1165379 - Promoting Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure for New Developments: Case Studies and Best Practices for Local Jurisdictions

Widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is essential to meet local, regional, and global climate change targets. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) reduce total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as local criteria air pollutant and air toxic emissions, in all parts of the United States, even regions where nearly all electricity is produced by coal-fired power plants. There are not nearly enough EV chargers currently or planned to supply the needs of a high-EV future. Cyclically, the presence of chargers increases EV adoption, so more chargers are needed to achieve that high-EV future.

To address the challenge of installing enough electric vehicle charging stations to accommodate the growing number of EVs and meet GHG emission reduction targets, local governments and lead agencies should incentivize land development projects to provide EV infrastructure in new construction during the development planning stages. Infrastructure needs may vary by building type and location but can include circuit capacity, pre-wiring, and chargers themselves to help spur this EV transition and avoid costly retrofits. Any mandates or mitigation measures should be flexible enough to allow for potential changes in charging needs in the future, such as unanticipated increases in EV market share or systemic changes toward connected and autonomous vehicles.

Currently, the mechanisms for increasing EV charging infrastructure vary by jurisdiction and in many cases provide land developers with no incentives for exceeding code or investing in charging infrastructure. In California, local governments have the opportunity to incentivize developers through the approval of large-scale development projects via the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) GHG thresholds. This presentation describes case studies from California and potential pitfalls that planning jurisdictions should consider when developing climate action plans, building code updates, GHG thresholds, and quantification methodologies that apply to new developments. If a jurisdiction’s overall policy goal is a world with high EV penetration (which we believe it should be in order to achieve GHG targets), jurisdictions should avoid requiring the most conservative calculational GHG emissions reductions assumptions to help encourage EV infrastructure development.