By Tom Latek

Kentucky Today

Gov. Andy Beshear announced Thursday the state will seek to expand its network of electric vehicle charging stations through grants from the federal government that will become available next spring.

“This fall we selected seven developers to build a total of 24 charging stations along interstates and parkways,” Beshear said during a Thursday press conference. “We will be issuing another request for proposals in early 2024 to fund more. This is a grant from the federal government, where we have to have so many of these charging stations every so many miles on our interstates and parkways. We have such a great system of those roads in Kentucky, that it covers a lot.”

He noted the state received nearly $70 million to help with this earlier effort through the bipartisan infrastructure law, but there is another opportunity for local governments to bring even more chargin stations to their communities.

“This coming spring, the federal government is expected to start accepting grant applications from local governments and other eligible entitles that want to build and maintain charging stations,” Beshear stated. “These chargers can be built on federally approved corridors or within communities, such as near schools, parks, public roads, tourist attractions. There are $2.5 billion that are going to be up for grabs across the country, and we want as much of it as we can, here in the Commonwealth.”

He encouraged local communities and their eligible partners to start preparing now. “We want to make sure we have more applications than the rest. If selected, the federal government will pay 80% of the total project costs, leaving local governments with just a 20% match.”

Those interested in participating in the grant program should go to the resources page at the website evcharging.ky.gov, for more information and to learn how to prepare.