WA announces $85M to help build thousands of EV chargers

About $85 million in grants announced by Gov. Jay Inslee and the state Department of Commerce on Thursday will help nonprofits, electric utilities, tribal nations and public agencies install thousands of electric vehicle chargers across Washington.

The grants were funded with $65 million in state general funds and $21 million from the state’s sale of greenhouse gas emission allowances, according to state officials. Last session, lawmakers budgeted about $2 billion from the carbon market revenue for projects intended to reduce climate-warming emissions and other air pollution in the state.

In 2013, the state set a goal of 50,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2020, but blew way past that, Inslee said Thursday, with an estimated 125,000 electric vehicles on the road.

The awards announced Thursday will help provide charging for 213 multifamily properties, including apartment buildings, 211 local government and school district fleets and workplaces, and 141 public locations like community recreation centers, libraries and grocery stores.

The awards will help fund 4,710 Level 2 chargers, or those that can provide a full charge in about six to eight hours, and 271 direct current fast chargers, which can charge a 300-mile-range car to 80% in 20 minutes.

Funding was prioritized for applicants with high levels of pollution in the community and few existing chargers, among other criteria.

Recipients were selected based on an objective, quantifiable score, according to state officials. The scoring criteria was different in each of the three funding categories — multifamily residential, publicly available, and fleet depots and workplace.

Projects were awarded points based on their score on the Department of Health environmental health disparities map. For example, a multifamily housing charging project in a census tract with a score of 9 (out of 10) on the map received 27 out of 30 points for the “overburdened communities” factor.

“As a kid who grew up near the Duwamish, by the highway, I grew up with asthma,” said Sen. Joe Nguyen, D-West Seattle, at a Thursday news conference. ” … by making this investment it doesn’t just benefit our clean energy future, it benefits our kids’ future to ensure that they have clean air, clean water and the resources they need to thrive in an economy that will support them.”

For multifamily and projects led by tribes, the projects are fully funded up to $10,000 for level 2 chargers, and $110,000 for fast chargers. For all other projects, Commerce is covering 75% of eligible costs up to the maximum amounts.

More than a dozen tribes and tribal organizations including Kalispel, Sauk-Suiattle, Makah and Yakama Nation, were among those awarded grants. Nearly two dozen cities, including Lynnwood, Fife and Port Angeles, were also among the nearly 100 grant recipients.

United Hub, a community organization that works to increase access to homeownership for communities of color, will use grant funds for multifamily housing charging projects in King County, including in South and West Seattle.

“Together, we are dedicated to transforming the area to more electrified, more sustainable, and something that’s thriving,” said Ali Lee, committee chair of United Hub.

Women of Wisdom Tri-Cities, an environmental justice nonprofit, recently launched an EV car share program and was awarded grant money to expand access to public charging sites in Yakima and Walla Walla.

“I’m so honored to carry this infrastructure commitment and making sure that clean energy is accessible to everyone,” said Chauné Fitzgerald, founder and CEO of the nonprofit, “not just the wealthy but also those who are economically challenged in Washington state.”

From late 2019 to early 2023, the number of public and private electric vehicle charging ports across the U.S. nearly doubled from 87,352 to 161,562, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. President Joe Biden set a goal of building out a national network of at least 500,000 publicly available electric vehicle chargers by 2030, and is a little over a third of the way there.

The Biden administration last month announced $41 million in federal grants to help bring over 180 electric vehicle chargers to communities across Western Washington.

The grants announced Thursday are part of the first wave of investments from the Washington State Electric Vehicle Charging Program, with additional money from the Climate Commitment Act, according to the state Department of Commerce. The state sells carbon emission allowances to the state’s largest polluters, which includes oil companies like BP, privately owned utilities like PSE, and institutions like public universities.

The Electric Vehicle Charging Program was created to help facilitate the installation of at least 200 direct current fast charging ports and 2,000 Level 2 charging ports across the state.

The state plans another round of grants this biennium, which ends in the middle of 2025, but it depends on the Legislature funding the governor’s proposed supplemental budget.