More EV chargers on campus

With the support of a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, UMass Chan Medical School has added 8 new dual-port Level II electric vehicle chargers in the Library and Clinical parking lots, powering 16 charging spaces.

The campus now has 92 EV charging spots for faculty, staff, students and UMass Memorial Medical Center patients and visitors.

“We have a rapidly growing EV community,” said Kortni Wroten, sustainability and energy manager at UMass Chan. “So, we are actively engaging with the EV drivers to support our shared goals of increasing EV ridership and maximizing the number of EV drivers with access to charging on campus.”

In addition to the 16 new spots, there are 32 charging spots in the West Garage and 8 spots in the Plantation Street garage available for students, staff and faculty. There are 36 charging spaces in the South Road garage that are reserved for UMass Memorial patients or visitors.

“To accommodate as many people as possible, we stress that EV drivers should use campus chargers as supplementary to home charging, not as their primary charging source,” Wroten said.

There are now 197 registered EV drivers at UMass Chan. In 2023, the total hours those drivers charged while on campus was the equivalent of burning 30,146 gallons of gasoline in an internal combustion vehicle. That translates to a greenhouse gas savings equal to the carbon sequestered from 25,231 trees grown for 10 years.

The new chargers in Library and Clinical lots were funded in large part by a $125,000 grant from a state program that encourages public agencies to use more EVs in their organization’s fleet. Therefore, UMass Chan operated EVs will use the chargers off hours as much as possible, but may also use the new chargers during regular working hours as needed.

EV drivers are also reminded to park in a charging spot only when their vehicle is actively charging. After charging is completed, drivers must move their EV to a regular parking spot.

Aside from participating in the paid parking program, there is no additional cost to charge an EV on campus. Anyone interested in joining EV charging program must first register (for free) with the Parking Office and create a ChargePoint account. Read more about the campus EV program here.