LYNN — North Shore Community College will be hosting a new place for electric vehicles to charge up.
A project to build two ChargePoint level-two EV chargers, which will be able to accommodate four vehicles at a time to charge for up to four hours in the college’s Washington Street parking lot, began last month.
Jamieson Wicks, assistant vice president for facilities operations and services at NSCC, said the chargers are likely to open in the coming weeks.
“It’s been something that the college has been looking to do for quite some time,” Wicks said. “We just needed to find the appropriate funding source, time, and location.”
The $54,000 project is funded by the college, the Department of Environmental Protection’s Massachusetts Electric Vehicle Incentive Program, and National Grid.
NSCC President Dr. William Heineman said in a statement that the school had been exploring the idea of chargers for a long time, especially given how many EVs are hitting the road.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Massachusetts had nearly 50,000 EVs registered in 2022, up from 30,500 in 2021.
“It is part of our strategic plan to be a good environmental citizen,” Heineman said. “We know the demand for EV charging stations is expected to rise exponentially over the next 10-20 years now that the average cost of an electric vehicle is comparable to a regular gas-powered vehicle.”
Wicks said there will be electricity costs for using the chargers, which will be available to students, staff, faculty, and the public during the college’s normal operating hours of 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Wicks noted how important it was to the college’s mission that the school made the chargers a resource for all in the community to use.
“What we’re always trying to do is be good partners for our community,” he said.
Wicks said the college does not have any plans at the moment for future expansion of the Lynn campus’s EV charging program, but that it does have space available to build more stations if demand warrants them.
“We’re not certain where the demand is going to be,” Wicks said. “It is, for lack of a better term, a proof of concept… There’s potential to expand this if the demand exists.”
NSCC is also building the same amount and type of chargers at its campus in Danvers, with both stations expected to be operational in the fall.
