Special to 1808Delaware
Ohio EPA has awarded $3.25 million in grants to support the installation of more than 500 publicly accessible Level 2 electric vehicle charging ports at more than 170 locations in 22 counties. The grants will help improve Ohioans’ access to electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Funding for the grants comes from Ohio’s allocations from the Volkswagen Mitigation Trust Fund. Public and private entities in 26 counties were eligible to apply for the grants which provide all or partial funding for the electric vehicle charging stations.
A detailed list of grant recipients and locations is available online.
Delaware County had two locations which received a total of $60,000. Both are through the City of Westerville, one at Community Center and one at the Sports Complex.
A separate round of grant funding for fast-charging stations is planned later this year. Ohio EPA also will be funding an electric school bus pilot project.
The Volkswagen Mitigation Trust Fund resulted from a federal lawsuit that alleged Volkswagen AG installed defect devices on certain vehicles (model years 2009-2016). The devices activated during emissions testing made vehicles appear to be compliant with the law, when in fact, during on-road operation, the vehicles emitted nine to 40 times the allowable amount of nitrogen oxides, a harmful air pollutant. A settlement filed with the court distributed funds to states based on the number of vehicles with the illegal devices that were registered within them.
The trust agreement requires each state to develop a plan to identify how funding will be allocated between 10 allowable uses that reduce nitrogen oxide emissions and offset damages. Ohio EPA has posted a copy of the state’s plan for the program on the Office of Environmental Education web page.
