There are several initiatives underway to increase funding for the state’s electric vehicle infrastructure, but one of the most immediate will be coming from the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP).
The funding round, which could exceed $18 million, will come from the state’s nearly $56 million share of a 2016 nationwide legal settlement with Volkswagen over the German car maker’s vehicle emissions cheating scandal.
Much of the pending money is slated for EV charging infrastructure, which is a shift from the first two rounds of VW-settlement funding in 2018 and 2019, when money largely went to replacing diesel vehicles with cleaner technologies.
Installing more chargers is seen as crucial for Connecticut to meet its aggressive EV adoption goals, because it helps alleviate “range anxiety” felt by drivers worried they’ll run out of power on the road.
Besides public charging stations, major increases in home and workplace chargers are also needed in the state, according to DEEP’s “Electric Vehicle Roadmap” published last year.
“To date, private investment in [electric vehicle supply equipment] deployment has not scaled at the pace necessary to meet Connecticut’s [EV adoption] target,” the roadmap states. “As such, some public funding will be necessary… .”
Connecticut currently has 1,118 EV charging ports installed across 426 publicly available charging stations, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Public charging ports will need to roughly double by 2025 and quadruple by 2030 if Connecticut is going to hit its goal of having 500,000 registered EVs — which would represent 20% of all light duty vehicle registrations — on the road, the state says.
