Shift Magazine - July 2021 - 19

" The auto industry seems committed
to converting to electric, " said Randy
Smith,
a program coordinator
in
the
Nebraska Department of Environmental
Quality. " So we are looking to provide
community charging and encourage
placement of chargers so that they would
facilitate long-distance travel with EVs. "
The second need for EV chargers is
to keep rural Americans apace with their
urban counterparts in adoption of essential
devices that govern life in a technologically
homogenized society.
Rural residents may be less inclined to
favor EVs. They also tend to like larger
vehicles such as pickups. One-third of
rural households have three or more
vehicles, which would require more
charging, compared with only 20 percent
of such households in cities, according to
research compiled by North Dakota State
University. And as of 2018, their median
income of $60,446 was $1,500 below
the national median.
GOOD CANDIDATES?
But there also are reasons to believe
rural denizens are great candidates for
EVs. The North Dakota study found residents
are more likely to drive alone to
work and have slightly longer commutes,
and they're much less likely to use public
transportation than city dwellers. Also,
they drive more, averaging 3.2 trips per
day and 42.5 miles.
A group of 29 electric co-ops in Iowa,
Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin last
year invested more than $100,000 to
buy and set up a network of more than
40 Level 2 and Level 3 chargers on interstate
and state highways, then coordinated
mobile apps so drivers could easily
charge across all four states.
Separately, 17 co-ops led by Dairyland
Power, based in LaCrosse, Wis., have
applied for $4 million in federal funding
to match their own $4 million to purchase
a couple hundred more chargers to be
spread across several states.
" Each of these co-ops already had
local projects underway, but they have
tremendous interest in growing their networks, "
said Brian Sloboda, director of
consumer solutions for the National Rural
Electric Cooperative Association.
Despite such efforts,
rural
locations
" generally don't have sufficient grid
circuitries " for EV fast chargers, said
Desmond Wheatley, CEO of Beam Global.
The San Diego-based company has been
promoting its solar- and wind-powered,
off-grid chargers as the ideal solution for
rural hamlets as well as for other remote
locations such as national parks.
COMPANIES STEP UP
Companies in rural America also are
taking the lead. Love's Travel Stops last
year partnered with Electrify America to
install 28 EV chargers in seven stations
across six states. And ChargePoint is
teaming with the National Association of
Truck Stop Operators to spend $1 billion
on charging stations at 4,000 sites in the
U.S., with a focus on rural communities.
Convenience stores and fueling centers
" are pivotal parts of communities and
may serve multiple purposes, " said Anne
Smart, vice president of public policy for
ChargePoint, a maker of EV chargers
based in Campbell, Calif. " When looking
within rural communities we want
to see full ecosystems, not just highway
corridors. "
But there are concerns. " We haven't
dipped our toe in Level 3 chargers yet, "
said Steve Wrobel, a spokesman for
LaCrosse-based Kwik Trip, which operates
more than 700 stores around the
Upper Midwest. " If there's going to be
demand for it, we'll answer that demand.
We know we have to get there eventually. "
n
La Plata Electric
Association's charging
station in Pagosa
Springs, Colo., near the
San Juan River.
july 2021 * shift 19
https://www.charge.coop/
Shift Magazine - July 2021

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