The state’s congressional delegation and New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer gathered Monday to announce a network where you can charge an electric vehicle while jogging at the park or visiting the local library.
The project is funded in part by the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
New Castle County currently has eight public EV charging plugs between Brandywine Hundred Library, Bear Library and Appoquinimink Library, with four more coming online in the next few weeks at the newly opened Southern Park in Middletown.
Phase 1 of the plan includes the use $403,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant to install seven chargers and 14 plugs at Woodlawn Library and Delcastle Park. The “100 EV Plugs Plan” will leverage federal, state, and county funding to install 106 publicly available Level 2 and Level 3 charging plugs at parks and libraries. The EV chargers come with built in credit card and app readers.
“We’re incredibly proud of the work we’ve done here in New Castle County to make our County greener, but we’ve got a long way to go,” said Meyer. “We’re excited to partner with the federal delegation to help make electric vehicle ownership easier for Delawareans. Thank you to Senators Carper, Coons and Representative Blunt Rochester for their continued support in reducing carbon emissions and improving air quality in the First State.”
Electric vehicle sales are growing. However, the number of charging stations has not kept pace and may be limiting sales. Public stations are needed for those traveling, living in apartments or with homes not wired for high-speed chargers.
Electric vehicle giant Tesla has led the way with Supercharger stations at Wawas and Royal Farms. Although plug-ins are largely limited to Teslas, other automakers will offer adapters for that high-speed network.
One lingering issue has been reliability problems with charger sites, which require complex systems that can provide power and process credit cards.
The 100 EV Plugs Plan will install EV Chargers at the following county libraries and parks:
- Bear Library
- Brandywine Hundred Library
- Claymont Library
- Hockessin Library
- Kirkwood Library
- Route 9 Library
- Woodlawn Library
- Appoquinimink Library
- Newark Library
- Delcastle Park
- Glasgow Park
- Banning Park
- Southern Park
- Rockwood Park
- Carousel Park
