By Greentech
Lead Team: Green Mountain Power (GMP) and the City of Montpelier announced the
opening of a new public electric vehicle (EV) charging station.
Public can
charge their vehicles at the station at no cost for the first year. This is the
third public EV charging station that GMP has made available to the people of
Vermont.
By using
Coulomb Technologies CT2100 Chargepoint, electric vehicle charging station is
able to charge all electric vehicles on the market today. It includes customer
oriented features such as on-line and smart phone directions and reservations,
driver notification of charge status, and effortless charging session
initiation.
“Providing
this infrastructure across Vermont is a critical step toward the increased use
of electric vehicles. This project and others like it are essential to our
efforts to make alternative energy vehicles — and the savings they can provide
— more accessible to Vermonters,” said Mary Powell, president and CEO of
Green Mountain Power.
Public
charging stations provide a critical service to drivers as they are often used
to “top off” vehicles to extend their travel range.
In addition
to the Montpelier charging station, Green Mountain Power
has installed two more EV fuelling stations at the region. Each EV charging
station is paired with a nearby solar array that generates enough clean renewable
energy to offset the electricity required by the charging station.
With these
EV charging stations, Vermont can reduce reliance on foreign oil and lower
their emissions.
Green
Mountain Power currently operates 22 hybrid vehicles, including two bucket
trucks and three Toyota Prius converted to plug-in hybrids powered by solar
arrays, and two GEM neighborhood electric vehicles.
Recently,
Green Mountain Power and Central Vermont Public Service launched a new website,
packed with information on the pending merger of the companies.