Loudoun's Community-Owned News Source

The Board of Supervisors’ finance committee on Tuesday, Sept. 13 moved on plans to install electric vehicle charging stations at county facilities across Loudoun, and to begin converting part of the county government fleet to zero-emissions vehicles.

After reworking the plan for charging stations at county facilities to emphasize installing them first at public-facing facilities like park-and-ride lots, libraries and rec centers, the committee sent that plan to the full board for approval. That plan previously had targeted many facilities mainly trafficked by government employees instead, until supervisors asked the county staff to make the change.

“We prioritized the public-facing facilities, but also put an emphasis on spreading the facilities that we tackle first to make sure that they’re spread out through the county,” said Department of Transportation and Capital Infrastructure Assistant Director Scott Worrest. “… We tried to pick the best locations where someone would go to charge a car and spend time somewhere, like a park, [or] a rec center.”

Worrest said the plan is to install Level 2 chargers, the middle ground between the Level 3 rapid chargers that can charge a vehicle in an hour, and the Level 1 chargers that often charge overnight. He said most of the facilities could not support the heavier electrical load of the rapid chargers currently.

Supervisor Matthew F. Letourneau (R-Dulles), who first raised the concerns about the first draft of the plan, worried drivers maybe staying too long at a charging station, particularly at park-and-ride lots where cars typically sit while their drivers take a bus into work.

“I see this becoming a bit of an issue if we only have like four [charging stations],” he said. “Whoever gets there first, they’re going to lock it up all day, and it could be the same person every single day because he takes the first bus.”

Letourneau suggested implementing time limits at the charging stations, with the possibility of vehicles being ticketed if they stay parked too long. General Services Director Ernie Brown said the county hasn’t seen the problem yet at the Harmony Park and Ride, the only such lot in the county with chargers already. The county also has installed charging stations at the new Metro station parking garages.

The committee also directed county staff members to look into getting permission from the owners to install charging stations at two sites the county leases, the Gum Spring Library and Sterling Library.

“I’m really proud that we decided to do the public facing facilities first, because I think that shows that we’re, as a county, interested in this, and we want to lead in taking emissions out of the air and working on our environmental issues writ large,” Supervisor Juli E. Briskman (D-Algonkian) said.

The county’s plan would bring the chargers to county facilities in three phases. The first phase includes 85 charging stations—two charging heads each—at parks, libraries, community centers, and park-and-ride lots across the county, as well as the Pennington Garage in Leesburg. At some of those facilities, work is already underway to design and install them, such as at Bles District Park, the Ashburn Recreation and Community Center, and the Sterling Community Center.

County supervisors have already dedicated $1 million in local tax funding this year to installing the charging stations, with another $3 million set aside in the Capital Improvement Program in future years. Future phases will likely be heavily funded from other sources as well, with $2 million in federal grants allocated in Fiscal Year 2025, and $3 million in federal grants in fiscal year 2027. County staff members are evaluating possible sources for that grant funding like the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Work also continues on a plan to convert part of the county’s fleet into zero- or lower-emissions vehicles. According to a county staff report, out of the 1,551 vehicles in the county fleet, 356 can feasibly be replaced with electric vehicles today. They are smaller vehicles used in administrative roles, such as cars and SUVs, as opposed to heavier vehicles such as trash trucks, or specially modified vehicles such as Sheriff’s Office cruisers. County staff and consultants looked at those vehicles to see if today’s electric vehicles could serve the same role.

Brown said technology today cannot yet replace a Sheriff’s Office cruiser or heavy-duty vehicle without operational impacts. Those administrative vehicles, however, said consultant Mercury Associates Senior Manager Mark Canton, are well suited for replacement—“in this particular case, for Loudoun County in particular, it’s a very strong use case.”

The replacement plan calls for the first of those vehicles to be replaced in 2026, when they are scheduled to be retired and would be replaced with electric vehicles. The county would replace 123 vehicles that year.

Mercury Associates also studied the related costs based on today’s prices, and found that to maintain the same size fleet—ignoring price changes and the growth of the fleet over time—the additional cost of buying electric vehicles would be partially offset by savings on fuel and maintenance, working out to approximately an additional $750,000 a year in spending, or $15 million over 20 years, compared to continuing to use gas-powered cars.

But supervisors decided that plan needs some more work, with an eye toward creating more flexibility to pursue other options like hybrid vehicles.

“I feel like if we’re approving this plan we’re just blanketly giving you permission to go spend an extra $15 million over 20 years, and I think we need to take it a little bit more as it comes and look at what’s actually available from a technology perspective, a cost perspective and an emissions perspective, and what makes sense for us at that time,” Letourneau said.

Supervisors agreed to the keep that plan in committee a bit longer while county staff members write those revisions to possibly include hybrid vehicles or other low-emissions vehicles.

Committee members passed both the charging station vote and electric vehicle vote 4-0-1, with County Chair Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large) absent. Loudoun Supervisors Consider EV Charging at Public Buildings SHARE ONWhatsAppFacebookTwitterLinkedInGoogle+Pin ItEmailBuffer Related

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Editor: We need to keep a much closer eye on our democrat elected officials in Richmond.   Apparently, last year,

SHARE ON WhatsAppFacebookTwitterLinkedInGoogle+Pin ItEmailBuffer

By Janelle McDonald, The Arc of Loudoun Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a well-developed, research-based, scientific discipline among the helping

15 N. King St., Suite 101 Leesburg VA 20176 (703) 770-9723