Maryland has received a $15 million federal grant from the Biden-Harris administration to build 58 electric vehicle charging stations to be spread throughout the state.
Through the market and subsidies, electric vehicles are becoming more affordable but a lack of charging stations remains a barrier, especially in historically underinvested communities.
West Baltimore’s Coppin State University will get two stations. That’s where Governor Wes Moore, along with federal transportation leaders and U.S. Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, made the announcement Friday.
“You know who gets hurt most by the climate crisis?” asked Moore. “It's oftentimes the people who get hurt in the whole series of crises that we deal with… the same communities that continue to be left behind.”
The governor noted that those communities, often low-lying and in heat deserts, are the ones that bear the brunt of climate disasters — such as the coastal storm that swept through the region earlier in the week. The governor has championed his administration’s efforts to fight climate change, including the state’s goal to hit net-zero emissions by 2045. Hitting that likely means electrifying many communities and vehicles across the economic spectrum.
The charging stations are also essential infrastructure for the successful implementation of the state’s Advanced Clean Cars II regulation, which took effect in September, that requires manufacturers to steadily increase the percentage of zero emissions vehicles that they sell. By 2027, 43% of the vehicles sold by manufacturers must be zero emission and by 2035 that number must be zero.
The grant, administered to the Maryland Clean Energy Center, comes from the Biden Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. “Every community across the nation deserves access to convenient and reliable clean transportation,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm in a statement.
There will be 34 stations built in multi-family housing units across the state; subsidies will be available for some users and some of the sites, according to Edwin Luevanos, CEO, Co-Founder Citizen Energy, one of the companies constructing the stations in Maryland.
The stations will be built in rural and urban areas with construction set to begin late summer 2024.
The sites will also be built at various faith-based communities, in central municipal locations for fleet charging, tourist locations and auto dealerships.
