"We're going to need these charging stations within the county, especially at county-owned buildings," said Ken Rose, director of the Montgomery County Business Development Center, on Friday.
Montgomery County was actually awarded the Municipal Zero-Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Grant a year ago, but final plans for the funding were only recently authorized by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Charging stations will be installed at the Montgomery County Office Building at 64 Broadway and Annex Building at 20 Park St. in Fonda and the Health and Human Services building at 1 Venner Road in Amsterdam. They will be accessible by the county and the public.
"That will take care of the three buildings in the county that currently do not have any charging stations," Rose said.
Such infrastructure was previously installed at the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office at 200 Clark Drive and the recently constructed Shared Services Facility at 113 Park Drive in Glen.
Statistics on usage were not immediately available, but Rose said his office in the Shared Services Facility has a plug-in hybrid vehicle charged daily at the site.
"We've had a couple people come to meetings at our office that charged up at our building," he added.
There are only a small handful of EVs across the county's existing fleet.
County Executive Matthew Ossenfort said the focus with new vehicle purchases has generally been to ensure the equipment is in good working order and available.
"We haven't made a big move to electric vehicles at this point," Ossenfort said.
That will likely change over time under a state law requiring all new passenger vehicles to be zero emission by 2035.
"This is where the world's going," Ossenfort said. "It's great to have grant money to build the infrastructure. This is really a chance for us to be the boots on the ground getting things done."
The county must still formally execute the contract with the DEC before the grant funds are released and the project advances.
It's unclear if the state has preferred vendors lined up or if a request for proposals will need to be issued. Rose said vendors are typically responsible for maintaining charging stations following installation.
"I'm optimistic these should be in by this year," Rose said.
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