The Seaford City Council recently voted unanimously to bring an electric vehicle charging station to the city.
The two-bay electric vehicle EV-charging station is coming to a city-owned downtown parking lot soon.
“We bought an electric charger through a grant with DNREC - who installed it at the corner of High and Spring Streets," said City Manager Charles Anderson. "We are to the point now where the Electric Department has installed it and it’s nearing completion. But we have to register the EV charging station with the manufacturer (SemaConnect) and then set up a rate for it.”
Anderson says The Council agreed on a $1-per-hour rate - based on the city’s average residential rate of 14.7-cents per kilowatt hour.
Anderson says once the EV-chargers go live, city officials will monitor usage and can adjust the hourly rate based on that.
He says the bays are prominently marked with signage and can accommodate two vehicles at a time.
Seaford is the 37th city and/or town in Sussex County to install electric vehicle charges.
Anderson says the Council hopes the chargers will drive more business to Seaford’s downtown district.
“Because this is a transient location, the Council’s goal was to place this in the downtown to help with some tourism," Anderson said. "So that if people are driving along Sussex Highway (Route 20), they’ll come off the highway, they’ll come into our downtown, (they’ll) go the Museum, the coffee shop, restaurants, they’ll do some tourism while their car is charging.”
Anderson notes that drivers will not be able to pay with cash. The machines only accept credit cards, mobile apps or a monthly subscription service.
A DNREC grant covered 90% of the cost of the new charging station.
