NEVI Program Explained: Opportunities for Businesses in EV Charging Infrastructure

A Quick Primer

For those who may be newer to electric vehicles (EVs) and EV charging, the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program is the federal government’s flagship initiative to fund and deploy EV charging infrastructure.

NEVI’s goal is to accelerate infrastructure deployment and make strides toward the national goal of deploying 500,000 EV chargers by 2030.

Having sufficient (and ideally, abundant) Level 3 charging stations nationwide is critical for solving the oft-mentioned “range anxiety” that has held back some prospective car buyers from choosing EVs, slowing adoption overall. At Electric Era, we think chargers should be as common as gas stations (and co-exist alongside gas pumps).

Level 3 charging stations are also critical to ensuring equitable access. While some people have low-powered chargers at home or at their workplace, many people live in multifamily residences without private garages or don’t have access to charging at work. Even if they do have charging access at home or work, they might not have the time to charge sufficiently if the charger is low-powered.

Created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), NEVI allocates $5 billion to establish a nationwide network of EV chargers. This $5 billion is divvied up to individual states based on a formula, and each state then has the purview to disburse the capital to build Level 3 EV charging stations. Most states opt for a competitive solicitation process.

NEVI’s first objective is to ensure there is a DCFC station no more than every 50 miles along all major highways. Once a state achieves that milestone, it can use NEVI money to fund Level 3 charging stations beyond major highways, including in communities, as well as to fund Level 2 chargers.

To be eligible for NEVI funding, any given charging station must meet certain minimum requirements, including but not limited to:

• The charging station must be located within 1-mile driving distance from a major highway exit.
• The charging station must have at least four CCS ports (with each port capable of providing at least 150kW of charging power simultaneously).
• The charging station must have at least 97% uptime for the five-year NEVI contract.
• NEVI funds can cover up to 80% of the total project cost (with the rest having to be covered by someone else).
  
  

States have flexibility to layer on additional requirements and structures on top of the federal minimum requirements. Each state also maintains its own, unique application process.

What It Means for Businesses

At a minimum, a NEVI-funded charging station should mean additional foot traffic to stores or businesses co-located at the site, and NEVI-funded charging stations should also offer other benefits to the surrounding community. A recent MIT study found that EV charging stations boost spending at businesses in the area:

[O]pening a charging station boosted annual spending at each nearby business by an average of about $1,500 in 2019 and about $400 between January 2021 and June 2023. The spending bump amounts to thousands of extra dollars annually for nearby businesses, with the increase particularly pronounced for businesses in underresourced areas.

Still, eligible sites with sufficient space and demand for a NEVI charging station aren’t enough. Not only do businesses that would like to see a NEVI charging station deployed near them have to apply and beat out potential competing proposals, they also need additional money – often, a lot of it – to meet the upfront costs of the project (before getting reimbursed) and to cover at least 20% of the total cost.

It’s no wonder, then, that most of the NEVI funding awarded to-date have been to large companies for corporate-owned locations. At Electric Era, we think smaller mom-and-pop retailers and locally owned brick-and-mortar businesses should also have a fair shot at securing NEVI funding so that the benefits of this federal grant program are distributed more equitably. After all, one of the federal government’s key goals for NEVI is to ensure the money benefits all communities.

As a result, at Electric Era, we work with small businesses to help them get a NEVI charging station. How? We bring in partners that want to finance the upfront project cost and become the equity holder (owner) of the charging station. For small businesses that want to host a charging station, this structure guarantees monthly lease payments for the parking spots used, a free NEVI charging station, and all the benefits EV charging stations can offer, including but not limited to drawing more traffic to stores.

How We Can Help

If you’re interested in getting a NEVI-funded charging station, Electric Era can check your locations for eligibility and can help evaluate project feasibility. We’ll also check for any other grant programs you may be eligible for, since a lot of states and utilities offer additional incentives as well.

If your sites are a match and you’re interested in moving forward, we can handle everything else, from the grant application to the operations and maintenance of the station and beyond!