Connecticut Wants to Add More Electric Vehicle Charging Stations
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Gillian Mullings, an Assistant Store Manager at Tesla Motors in Westchester N.Y. shows features for the Tesla Model F to Drew Pelletie, an employee at the Clean Energy Finance Investment Authority, a state-run agency Tuesday afternoon at the EVConnecticut Expo sponsored by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) at Middlesex Community College in Middletown. (Catherine Avalone - The Middletown Press) |
MIDDLETOWN >> Connecticut officials plan to use $200,000 from a settlement with Northeast Utilities and NStar to help double the number of electric car recharging stations in the state by the end of this year.
State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Daniel Esty and James Redeker, his counterpart at the state Department of Transportation, announced the new initiative at an electric vehicle expo Tuesday at Middlesex Community College. Esty said the goal of using the money from the settlement, which paved the way for the NU-NStar merger in April 2012, “is to bring an end to range anxiety.”
“We are building a new infrastructure so that people can purchase electric vehicle and drive them around without the fear of running out of juice,” Esty said. “The point of doing this is not to tell people what to do, but to provide consumers with more choice.”
The state is looking to work with businesses, municipalities and institutions that will to match the $2,000 to $3,000 it will put up to pay for the charging stations, and is seeking to have its partners put up an equal amount. In addition, Esty said the state is looking for partners that are the most accessible to the general public and are willing to cover the costs of the electricity used to recharge the vehicles that use the stations for three years.
“We expect the amount of electricity to be used at these stations to be about $100 a year,” Esty said.
Mayor Daniel Drew said the plan to expand the recharging stations is “a hallmark in Yankee ingenuity.”
“I feel odd saying this because I came here in a Crown Victoria, but I hope that one day, there will be many of these all over the city of Middletown,” Drew said.
The expo attracted about 150 visitors to the college’s hillside campus, including Gilles Chirignan of Uxbridge, Mass., who is a member of the New England Electric Automobile Association. Chirignan drives an electric car, a Toyota that was modified from gas power to electric ,but was eyeing a Tesla sedan that was parked in the school’s lower parking lot along with more than a half-dozen electric vehicles.
“I’m saving up for that one,” he joked as he looked over the sleek vehicle, which is priced between $62,400 and $87,400 depending upon options selected.
David Patterson, Mitsubishi Motors’ chief engineer for mobile emissions, regulatory affairs and certification, said despite a $28,000-plus sticker price for the Japanese automaker’s entry into the electric market, the MiEv, about 60 percent of the consumers getting the vehicle are purchasing it rather than leasing in them.
That’s in contrast to the trend for the electric vehicle industry as a whole. Data-research firm Experian Automotive reports that 93 percent of electric cars delivered from October through December 2012 were leased.
Watson Collins, a business development manager with NU, said the utility is following the changes in the industry closely.
“We like to be involved with the technology that uses are power,” Collins said.
