ATHOL – The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center announced on July 1 that Athol is one of 21 municipalities chosen to participate in On-Street Charging, a new electric vehicle (EV) program aimed at improving access to EV charging.
Athol officials are asking residents to complete an online survey, the results of which will assist in facilitating the expansion of EV charging stations. The town has two such stations at the former Pleasant Street School.
The survey will help planners determine the most practicable charging technologies, pinpointing the best locations, developing a project timeline and estimating total costs.
MassCEC has chosen Commonwealth Electrical Technologies, which does construction, installation and maintenance of EV charging services, and Leidos, an energy management consulting firm.
“The survey is part of the community outreach portion of the grant. We’ve worked with Eric Smith, the planning director for the town, to come up with six different locations across town that could be good places to consider for EV charging at some point in the future,” said Caitlan McCormack, account manager with Leidos. “The survey will give our engineers an idea of the community’s preferences for those locations, and then our engineers will go to the sites and analyze their actual feasibility.”
Issues to be taken into consideration, said McCormack, range from the location of the closest electrical services to whether a potential location lies within an historic district.
“They’ll do an in-depth analysis of the original six preliminary sites,” McCormack continued, “and whittle it down to the final three that would be the most economical and feasible. The importance of the final product is that, should Athol choose to do an install, they’ll have a workplan ready to go.”
McCormack said once Athol’s survey has been completed, MassCEC can provide the town with the final feasibility studies. Leidos will make the town aware of active grants or other funding that’s available for the installation.
Funding for the On-Street Charging program was provided by the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Coordinating Council (EVICC) through the American Rescue Plan Act. Other western Massachusetts communities receiving support for feasibility studies and planning include Montague, Amherst, Northampton and South Hadley.
To complete the on-street EV charging station community survey, go to the Town Energy Committee page of the Town of Athol website or go directly to: https://form.jotform.com/251194608951159.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.