As part of a flurry of last-minute grant announcements before next week’s presidential transition, the Biden administration has awarded the Philadelphia area another $11.1 million to install public electrical vehicle chargers.
The grant will help pay for 100 charging stations, each with two ports, for a total of 200 ports, according to the city’s Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (OTIS). Seventy-five of the stations will be installed in Philly, in locations like city- and Philadelphia Parking Authority-owned lots, and 25 elsewhere in the region.
The funds come from the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure grants program, a section of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021.
OTIS and the PPA will identify charger locations in the city, and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission will work with counties to select spots outside Philadelphia, per OTIS. They will focus on historically disadvantaged neighborhoods, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The funding will pay for community engagement, planning, design, installation and workforce development. The announcement did not say when the chargers will be available to EV drivers.
The federal grants are expected to help remedy a dearth of public chargers in Philadelphia, which are needed to allow city residents without garages or driveways to more easily top off their vehicle batteries, and encourage more people to buy EVs, officials said.
“One of the challenges in transitioning to electric vehicles is ensuring that a robust, accessible network of public charging stations is available to everyone,” U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon said. “This investment in that new charging network will make it easier for EV drivers across our region to charge their cars, reduce our carbon footprint, and support the American workers building these charging stations.”
Mayor Cherelle Parker said improved access to chargers will “support an equitable EV transition that will uphold our city’s climate goals as well as my vision for a Safer, Cleaner, and Greener Philadelphia.”
Lots of money, few actual chargers
The EV charging news follows USDOT’s awarding of nearly $40 million in grants for other Philadelphia projects last week: $23 million for road-calming work on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Eakins Oval, $14 million to extend the Schuylkill River Trail, and $2 million for the Center City District’s plan to build a second Rail Park segment.
A total of $635.69 million in EV charging grants was announced for awardees in 31 states and Washington, D.C. In Pennsylvania the other grants are $4.1 million for 150 EV ports in Allegheny County and $3.1 million for 74 ports in Lancaster.
The funding decisions come amid complaints about the slow rollout of the three-year-old infrastructure law’s $2.5 billion Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) program and $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program.
As of October, for example, there were reportedly only 19 NEVI-funded chargers installed across the country. Another report put the number of ports — not chargers — paid for by the program at 102 in November, and installations have continued since then.
Pennsylvania is slated to receive a total of $171.5 million from CFI and NEVI. So far five NEVI-funded charges are operational, according to a PennDOT map of projects, and another 86 are planned or under construction.
Total EV grants exceed $20 million so far
The $11 million announced this week adds to Philadelphia’s bank of federal funding for EV chargers.
The first round of federal EV charging grants, from NEVI, focused on creating “alternative fuel corridors” and is largely paying for chargers along highways outside of cities. Philadelphia has one NEVI-funded project, at a PPA lot on 6th Street, near Girard Avenue in Northern Liberties. The $815,120 grant will cover 80% of the project cost.
Construction of that charging station is expected to happen sometime this year.
Last summer, an earlier round of CFI grants awarded nearly $9 million for two projects to install fast EV chargers.
The city will get $6.8 million for planning, community engagement and installation of curbside chargers in underserved neighborhoods, including at three recreation centers near public transportation. The project aims “to expand access to low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and improve access to EV charging in communities with multifamily housing,” according to USDOT.
The other $2.2 million grant will go toward an EV charging hub at Philadelphia International Airport.
The city is also receiving $1.5 million from the federal Joint Office of Energy and Transportation for Plug In Philly, a workforce development program to recruit and train diverse city residents for careers in electric vehicle supplies and equipment.
Separately, OTIS last fall asked companies to submit proposals to install EV chargers on curbs and parking lots around the city. The agency wants them to put in and operate the chargers at no cost to taxpayers, and to give the city a percentage of any revenues.
OTIS is currently reviewing company bids. It has not disclosed the number of chargers or where they will be installed. The CFI grant funding will be used to subsidize those chargers, OTIS said.