The Sacramento Municipal Utility District is planning to install 108 electric vehicle chargers in 26 underserved areas throughout Sacramento County to make EV charging accessible to people who don’t live in houses.
Currently, more than 80% of EV charging occurs in the home, and this project, supported by a grant from the California Energy Commission, seeks to put charging in the hands of people who live in apartments.
“This effort will make EV charging accessible to more multifamily residents at those communities so they also can take part in clean energy transition,” said Gama Ortiz, spokesman for SMUD, via email.
SMUD says the effort will provide EV charging access to people who live in 2,851 affordable housing units as well as for the customers of four supermarkets and congregants of four churches.
The Reliable, Equitable and Accessible Charging for multifamily Housing project, or REACH project, is supported with a $2.2 million REACH grant awarded by the California Energy Commission in 2022. SMUD anticipates it will also be contributing about $700,000 to the effort, which comes from revenue from carbon-credit brokering, which does not come from ratepayer funds.
The actual total cost of the installations is currently unknown because final designs and contractor quotes are still in process, Ortiz said.
The project will install multiple chargers in Sacramento city and county, as well as locations in Rancho Cordova, Carmichael, Citrus Heights and Galt.
The work will include construction of electric infrastructure to support Level 2 charging at the locations, and the work could include installing or replacing gear to take current off existing transformers, along with switch gear and power cabinets, and the chargers themselves. SMUD plans to underground all the equipment leading to the chargers.
The utility plans to start the work in June next year and have it completed by the end of January 2028, according to its application for an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act for its boring and trenching work.
California has mandated that all new cars sold in the state starting in 2035 be zero-emission vehicles.
Some 18.8% of all new cars sold in California in 2022 were zero emission, according to the governor's office. That represented 40% of all zero-emission vehicles sold in the nation.
In addition to utility efforts like this, private companies are also installing public charging stations in the region.
The state is embarking on an aggressive schedule to make more public chargers accessible. In December, the California Energy Commission approved spending $2.9 billion on infrastructure for EVs through 2025.
Level 2 EV chargers can provide about 25 miles of range per hour on the charger.
