NREL report says EV charging stations continued strong growth in early 2020

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
November 12, 2020

During the first three months of 2020, public electric vehicle supply equipment grew 7.6%, according to a new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Of that, direct-current fast chargers made up the largest piece of the pie, expanding by 10.6%, NREL said in the report.

The metrics build on a consistent upward trend across the country for charging stations, according to Abby Brown, a project manager in NREL’s Sustainable Transportation Integration group and co-author of the report.

“Since about 2011, we’ve seen strong year-over-year growth in charging infrastructure,” she said in a statement. “Between December of 2015 and 2019 alone, for example, the number of charging stations doubled. It was much the same in early 2020: more growth in all parts of the country.”

NREL reported that while all regions saw substantial growth during the quarter, a few stood out.

The Northeast (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut) saw an increase of over 10%, the fastest growth in the country.

California’s charging infrastructure grew by 9%, “even as it continued to boast the largest share of the country’s public charging infrastructure,” NREL said.

The states with the highest rate of charging stations per 100,000 people were Vermont (105.3), California (64.0), Washington D.C. (63.3), Hawaii (47.7), and Colorado (40.9).

Private electric vehicle supply equipment, such as charging for transit fleets or employees only, grew by 3.2%, bringing the total of private electric vehicle supply equipment to nearly 14,000.

Direct-current fast and Level 2 electric vehicle supply equipment are 49.6% and 12%, respectively, of the way toward meeting projected 2030 charging demand for 15 million EVs, though 56.2% of public direct-current fast chargers are only available to Tesla drivers, NREL said.

ChargePoint made up nearly 44% of public electric vehicle supply equipment in the station locator, the largest of any charging network.

The report’s statistics tap data from the Alternative Fueling Station Locator, which NREL said is the most widely used tool on the Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center.

The report is available here.