State officials outline Charge Vermont rollout, remaining funds and rural gaps in EV charging network

State officials on Wednesday briefed the House Committee on Transportation on Charge Vermont, the state’s multi-million-dollar program to expand electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and said the program has put dozens of projects into construction but still has geographic gaps, especially for DC fast charging in rural areas.

Bronwyn Cook, the program lead supporting the Charge Vermont effort in the Community Planning and Revitalization Division of the Department of Housing and Community Development, said the Legislature in 2021 approved $10 million to expand the agency’s EV charging work and that a $7 million portion was structured as the Charge Vermont grant program. “DC fast charge is just 1 part of the whole network,” Cook told the committee, adding the program focuses mostly on level 1 and level 2 chargers in multi‑unit housing, workplaces and public “attractions,” and a separate competitive round targeted DC fast charging for long‑distance gaps.

Why it matters: officials said residential charging — especially at multi‑unit properties — is essential to reaching the state’s EV goals without overreliance on expensive DC fast chargers. The committee heard that local differences in utility costs and transformer capacity can discourage applicants in some rural counties, and that additional targeted funding and technical assistance will be needed to fill those gaps.

Key details from the presentation and committee discussion:

- Program structure and partnerships: The Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD) administers the program through its Community Planning and Revitalization Division, working in partnership with Green Mountain Power (GMP) as program administrator. The program also coordinates with VTrans and the Department of Buildings and General Services (BGS) for state workplace charging.

- Funding and statutory authority: Committee members were told the 2021 legislation (Act 185) appropriated $10 million for EVSE programs and the Charge Vermont rollout uses a roughly $7 million portion for three program areas (multi‑unit residential level 1/2; workplace level 1/2; public attractions level 1/2/3). ACCD also signed a $500,000 MOU with BGS to fund state workplace chargers. In the most recent session, Act 148 authorized an additional $1.7 million that ACCD said will be used to create a county funding “floor” to improve geographic equity.

- Program pace and pipeline: Officials said the program received more than 500 pre‑applications over two years. As of the briefing, staff reported roughly 59 projects in contract and estimated the current funding levels should allow roughly 200 projects and about 800 ports overall because actual incentive requests have trended lower than early estimates. Cook summarized the program’s early estimate of about 150 projects had been revised upward as projects tended to be smaller or request smaller incentives.

- Geographic caps and a new county floor: To ensure statewide dispersion when scaling from $1 million to $10 million, the program imposed a 10% county cap (about $486,000). ACCD said Act 148’s $1.7 million will allow that 10% cap to act as a floor in each county for a limited period (officials said they plan to hold the reserved funds for up to three years), and will reopen workplace eligibility in counties that had already reached their earlier workplace allocations.

- DC fast charge competitive grants: ACCD ran a competitive round for DC fast charging to fill long‑distance gaps; staff said they invited 23 applicants to full application and made nine awards. Officials noted many noncompetitive applicants were municipalities that did not submit full proposals because DC fast chargers are complex and costly to host and operate.

- Barriers: Committee members asked about transformer upgrades and other utility‑side costs. Cook said the program’s make‑ready incentive caps at about $20,000 and will not cover large transformer upgrades; as a result, sites that require expensive distribution upgrades often don’t apply because the program does not cover that cost. GMP staff agreed that transformer or distribution upgrade costs are a factor, particularly for rural uptake, and that practices vary by utility — some utilities absorb upgrades, others require applicants to pay.

- Multi‑unit and management questions: The program team said most awarded projects are for level 2 chargers; only a handful of level 1 awards were in contract. Staff emphasized the project development phase — site visits, design estimates, property owner approvals and contractor selection — is the longest part of the process. The program requires property‑owner signoff for installations on privately owned multi‑unit sites, and staff said they worry that applications relying on reluctant or grudging property‑owner approvals would likely fail to close out.

- Data and evaluation: ACCD and VTrans are working with Drive Electric Vermont to analyze usage data from networked stations. Cook said earlier grantees were required to report raw usage data and that Drive Electric Vermont will produce summary analyses to help evaluate how stations are used over time.

- Public visibility and completed projects: Staff said they will publish a list of fully completed projects on the program website once sites are closed out, but cautioned that many projects in the pipeline are still in design or contracting and that the program has not yet posted a comprehensive itemized list of every application and its status.

Quotes from the hearing:

- “DC fast charge is just 1 part of the whole network,” Bronwyn Cook, Charge Vermont program lead, said while explaining how residential and workplace charging reduce reliance on expensive fast chargers.

- “I wanna say it generates around $800,000 to support the build out of the infrastructure in the state,” Chris Cochran, director of Community Planning and Revitalization, said when describing the EV registration fee revenue; committee staff and VTrans later clarified how some of the recent allocations and transfers were structured across multiple fiscal actions.

- “Once projects are fully installed, we’ll post…we’ll update our website and have a list of once they’re fully installed,” Cook said when asked whether committee members could see completed project locations.

What the committee directed or decided during the session:

- No formal votes were taken during the briefing. Committee members asked for clearer public reporting of completed projects and for staff to continue coordinating with VTrans, GMP and Drive Electric Vermont on analytics and targeted outreach to counties with lower uptake.

Ongoing issues and next steps:

- Officials said they will use the Act 148 funds and program reserves to create a county funding floor and reopen certain program categories in counties that had reached earlier caps. They also said additional technical assistance and possibly revised eligibility (for example, whether to include public attractions more broadly) could be considered to target remaining rural charging gaps.

- Drive Electric Vermont will perform analysis of station usage data to inform program adjustments and best‑practice guidance for property managers and host sites.

Ending note: Program staff emphasized the Charge Vermont rollout has moved quickly with substantial early demand but that the program has not yet reached a steady annual pace; they estimated current staffing and pipeline would allow roughly 30 completed projects per year if the reserved funds for counties are maintained, compared with a higher throughput while initial funds were abundant.