‘Electric revolution’ begins as Pennsylvania awards grants for 54 vehicle charging stations

By the end of next year, 54 new electric vehicle charging stations should be open across Pennsylvania, including three in Allegheny County.

The stations, which will cost $33.8 million, mark the first round of the Biden administration’s effort to expand the use of electric vehicles by building 500,000 new charging stations across the country so EV drivers don’t have to worry about running out of power with no place to recharge. The goal is for electric vehicles to make up at least half of automobile sales by 2030 to reduce pollution and create jobs in vehicle manufacturing and station construction.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration announced the first contracts for the program Monday at an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers training center near Scranton. The state expects to receive $171.5 million over five years to install about 150 new stations under the $7.5 billion federal program, and could be eligible for additional stations through discretionary funds.

“We could potentially have a few in operation by the end of the year, but most of them will be in 2024,” Natasha Fackler, PennDOT’s infrastructure implementation coordinator, said in an interview after the announcement.

Fackler said there has been “strong interest” in the station program, with 271 applications for $165.4 million in the first round. The next round of bids will be opened in the fall for about $20 million worth of work.

For the first two rounds, the state is concentrating on filling gaps in what is called the state’s “Alternative Fuel Corridors,” areas along the interstate highway system and Route 30 in central Pennsylvania where charging stations are more than 50 miles apart. The initial charging stations are required to fill those gaps under federal regulations, so that major highways have stations less than 50 miles apart and less than 1 mile off the highway.

The program also requires stations in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods and 22 stations in the first round of funding will serve those areas.

Developers and locations slated for Allegheny County in the first round are Sheetz Inc., $684,088 for a station near the Sewickley exit on Interstate 79; Tesla Inc., $231,786 for a station at the GetGo near the Parkway East exit in Monroeville; and Universal EV LLC, $384,880 for a station at Comfort Suites just off the Montour Run Road exit of the Parkway West in Findlay.

Tesla currently has a number of charging stations across the state exclusively for its high-end vehicles, but stations in the federal program must be available for all electric vehicles. Tesla and Sheetz each received 12 grants.

The projects range in cost from $1.12 million for an Applegreen Electric PA LLC station just off I-70 in Washington County to $204,232 for Tesla stations in Lackawanna (two) and York counties. Developers contribute 20% of the cost.

Project costs are different because some stations are expansions of existing facilities, Fackler said, while others involve acquiring property and developing the site.

Andrew Rogers, deputy administrator for the Federal Highway Administration, said in an interview after the announcement that Pennsylvania is among the first half-dozen states to award the first round of development contracts. The program is moving along as expected, Rogers said, with no shortage in supplies or workers because the IBEW and others are providing apprenticeship programs to train workers who want to be involved in what he called “the electric revolution.”

Rogers said there also has been a lot of interest in investing in poorer neighborhoods.

“It’s less of a requirement and more of an opportunity,” he said. “You are seeing a lot of deliberate investment in communities. There are a lot of opportunities there.”

Those opportunities are important for Pennsylvania residents, state transportation Secretary Mike Carroll said in a news release.

“These new investments will create good paying jobs and allow Pennsylvanian residents, businesses and visitors to travel across the commonwealth faster, cleaner and more reliably,” he said.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., agreed.

“This funding will allow us to deploy electric vehicle charging stations across our commonwealth, from cities to suburbs to rural areas, promoting energy security, creating jobs and reducing our carbon footprint,” he said.