WEST LEBANON — Two climate-focused committees in Hartford and Lebanon are working to install new chargers for electric vehicles.

Seven electric vehicle charging stations will be installed in a parking lot on South Main Street in White River Junction; the town is also working on installing three additional chargers in White River Junction, possibly in the same parking lot. In Lebanon, one new station will be installed downtown while the city seeks funding for several other projects.

The two groups — Hartford’s Energy Commission and the Lebanon Energy Advisory Committee’s Electric Vehicle Subcommittee — hope that installing these stations will boost local economies, make electric vehicles more accessible and make it easier for people with electric vehicles to get around.

These infrastructure goals also align with a growing national adoption of electric vehicles. There has been consistent growth in the number of registered light duty electric vehicles in the Twin States, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The department also shows 19 current locations with public electric vehicle charging in Lebanon and eight locations in Hartford.

The seven confirmed charging stations in Hartford will each have two ports; Hartford has secured $36,100 to fund the project through the Vermont Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment Grant. They will be slower chargers, known as level two, that can fully power a vehicle over the course of several hours.

Meanwhile, the pending Hartford project is for faster chargers, called level three, that can power a vehicle in 45 minutes.

The hope is to install the level three chargers in downtown White River Junction “as an economic builder,” Hartford Environment and Sustainability Coordinator Dana Clawson said at a Sept. 17 Selectboard meeting. “We want to have a place where folks can come down and walk to our amenities while they’re charging within an hour.”

Installing EV Charging stations increases spending at nearby businesses, according to research published in the journal Nature Communications.

Vendors submitted applications for the project at the end of last week and Clawson said “hopefully” the committee will soon know where exactly the stations will be and what vendors will oversee the project. Clawson said he has discussed also installing these chargers in the South Main Street parking lot with the Vermont Department of Transportation, or VTrans, which identified White River Junction as a primary site to install the faster chargers, Clawson said.

Piority locations are within 50 miles of federally designated Alternative Fuel Corridors and within 1 mile of the corridor exit or interchange. In White River Junction, this corridor includes portions of routes 91 and 89. However, Clawson worked with VTrans to approve the South Main Street location which is more than one mile from the interchange of routs 89 and 91. The VTrans program is distributing federal funding allocated to Vermont through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program.

In Lebanon, a subcommittee of the Lebanon Energy Advisory Committee also is prioritizing locations for potential EV charging stations based on their proximity to businesses or to multi-unit and affordable housing. This aligns with an overall goal the committee has to make electric vehicles more accessible to people who do not live in single family homes.

The EV Subcommittee has identified several areas in the city without charging stations. There are currently no public charging stations in the downtown area — although this will soon change — or along West Lebanon’s Main Street. The subcommittee says there are also “insufficient or inconvenient” stations to serve multi-unit housing in north Lebanon near the town line with Hanover, according to a request for qualifications written by the board.

In a win for the EV Subcommittee, the city has agreed to purchase a “Solaflect” solar charging station that will be placed in the Taylor Street parking lot behind City Hall, Lebanon Energy and Facilities Manager Tad Montgomery said in a Friday interview. The station costs $50,000, but the Subcommittee estimates a $15,600 federal direct pay rebate. Direct pay, or elective pay, was introduced by the Biden Administration as a resource to partially fund qualifying clean energy projects and it is a non-competitive resource, unlike grants and loans that any city qualifies for.

Solaflect is a Norwich-based solar company that makes solar-powered EV charging stations that operate off the grid and do not have to be installed permanently in the ground.

The EV Subcommittee had been working with Solaflect to equip a payment system on the charging station so that users will be charged for the electricity instead of the city. While Solaflect works out how to equip the system, the company has agreed to cover the costs of all electricity used, Tom Benzel, a citizen representative on the EV Subcommittee, announced at a Sept. 12 meeting. The company has also agreed to purchase the station back if a payment system cannot be installed

“I’ve been holding their feet to the fire and saying there’s no way we’re putting that in without a way to pay unless you pay, and they said OK,” Benzel said.

Lebanon’s remaining EV projects are still uncertain as the subcommittee continues to search for funding, Montgomery said.

Lebanon has seen multiple funding sources for other projects fall through. Most recently, the EV Subcommittee was not selected for a grant that would have funded EV charging stations at eight locations in Lebanon, including a mix of level two and three chargers, and electric bike charging stations, Lebanon EV Subcommittee Chairwoman Sherry Boschert announced in the Sept. 12 meeting. This was the city’s second attempt to secure a grant from the Federal Highway Administration.

Similarly, in June, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu pulled the city’s application for a state grant that would have funded a charging station for municipal vehicles and two electric street sweepers.

The city may still be selected for an additional round of funding at the state level, Boschert said, but this will not include funding for e-bike or solar-powered charging stations.

Unlike the original proposal, the second round application proposes charging stations at the Lebanon airport, Montgomery said.

While the city waits to hear results of the grant, which Montgomery estimated may happen before the end of the year, the city is seeking contractors for the projects. They have outlined 12 proposed locations, including three level three charging stations, that may be funded by a mix of grant and tax increment finance district, or TIFD, funding.

In the downtown Lebanon TIFD, tax revenue from new developments can be used for infrastructure projects; the district was established in 2018 to increase development in the downtown area.

EV enthusiasts from across the region, including representatives from the Lebanon EV Subcommittee, plan to attend the Upper Valley EV Expo in New London this weekend. More information is online at uvevexpo.org.

Clare Shanah an can be reached at cshanahan@ vnews.com or 603-727-3216.