Liberty launches transportation electrification for its Missouri customers

Joplin, Missouri –  Liberty Utilities has announced five new transportation electrification programs available now to its Missouri residential and commercial electric customers.

The new programs benefit individuals, businesses, and schools seeking to save money and reduce carbon emissions by electrifying their transportation needs. Programs include incentives and support for home EV chargers, school bus charging, hosting public EV charging stations, fleet electrification, and non-road vehicle electrification such as forklifts and standby truck refrigeration.

Customers can find program details and application forms on Liberty’s website at libertyenergyandwater.com. There they can also access helpful interactive calculators that estimate potential savings for switching to EVs and find information on available EV models, tax credits, and other incentives.

These new EV programs, approved by the Missouri Public Service Commission as five-year pilots, seek to provide meaningful benefits, including financial incentives, to customers who want to electrify their transportation. The programs will also provide valuable insights regarding charging behavior and potential electric grid benefits and impacts. These insights will be used to develop future programs and to inform electric infrastructure needs as the transition to electric vehicles increases across the country.

The programs have limited enrollment and offer deeply discounted kilowatt-hour rates for EV charging during off-peak hours, which are overnight hours when energy demand is lower. Overnight charging is typical for many EV users.

“We’re excited to launch these programs and work with our customers who are interested in exploring EVs for personal and business use” said Robin McAlester, Liberty Senior Manager, Transportation Electrification. “With battery costs decreasing, electric vehicles are beginning to reach cost parity with their combustible engine counterparts. This means the overall savings increase with the switch to electric. There have also been great strides in the availability of supporting infrastructure, such as charging stations, and in charging speeds, all of which make the transition to EV easier than it’s ever been.”

Currently, Liberty has 21 charging stations at 15 locations across its Missouri electric service territory. These charging locations, along with others, can be found on Liberty’s website.

For customers considering EVs, there are a number of benefits, both economic and environmental:

• According to a Consumer Reports analysis from March 2022, based on national average gas ($4.31 per gallon) and electricity prices ($0.14 per kWh), EV owners could save between $1,800 and $2,600 in operating and maintenance costs for every 15,000 miles they drive, which is the average distance newer vehicles are driven in a year in the U.S., compared to drivers of gas-powered vehicles.*
• EVs create less greenhouse gasses than gasoline-powered cars (even when factoring in power plant emissions to produce electricity).
• When charging with electricity produced with wind, solar, and hydroelectric generation, EVs are emission and carbon free – Liberty, along with many other utilities across the county and globe, continue to produce more energy from these renewable energy sources.

“Liberty is actively working to make a positive and lasting contribution to a sustainable energy and water future,” McAlester stated. “We are committed to building and operating our business in such a way that promotes this purpose and benefits our customers, and these transportation electrification programs are another example of this commitment.”

Learn more at https://central.libertyutilities.com/all/residential/sustainability/electric-vehicle.html.