Electric vehicle charging stations coming soon throughout Butler County: Where they’ll go

Hamilton will install charging sites along Main Street, on Maple Avenue in the downtown area, and near the future Spooky Nook Sports Champion Mill facility on North B Street, according to the state.

Meanwhile, as the state encourages use of greener vehicles, Hamilton officials have been pleased with an agreement they signed five years ago to supply another greener form of energy for trucks: compressed natural gas. Hamilton owns its own gas and electric utilities and supplies the gas to a special service station through its gas pipes.

Nathan Perry, administrator of Hamilton’s Energy Management and Utility Business Affairs Division, said the state’s electricity grants will allow two charging spaces to be installed at each location for about $19,000. The OEPA grant is financing $15,000 for each location.

For the compressed natural gas station at 2220 S. Erie Blvd. (Ohio 4), Hamilton in 2016 signed an agreement with U.S. Gain Clean Fuel, which promised to market the station and promised certain consumption levels.

The past two years, the company’s use has averaged very closed to that goal, Perry said.

“They have a radius (about 20 miles) where they have to send all of our trucks to our facility as part of the agreement,” Perry said. “They’ve been a really good partner for us. They account for 84 percent of the volume at the facility.”

Because of that consumption, that fueling station is one of the city’s top 10 natural-gas users, Perry said.

Hamilton’s agreement with U.S. Gain included an extension option. The company paid the city about $125,000 in royalty payments over the five years. The company now expects its consumption to about double over the next five years, Perry said.

The $3.25 million in OEPA grants will create electric charging ports at more than 170 locations in 22 counties.

The state plans another round of grant funding for fast-charging stations later this year and an electric school-bus test project.

Ohio got funding for the electric charging stations from the Volkswagen Mitigation Trust Fund, which was created from a federal lawsuit that alleged Volkswagen AG installed defective devices on certain vehicles from model years 2009-2016.

Those devices activated during emissions testing made vehicles appear to comply with environmental laws, but when driving on roads the vehicles emitted nine to 40 times the allowable amount of nitrogen oxides.

Charging station locations

Where Butler County charging stations are to be, according to the state: