West Stockbridge — Life may soon get a bit more convenient for residents and tourists driving electric vehicles through West Stockbridge.
During the town’s July 29 Select Board meeting, members mulled a proposal presented by the Vision Committee’s Joe Roy Jr. that could add electric vehicle charging stations to designated local spots, with the town on the hook for only the cost of electricity used by the project in its first year. That cost could be covered by station user fees.
According to Roy, the committee has researched embarking on this type of program for about 18 months, hitting a dead end as far as federal and state grant funding options are concerned. However, a conversatoin between Select Board Chair Andrew Potter and East Coast Renewable Energy (East Coast) President Nicholas Valorie through the former’s contacts at the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) enlightened the group to the unique terms of a possible alliance with the company. Potter was recently appointed to the MMA’s Policy Committee on Energy and the Environment whose members focus on state policy including renewable energy and conservation.
On July 15, Valorie met with the Vision Committee, advocating for the five-year program that would create fast-charge Level 3 stations within the town’s borders at no cost to the municipality for its first year of operation, with the product of National Grid and Eversource incentives covering the majority of equipment and installation costs. East Coast would donate the remainder of the fees, including five years of software needed to run the stations. After year one, however, West Stockbridge would be charged for an operations and maintenance policy covering the project, with the cost of that policy—provided by East Coast during the first year—currently set at $1,200 per charger annually. Each charger contains two ports, and the current Cloud software cost is $1,000 per charger annually, with that cost only assessed to West Stockbridge after the first five years of the program.
The proposal states that West Stockbridge would own the 120-kilowatt charging stations and, at the end of the five-year agreement, town officials could walk away from the project, choosing to either remove the stations or renegotiate the contract.
In a telephone call, Valorie told The Berkshire Edge that the Level 3 stations to be deployed in West Stockbridge are “universal to all vehicles.” However, owners of Tesla electric vehicles would need to employ an adapter to be able to charge at the stations, with that adapter usually included with the purchase of the vehicle, he said. Hybrid vehicles can’t charge at the Level 3 stations, requiring Level 2 stations instead, Valorie said.
Similar Level 3 chargers have been installed at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, and officials can tour the campus for a closer look.
The issue is one contemplated by surrounding communities, including the town of Lee, who received a presentation by Valorie for adding electric vehicle charging stations just last week.
For West Stockbridge, an upside to the project is the electric vehicle traffic being brought into town by visitors off I-90 needing to “fill up” their vehicles, using that hour to shop, dine, or otherwise add to the local economy, Roy said.
Speaking via Zoom, committee member Frank Landsberger identified the underlying premise as to why the group was looking at charging stations as being “for [the] economic development of downtown.”
Once station sites are chosen, the group could apply to the National Grid for installation at multiple locations with the ability to later cut down on the number to be installed, Roy said. Members discussed possible charging station sites including Town Hall, Card Pond, and Moscow Road.
The earnings from the charging stations belong to the town, Roy said, but the stations must be used in order to make that profit, and that depends on “where the chargers are, how accessible they are to people, whether they can see them and find them.”
“You talk to some people in nearby towns, they may say that on some of their chargers they’re losing money and, my humble opinion at this point based on what I can gleam from all of the information is that it’s because they’re not being used,” he said. “There’s either too many of them—there’s a huge line of Tesla chargers over at the Big Y in Lee and they’re not always being used. You pay per unit. If you only need four and you’ve got 14, then you’ll be losing money.”
Select Board member Andrew Krouss said additional steps are needed for an agreement to install the charging stations and the town is just exploring the opportunity for the project with East Coast, sans any financial commitment or obligation on the municipality’s part. He voiced concern that electric vehicles have “taken second spotlight as far as acceptability.” A March McKinsey & Company report states that sales of such vehicles have slowed in some regions, plagued by issues including technology problems and battery range.
With board members in agreement, Potter instructed Town Administrator Marie Ryan to draft the paperwork for a more in-depth exploration of the project with East Coast, including possible charging station locations.
At the meeting, TurnPark Technical Director Jared Gelormino was granted two one-day liquor licenses and Potter was appointed as the town’s representative to the Tri-Town Connector Committee, an advisory group to the regional transit program serving Egremont, Great Barrington, Monterey, Stockbridge, and West Stockbridge.
