Applications for the Electric Vehicle Charger Reliability and Accessibility Accelerator which will provide up to $100 million in Federal funding to repair and replace existing but non-operational, electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure are now available. These targeted investments will complement hundreds of billions in private sector investment, support good paying jobs across the country installing, maintaining, and repairing EV infrastructure, and make our current charging network more reliable. Reliability is a critical component to the comprehensive approach to build a convenient, affordable, reliable, equitable, and Made-in-America national EV charging network.
The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program, a $5 billion program created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administered by the Federal Highway Administration to help states build out EV charging sites, stipulates a 10 percent set-aside for grants to States and localities that require additional assistance to strategically deploy electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The first round of funding will focus on improving the reliability of the current network by repairing or replacing existing EV charging infrastructure at the same time the administration is making larger-scale investments to deploy new charging stations.
Based on initial estimates of non-operational chargers, FHWA anticipates that the available $100 million in funding will likely cover the repair or replacement costs of all eligible projects, which will be awarded through a streamlined application process. This includes both publicly and privately owned chargers – so long as they are available to the public without restriction.
The program is informed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) Station Locator, which identifies offline stations as temporarily unavailable. A charger can be identified as temporarily unavailable for several reasons, ranging from routine maintenance to power issues. On September 11, 2023, the AFDC indicated that out of 151,506 public charging ports, 6,261 (4.1 percent) were temporarily unavailable.
Eligible applicants and projects for the EV Reliability and Accessibility Accelerator are outlined in a Notice of Funding Opportunity. Applications are due by November 13, 2023.