Officials unveil 60 new EV charging stations for Maryland at Coppin State University event

Federal grant money will fund about 60 new electric vehicle charging stations in Maryland, officials announced Friday at West Baltimore’s Coppin State University, which will host one of the new stations.

The stations will be spread throughout the state, at recreation centers, apartment complexes, churches, gas stations and grocery stores — with a focus on low-income communities.

The $15 million in funding comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed by Congress in 2021, and the same grant program will fund new chargers across the nation.

The soon-to-be-constructed stations will supplement Maryland’s existing network of more than 1,600 public charging stations, as the state works to rapidly increase consumer acceptance and purchases of electric vehicles to meet its climate goals.

It comes at an interesting juncture for climate policy in the state. In December, the state unveiled an official plan to slash its climate-warming emissions 60% (based on 2006 levels) by 2031, and reach “net-zero” carbon emissions by 2045.

The plan said that Maryland would have to find about $1 billion in public money annually to meet the carbon goals, including to fund state rebate programs for the purchase of electric vehicles.

But it comes at a time when the state is cutting costs because of budget shortfalls.

Gov. Wes Moore said Friday at Coppin State that he will soon unveil a climate-focused executive order to ensure the state follows its newly released environmental to-do list.

Transportation is a big part of the problem, accounting for 35% of the state’s carbon emissions. The vast majority of that comes from gas and diesel-powered vehicles traveling on Maryland roads.

To achieve the carbon reductions necessary, many of the light-duty cars that Marylanders own will have to be transitioned to electric vehicles in the next 8 years. And the grid will have to rely increasingly on renewable energy like wind and solar to ensure those cars run on clean power.

“We have to have not just a vision, but a plan pushed forward to deal with the issue of climate action,” said Moore, a Democrat, during Friday’s event in Baltimore.

Earlier this year, Maryland officially signed on to match California by requiring that all new passenger cars sold in the state be zero-emission by 2035. The plan does not apply to the sale of used cars.

At the moment, the state is nearing 100,000 electric vehicle registrations, Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld said during Friday’s event. That’s about 15 EVs for every 1,000 people.

In addition to a parking lot at Coppin State, other Baltimore-area sites getting chargers include Kingdom Worship Center on York Road and the Giant grocery store on Reisterstown Road. The Sparrows Point Recreation Facility in Baltimore County also was selected.

The idea is to build EV chargers “where we live, where we work, where we go to school, where we worship, where we play,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of Transportation Polly Trottenberg said during Friday’s event.

Thanks in part to these chargers, which will be built using union laborers from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Trottenberg said the U.S. is likely to meet a goal set by President Biden (500,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2030) about four years early.

“When people are thinking about buying an electric vehicle, the first thing they do is get out their maps and get online and try to figure out where all the charging stations are,” said Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat. “If you don’t have charging stations and people don’t think they’re going to be able to get where they want to go in a fast and efficient way, they’re not going to purchase that vehicle.”

The Maryland Clean Energy Center, based in College Park, helped put together the application for the new stations, along with other community groups.

Dozens of multi-family housing complexes were selected for chargers, many located in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., in low-income Spanish-speaking communities, said Edwin Luevanos, co-founder of Citizen Energy, which will be installing those stations.

“Our communities carry the heaviest pollution, health and economic burden from tailpipe emissions and gasoline-powered vehicles,” Luevanos said. “So our communities stand to benefit the most from creative solutions.”

Even if many low-income residents do not yet own EVs, perhaps due to cost, the idea is to encourage their purchase with rebates, chargers and training. Citizen Energy also provides bilingual training programs related to EVs, he said. And through the federal grant program, the chargers will be able to offer a discounted rate for users, he said.

The sites were selected partially for how “shovel-ready” they would be for construction, said Amy R. Gillespie, the grants administrator and chief compliance officer for the Maryland Clean Energy Center.

Most sites will offer three or more chargers for drivers to use and most of those will be “Level 2” chargers, Gillespie said. “Level 2” chargers provide a higher voltage connection for faster charging.

“It depends on how much remediation has to happen on the site, what the electric company timeline looks like, getting wired, but we’re hoping they’ll be [online] pretty quick,” Gillespie said.