Honesdale Charges Up!

(Story and photo contributed by SEEDS Board Member, Jack Barnett)

Honesdale is on the map! The Electric Vehicle (EV) charging map, that is, and on multiple smartphone apps too. Last September, the PA Department of Environmental Protection opened two rebate programs for EV charging stations, funded with over $17M received from the Volkswagen federal court settlement on the company’s fraudulent emissions reporting.

Dave Harvey from Harvey Insurance Agency, Steven Moulton from Honesdale Rotary (both owners of plug-in hybrid cars) and I (my wife, Mary Anne and I own a Chevy Bolt EV) approached several Honesdale Borough council members to determine if the town would be interested in installing an EV charger to help promote tourism and clean energy. The resulting plan to apply for $10,000 toward a dual-port 7kW station in the Park & Shop parking lot on Main Street, next to the Fred Miller Pavilion, was presented to the council last November and approved.

Honesdale was the first municipality state-wide to apply, and received notification of the award less than 48 hours later. Thanks go to Tad Moser of JHA Engineering for donating his time on the drawings and permit work. The equipment from ChargePoint, one of several national networks for EV chargers, was ordered in December and received in January, but by then the ground was frozen solid.

Installation work finally got underway this spring, and was finished and inspected in late April. On May 10th, the station was fully activated. Dave Harvey was the first to use it that afternoon. Mary Anne and I used it the next morning. Two out-of-town Tesla Model 3s were seen charging that same day, and another on Monday morning.

The pricing has been set by the borough at $1.50 per hour. On our car, that adds about 25 miles of nearly emissions-free driving range. We normally use our home charger, which gets its energy from our home solar arrays (so fully emissions-free), but we’re both glad to help promote this exciting advancement in this wonderful, and now a little more sustainable, community!

To learn more about EVs, plan to attend the Northeast PA Audubon Art and Craft Festival at the Wallenpaupack Area High School in Hawley on Sunday July 21st, where SEEDS will be co-sponsoring an EV car show.