EVgo, Inc. said last week it had received a conditional commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office for up to $10.5 billion in debt financing.
The loan guarantee would be used to support the construction of an estimated 7,500 new DC fast charging stalls, officials said. Part of the DOE’s Title 17 program, the funding will be used to accelerate the expansion of a fast charging network in communities across the country.
“EVgo shares the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of increasing EV charging access in the communities that need it most,” Badar Khan, CEO at EVgo, said. “This historic investment would meaningfully accelerate our network expansion to provide public charging to EV drivers across the United States.”
Officials said the financing would accelerate EVgo’s efforts to grow its charging footprint and to increase nationwide access to convenient, reliable public charging stations. The company said it will build out the stations in markets across the country, with the top state markets being Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas. If the loan guarantee is finalized, the company said it expects the new stall deployment to be finished by 2030.
EVgo’s network expansion will complement the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program by increasing access and availability in areas that serve multifamily housing residents and others who rely primarily on public charging for their EVs, officials said. The EVgo installations will also align with the Justice40 initiative that requires 40 percent of the stalls to be built in marginalized areas that have been overburdened by environmental impacts, officials with EVgo said. The company also plans to leverage the 30C tax credit that supports the buildout of public EV charging with a focus on driving investment in rural and lower-income communities.
The conditional commitment means DOE intends to finance the project, but EVgo must satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions before the department funds the loan.