February 10, 2024

Recently, the first electric vehicle (EV) fast-charging station funded by the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Program began operating in London, OH. The station is owned by and located at a Pilot Flying J Travel Center in Ohio Edison’s service territory.

The NEVI program is part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which provided $7.5 billion for the buildout of EV charging infrastructure with the goal of making cross-country EV travel more accessible.

As part of the customer’s grant submission, our Ohio Distribution Planning and Protection Engineers completed a pre-application analysis process that included a site capacity evaluation and conceptual utility cost estimate for providing electrical service to the EV chargers.

“When completing the analysis, we look at the type and size of charging requested to determine the impact to our distribution system,” said Matt Stockmaster, Engineer IV, Ohio Engineering Services. “The London site did not require significant changes to our system, so we were able to move quickly to secure the load request and provide electrical service.”

The site features a 500 kVa Transformer and a Customer Distributio Panel with Ohio Edison Metering.

More fast charging stations are coming. From the 2022 round of NEVI funding awarded in Ohio, six projects in our service territory received funding. In Pennsylvania, 25. Maryland, West Virginia and New Jersey are estimated at six projects each. 2023 Funding has yet to be awarded.

“FirstEnergy is excited for the continued growth in transportation electrification and the opportunity to play a role in making long-distance travel more accessible for EV drivers,” said Michelle Henry, Senior Vice President, Customer Experience. “We stand ready to support this clean energy opportunity for our customers and look forward to partnering on future projects as we continue to provide safe, reliable and affordable power,” she added.

To learn more about how NEVI is making cross-country EV travel possible, click here.

If you’d like to explore electric vehicles EV Driven can help.