Dane County recently secured a $13.2M federal grant to expand electric vehicle (EV) charging in areas of the county that are underserved by the private market. This means more chargers for multi-family neighborhoods where renters don’t have personal garages for charging, more charging in rural Dane County and more charging at multi-modal hubs, the spots where transit and biking/walking and driving all coincide.
Our effort is called Charge Up Dane County and this is a big deal.
This grant will enable us to make EV charging infrastructure more equitable. A core commitment of our office is that everyone in Dane County be able to realize the benefits of a clean energy economy, that our clean energy future is more equitable than our dirty energy past. Relative to EVs that means everyone needs access to affordable EV charging so that they can realize the benefits of driving an EV. Most of the early adopters of EVs were homeowners, people with private garages where they could charge their EVs. But as the market expands more and more renters will have the opportunity to own EVs and we want those renters to have access to affordable charging too. We are excited to address this issue and, even before the grant papers are finalized, I’m reading studies about EV charging for multi-unit dwellings like this piece from The Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at UC-Berkeley and RMI’s analysis. We are grateful that we’ll be able to learn from pioneering work in other areas of the country as we strive to make EV charging more equitable here in Dane County.
This funding is also a big deal because our winning proposal was truly collaborative. Last year we convened interested parties to write this proposal and the group included several dozen people from local governments, Madison College and UW staff, representatives from all three of the major electric utilities serving the county and a variety of public interest groups. Over the course of a few months people helped write the grant narrative, develop the budget and gather letters of support for our effort. We learned from each other and created a common vision of a future where everyone has access to EV charging infrastructure. And all of this matters because collaboration is a key priority for our office too: we know that we can achieve bigger outcomes together and we are grateful for all the entities who helped us submit a winning proposal.
The work, of course, is just beginning. Once the grant begins be yet more collaboration as we work with neighborhoods to determine the best locations for charging stations. And then there’ll be new jobs created to install those chargers and, ideally, all of this will expedite more equitable EV adoption across Dane County, which in turn supports our broader climate action goals.
This EV grant is a victory for everyone in Dane County. So congratulations and let’s get to work.
