 2012 to about 6,000 in 2019, according to Atlas EV Hub, an organization that tracks the market. During the third quarter of 2020, the most recent data available, electric vehicles made up 1.15% of Pennsylvania light-duty vehicle sales, Ms. Klenotic said.
Gov. Tom Wolf has directed the DEP’s Bureau of Air Quality to draft amendments to the Pennsylvania Clean Vehicles Program that would require automakers to increase offerings of lightduty electric vehicles. Eight other states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions have already adopted zero-emissions vehicle percentage requirements for automakers.
Ms. Klenotic said contractors for the charging stations have two years to complete the projects, though she said they have indicated they’ll be done “significantly sooner.”
According to the DEP, vehicles generate 47% of the nitrogen oxide and 21% of the carbon dioxide emissions in Pennsylvania. The projects are expected to remove 771 tons of carbon dioxide, a half-ton of nitrogen oxides, 600 pounds of volatile organic compounds, 186 pounds of coarse particulate matter and 51 pounds of fine particulate matter annually from the air.
Carbon dioxide emissions are the leading cause of climate change, and nitrogen oxides contribute to the formation of groundlevel ozone and smog.
In addition to the Moon Sheetz station, the DEP Driving PA Forward program will install six charging plugs at a station in Philadelphia; four plugs at a market in Ridley Township, Delaware County; and two plugs in a mall parking lot in Quakertown, Bucks County.
All of the stations will be located in community hubs, the DEP said, serving local residents’ day-to-day charging needs and also expanding a network of highway segments that the DEP and the state Department of Transportation are helping to develop into electric vehicle corridors for long-distance travelers.
Those corridors will eventually have chargers every 50 miles along interstates 76, 95, 376 and 476.
Since it started two years ago, Driving PA Forward has funded 40 rapid chargers, which can charge a vehicle in 20 to 30 minutes to go 100 to 250 miles, and more than 1,300 level 2 chargers, which add about 25 miles of range per charging hour.
The DEP Energy Programs Office recently released its Electric Vehicle Roadmap: 2021 Update to provide information about electric vehicles. It’s free and available online.