Burlington Electric Department Expands Electric Vehicle Charger Program

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
March 14, 2022

Vermont public power utility Burlington Electric Department (BED) is expanding an electric vehicle charging program for residents of various types of buildings in the city.

The original program deployed 14 chargers at rental and multi-family buildings in Burlington, Vt., with 10 made available to public as well as building residents.

Over the last six-month period for which data was available they provided about 6,000 kilowatt hours of charging, noted Darren Springer, general manager for the utility.

The program will now have funding for approximately 60 additional charger installations over the next few years at rental or multi-family or condo buildings, he said.

There will be incentives for smart chargers that use EVmatch software to make charging available during certain times of day to public and certain times just for building residents, or for house meter chargers available exclusively for residents. EVmatch is a nationwide network for sharing and renting private EV charging stations.

There will also be additional incentives for chargers at buildings that provide housing for low-income residents.

Incentives will cover between approximately 50-75% of a charger’s installation cost.

With 60 percent of residential customers being renters, BED, through its partnership with EVmatch, is able to provide charging opportunities to a previously underserved and wide portion of its community.

In doing so, BED is helping its customers take one more significant step down the path toward Net Zero energy, the utility noted.