New York Approves $700 Million Make-Ready Initiative to Expand EV Charging Infrastructure

The New York Public Service Commission on July 16 approved the “Make-Ready Initiative” to expedite the deployment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The initiative aims to deploy more than 50,000 charging stations by 2025, coinciding with the state’s goal of reaching 850,000 zero-emission vehicles by that year. The commission approved a budget of $701 million, of which $206 million will benefit disadvantaged and low- or moderate-income communities.

The initiative will be funded by the state’s investor-owned utilities and establishes a cost-sharing program that will incentivize utilities and charging station developers to site infrastructure in a manner that maximizes customer benefits. Utilities will be allowed to recover the revenue requirement through an existing surcharge until their base rates reflect these investments.

The state has advanced several measures to electrify the transportation sector, which accounts for about 34 percent of its total emissions. Most recently, the state signed the multi-state agreement with 14 other states and the District of Columbia to electrify medium- and heavy-duty buses and trucks. One of these notable measures is the “Charge NY” initiative, which has a goal of installing 10,000 electric vehicle charging stations by 2021. These measures support the state’s efforts to achieve 85 percent emissions reduction by 2050 relative to 1990 levels under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act enacted last year.

The Make Ready initiative, first proposed in January 2020, is expected to improve charging station economics by covering up to 90 percent of the costs to “make-ready” a site for charging. EV adoption at levels targeted in the 2013 multi-state agreement is estimated to provide over $2.6 billion in net benefits to New York consumers. New York’s share of the 2013 plan is to have about 850,000 EVs in the state by 2025.

In addition to the Make-Ready Initiative, the commission also announced several other clean transportation initiatives, which include:

• A medium-duty and heavy-duty Make-Ready Pilot Program, as well as a Fleet Assessment Service to be established by the utilities to support truck and bus electrification.
• A Transit Authority Make-Ready Program collaborating with specific transit authorities to be set up by Con Edison, National Grid, and Rochester Gas and Electric Corporation to achieve 25 percent electrification by 2025. 
• An integrated competition to be organized by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.  This will feature  $85 million of the total budget to equitably deliver transportation electrification benefits throughout the lower socioeconomic and environmental justice communities.

The initiative will work in conjunction with the DC Fast Charger Per-Plug Incentive Program, an annual declining per plug incentive to newly constructed direct current fast charging station operators for about seven years, starting in 2019. Launched in February 2019, the Per-Plug program provides annual incentives of up to 31.6 million and aims to install nearly 1,075 new, publicly accessible fast-charging plugs.