Grant allows Renton to add eight new electric vehicle chargers

This is part of Renton’s plan to transition its fleet from gas to electric vehicles.

By Joshua Solorzano • October 17, 2024 1:30 pm

In a continuing effort to move toward a full fleet of electric vehicles, the City of Renton acquired eight new electric vehicle charging plugs through a grant from the Washington Department of Commerce.

With the grant, the city will purchase and install four level 2 electric vehicle charging plugs at City Hall and four level 2 electric vehicle charging plugs at the public works maintenance facility. They will also construct stub-outs, allowing additional chargers to be built in the future.

City public works administrator Martin Pastucha said the city was awarded $74,000 of grant revenue that requires a match of $25,000. Pastucha said the city would meet this requirement with funds from Puget Sound Energy’s Up and Go rebate program, which provides a rebate of $16,000, and they will also utilize $9,000 from the city fleet budget.

Pastucha said these new chargers will add to the six current charging ports at City Hall and four charging ports at the city maintenance shops. He said having this additional capacity will allow the city to add more vehicles to the fleet and have the capacity for them to charge.

Pastucha said the city has been developing a plan to transition its fleet from traditional gas vehicles to electric vehicles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Pastucha said that this move is consistent with the city council’s goal to reduce Renton’s environmental impact on the community.

“We know one of the things we need to do is you can’t just buy a car, you have a place to charge it,” Pastucha said. “So part of this was to take a look at where we can develop both the acquisition of vehicles, but also the development of a charging infrastructure so that the cars can be charged during evening hours when people are at work and then be ready to go for the next day.”

Pastucha said Renton is more easily able to replace some of their regular cars with vehicles such as Chevy Bolts, but right now, with the limited technology of electric vehicles, they still cannot replace some of their work trucks such as dump trucks, snowplows, or street sweepers.

Pastucha said when vehicles begin to approach retirement, they will try to replace those with electric SUVs. Pastucha said engineering teams use electric vehicles to go from site to site, code enforcement carries tools, and the police department has a couple of Chevy Bolts they use for non-emergency purposes.

“It’s not going to take the act of one person to make this change. It’s the act of everybody. Small acts of change will sort of cascade over time and lead to those greater impacts,” Pastucha said.