Committee Recommends Study Of EV Charger Locations

CHATHAM – Town meeting’s rejection of $144,000 for electric vehicle charging stations at the airport begs the question of how the town should go about planning for EV chargers.

Some at town meeting questioned the efficacy of chargers at the airport and suggested a better location would be downtown. The renovated Eldredge Garage property will have several chargers, but are there other downtown locations appropriate for the stations?

The community center and elementary school are two potential spots, members of the energy and climate action committee agreed last week. A subcommittee of the group will take a short, mid and long range look at priority sites for EV charging stations.

“We can put them everywhere, and as I’ve said, we will need them everywhere,” said chair Robert Wirtshafter, an EV owner. “I’m just wondering where is the likely spot for the next one.”

Part of the rejection of the airport chargers may have involved the meeting’s overall negative attitude toward the airport, but there were also questions about the installation, maintenance and operation of charging stations as well as who would receive the revenue. Chargers are generally operated by vendors and would probably be cost neutral, covering infrastructure and electricity costs, Wirtshafter said.

“It’s not like we’re giving things away to tourists,” he said. “We’re not encouraging people to charge their cars for free. But we’re not trying to make money at it.”

Currently Chatham has no publicly available EV charging stations.

The select board recently adopted an EV charging station policy, although it did not reference revenue methods. Under the policy, the town manager is charged with researching, contracting and implementing installation of charging stations.

Plans are also in place for charging stations at the town offices and annex under an older Eversource program, said Terry Whalen, the committee’s staff liaison. However, those efforts are “languishing,” he said. “We just haven‘t had progress on that.”

Committee member Gerry Stahl said chargers should be located outside of the Main Street section of downtown to lessen traffic. Committee member DeeDee Hold added that the town’s downtown parking working group is also encouraging parking outside of downtown at the elementary school and community center. Both are perfect locations for EV chargers, Stahl said.

Whalen cautioned that chargers with spaces reserved for EVs would displace general parking spaces.

“That gets into the whole idea of competition for spaces and really the need for a plan,” he said. “In all the meetings I was at, everybody had different ideas for why or why not” those locations would be suitable for chargers.

That discussion needs to happen at a higher level than the committee, he indicated. He also added that the idea of chargers at the airport hasn’t been abandoned, and that grant programs are being investigated as an alternative means of funding.

Wirtshafter will deliver the committee’s annual report to the select board June 4, which would be a good place to recommend additional chargers, Stahl suggested. The board agreed a subcommittee could start that work.