Commercial, Distributed Energy Resources, Energy Procurement, Industrial  -  July 27, 2016

White House unveils $4.5B in loan guarantees for EV charging, new private sector partnership

In collaboration with the private sector, the Obama Administration on July 27 announced a series of actions intended to accelerate deployment of electric vehicles and the charging infrastructure to support them.

Among them, the White House announced a new framework for collaboration with electric utilities and automakers that already has 50 signatories. 

The announcement includes:

• Unlocking up to $4.5 billion in loan guarantees and inviting applications to support the commercial-scale deployment of innovative electric vehicle charging facilities;
• Launching the "FAST Act" process to identify zero emission and alternative fuel corridors, including for electric vehicle charging across the country, and standing up an effort to develop a 2020 vision for a national network of electric vehicle fast-charging stations that will help determine where along the corridors it makes the most sense to locate the fast charging infrastructure;
• Announcing a call for state, county and municipal governments to partner with the Federal government to procure electric vehicle fleets at a discounted value;
• Leveraging the power of data and hosting an 'Electric Vehicle Hackathon’ to discover insights and develop new solutions for electric vehicle charging;
• Publishing a guide to federal funding, financing and technical assistance for electric vehicles and charging stations; and
• 35 new businesses, nonprofits, universities and utilities signing on to DOE’s "Workplace Charging Challenge" and committing to provide electric vehicle charging access for their workforce.

The news came on the heels of the U.S. DOE's first-ever "Sustainable Transportation Summit,"and was derived from a collaboration forged by the White House in partnership with DOE and the Department of Transportation, the Airforce and the Army, and the EPA, according to a White House fact sheet. The series of actions, the White House said, is centered on a new set of "Guiding Principles to Promote Electric Vehicles and Charging Infrastructure" that nearly 50 organizations have signed onto. 

Signatories to those principals include The Edison Electric Institute, which is the primary lobbying group for U.S. investor-owned utilities, along with a number of utilities as individual signatories, as well as leading auto manufacturers such as BMW, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., Mercedes-Benz USA LLC, Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. and Tesla.

"By working together across the federal government and with the private sector, we can ensure that electric vehicle drivers have access to charging stations at home, at work, and on the road – creating a new way of thinking about transportation that will drive America forward," the White House said in a statement.

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