As more EVs hit the road, what will SC need to accommodate growth in the industry?
South Carolina leaders want to get more electric vehicles on the road and even manufactured in the state, but say a greater network of charging stations across the state, particularly in rural areas, is needed first.
South Carolina has 432 charging stations as of June 2022 around the state, according to a report published by the energy office in the Office of Regulatory Staff. Most are concentrated in areas with higher populations.
“It’s probably more now since then, because things are just growing so much,” Sara Bazemore, energy office director, said Wednesday after a meeting specifically on electric vehicles.
How many more charging stations are needed and where to place them is a question Gov. Henry McMaster has tasked a working group of state agencies to figure out. Electric vehicle maker Rivian recently announced its placing charging stations in state parks.
The working group of state agencies includes the state’s Department of Commerce, Department of Motor Vehicles, Office of Regulatory Staff, Department of Transportation and Department of Employment Workforce. Among its goals is to decide how to best spend $70 million in federal money for electric vehicle charging stations.
“We’re being very deliberative in our planning process,” said Justin Powell, the chief of staff for the S.C. Department of Transportation. “We’re interested in doing it right and doing it in a way that we are complementing the market and not displacing the market.”
In recent months, state leaders have announced billions of dollars in new capital investment from electric car and battery makers — part of a nationwide trend.
“The whole nation is kind of in the same boat,” Bazemore said. “It’s a chicken and the egg kind of thing. You’ve got your automakers wanting to sell electric vehicles, then you’ve got consumers concerns of range anxiety. So that’s where you have this whole effort, both from a public standpoint with agencies and the federal monies and a private effort with industries or even communities and municipalities. Everybody’s got to come together to create this network needed.”
Recent announcements in South Carolina include BMW, which announced a $1.7 billion investment to help shift toward building six electric vehicle models at its Spartanburg facility by 2030. Japan-based Envision Automotive Energy Supply Co. announced it’s building an $810 million facility in Florence County to make battery cells for BMW.
In the state’s largest economic development deal, announced in December, Redwood Materials said it’s building a $3.5 billion facility to provide 1,500 jobs in Berkeley County, where the company will recycle battery materials to be reused in electric vehicle batteries.
Meanwhile, in Richland County, a $323 million battery materials facility expected to bring 310 jobs is in the works.
“We want to complement what is emerging with all these companies choosing to locate in South Carolina,” Powell said.
A need for charging stations in rural areas
Increased used of charging stations also means more energy will be needed from the electrical grid, officials said.
Putting in a charging station also requires broadband access to collect data on how much electricity is used and how much a car owner pays.
The governor’s working group is meant to figure out how many charging stations the state will actually need.
“We’re not in the position to speculate to convert the entire fleet from internal combustion to EVs,” said Rob Bedenbaugh, the director of office engineering support at the state Department of Transportation.
South Carolina is receiving $70 million in federal money over the course of five years to build out infrastructure for electric vehicle charging stations, including connections to the electric grid. The money comes from the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed in 2021, and is meant to ease range anxiety among motorists who may worry they won’t be able to recharge their vehicle while traveling.
Part of the federal money includes pushing money toward disadvantaged communities and ensuring equity for rural areas, Bedenbaugh said.
“By us focusing on rural locations, we feel we will not only accomplish that equity component and better serve the disadvantage communities, we’ll also use these federal funds as seed money to help go into an area where private sector may be reluctant to spend the money,” Bedenbaugh said.
The federal government is providing enough money to have a charging station every 50 miles along interstate highways.
In order to meet the federal goal for a national electric vehicle charging network, South Carolina would need to put in 13 to 15 charging stations along the interstates, Bedenbaugh said.
“The idea being of having stations available at a reasonably predictable distance will give people comfort that they won’t get stranded on the side of the road because they don’t have a charge,” Powell said. “That’s where the national policy level has been focused on.”
Each individual charging station could cost $1 million to $1.5 million, which would provide four 150 kilowatt fast chargers and take into account the cost of bringing electricity to a site.
“It’s truly going to be a private sector initiative,” Bedenbaugh said. “Government is not going to solve the paradigm shift. If the private sector goes heavy into the electric vehicle field, it’s going to take a big influx of private sector money to fill those gaps and meet that need.”
This story was originally published January 5, 2023 at 2:38 PM.
