Over $41 million in federal grants will bring over 180 electric vehicle chargers to communities across Western Washington.
The money is part of $623 million in EV charger grants announced nationwide by the Biden administration Thursday.
As part of an effort to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from America’s reliance on combustion engine cars, President Joe Biden set a goal of building out a national network of at least 500,000 electric vehicle chargers by 2030. Electric vehicle sales across the U.S. have more than quadrupled in the past few years.
Congress approved $7.5 billion in a 2021 infrastructure law aimed at meeting Biden’s goal of expanding the national network of charging stations. To date, the Associated Press reported that the number of publicly available charging ports has grown by nearly 70% to 168,426.
Washington state is a leader in the electric vehicle transition. About 150,000 electric vehicles are registered in Washington, a segment of passenger vehicles that has grown sixfold in five years. While the price tag on a new or used EV is still out of reach for many, a crush of people are ditching their gasoline-powered cars.
In Washington state, the grants will add to local efforts to incentivize drivers to switch to EVs through state and federal tax credits and exemptions.
Drivers traveling between Oregon and Canada on I-5 have consistent access to charging stations, but Washington drivers have identified hundreds of additional locations across the state where they’d like to see charging stations.
For the city of Port Angeles, which is receiving about $2.1 million to install 50 chargers along Highway 101, it’ll help ensure locals and tourists coming to hike, bike, swim and explore the peninsula can drive an EV and feel confident they’ll have somewhere to charge up, Public Works Director Mike Healy said.
The city in 2022 resolved to reduce transportation emissions as part of its Climate Resiliency Plan. Emissions from cars, trucks and buses traveling through the city make up about two-thirds of Port Angeles’ carbon footprint, the city found.
Currently, Port Angeles has about a dozen chargers at city hall, local hotels and waterfront businesses.
“We are honored to receive this award and fulfill this important project,” Mayor Kate Dexter wrote in an email. “This grant will not only enhance accessibility of electric vehicles in our community, it will also contribute significantly to our City’s sustainability and climate resiliency goals.”
Energy Northwest received about $14.6 million to bring 40 fast chargers and 12 slower chargers to rural and Indigenous communities across Western Washington and Northern Oregon. The utility plans to build charging stations in Forks, Ilwaco, Kalaloch, Kamilche, Longview, Port Ludlow, Quilcene, Raymond, Sequim and Shelton.
Another $12 million is coming to the ports of Seattle and Tacoma to help meet their electrification goals and reduce particulate pollution that wafts into nearby communities from trucks, ships and other idling vehicles.
South Seattle has long borne the burden of hosting some of the city’s biggest polluting industries, and studies in recent years have found that exposure has contributed to premature deaths, births, and more deaths caused by cancer, heart disease and chronic lower respiratory disease.
The intent is to use the money to develop one or more shared electric truck charging hubs to serve a network of about 4,500 heavy-duty trucks that provide cargo hauling services to the ports of Seattle and Tacoma.
“The thing that is encouraging is at the federal, state and local level, people have identified trucks as an important thing to address,” Port of Seattle Commissioner Fred Felleman said. “On the downside, everybody wants to deal with trucks and coordination is not one of our greatest strengths.”
Felleman said while clean truck technology exists, it is largely unaffordable to the independent immigrant truck driver community. He wants to focus efforts on identifying port properties that could be used to build out charging infrastructure.
Up north, the city of Mount Vernon will use $12.5 million to install nearly 80 charging ports in a public parking garage by the Skagit River and I-5. The intent is to add another 200 charging ports here in the future, according to a news release from U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell’s office.
“These grants will help build out the EV charging infrastructure our state needs to reduce driving costs, lower carbon pollution, and improve the air quality at our two largest ports,” Cantwell said in a statement. “More charging stations make it easier for Washingtonians to go electric and enjoy savings over the life of their cars from fueling with clean and affordable electricity instead of gasoline.”
