Sonoma & Mendocino Counties To Get $6.75 Million For EV Chargers

Clean Technica

The Sonoma Coast Incentive Project will provide $6.75 million in incentives for the installation of electric vehicle chargers in Sonoma and Mendocino counties over the next three years.

The Sonoma Coast Incentive Project’s partners are the California Electric Vehicle Incentive Project (CALeVIP), Sonoma Clean Power, and the Northern Sonoma County Air Pollution Control District. CALeVIP supports the adoption of electric vehicles in California by offering incentives for the installation of public EV charging stations.

It is funded by the California Energy Commission. California has a goal of getting five million electric vehicles on its roads by 2030 and 250,000 EV charging stations  by 2025.

Andy Hoskinson, Senior Manager of Electric Vehicle Initiatives at the Center for Sustainable Energy, answered some questions about the funding for CleanTechnica.

How many public EV chargers will be purchased and where will they be installed?

Around 500 Level 2 in Sonoma County and 85 Level 2 in Mendocino. As well there could be around 50 DC fast chargers installed in Sonoma and a handful in Mendocino.

Level 2 chargers will generally be located at destination locations, retail stores, wineries, government facilities, hotels, but apartment building or other multifamily communities and workplaces too.

DC fast chargers will be located at grocery stores/markets, hospitals, hotels, restaurants, colleges and other similar type sites.

Do you know currently where the public EV chargers will be located for disadvantaged and low-income communities in Mendocino County and unincorporated communities in Sonoma County?

We will only know where the EV chargers will be located in disadvantaged communities and low-income communities once they apply and are approved. However, they will of course need to be located within the disadvantaged community and low-income communities as defined by the state:

For the purposes of the project, DACs are identified by the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) as the top 25% most impacted census tracts in CalEnviroScreen 3.0 – a screening tool used to help identify communities disproportionally burdened by multiple sources of pollution and with population characteristics that make them more sensitive to pollution.

For purposes of the project, low-income communities are defined as the census tracts, respectively, that are either at or below 80 percent of the statewide median income, or at or below the threshold designated as low-income by the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s (HCD) 2016 State Income Limits.

Read more here: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/07/14/sonoma-mendocino-counties-to-get-6-75-million-for-ev-chargers/