Home / Cities / Partner City / Rhode Island
Mission Statement:
To establish Rhode Island as a leader in green transportation, decrease transportation
costs, and reduce emissions by getting 10,000 plug-in electric vehicles within five years.
Goal: 10,000 plug-in vehicles registered in Rhode Island by 2015.
Launch Date: January 21, 2010
Current Stakeholders/Representatives:
PGR RI includes representatives from the following organizations: Alteris Renewables,
Arpin Renewable Energy, Brown University, CCRI, Cardi’s Furniture, City of
Providence, Converdant Vehicles, Conservation Law Foundation, DK Power,
Environment Northeast, EleCar, EmPower CES, VeeCharge, FleetMaster, National Grid,
New England Institute of Technology, Ocean State Clean Cities, Portsmouth Abbey
School, Providence Water Supply Board, Rhode Island Department of Environmental
Management, RISD, Rhode Island State House of Representatives, Rhode Island Science
and Technology Advisory Council, Save The Bay, Thielsch Engineering, and the
University of Rhode Island Energy Center.
Milestones:
2009-2010: Develop Strategic Plan, Launch Project Get Ready RI
2011: 100 Fleet EVs, 200 consumer EVs purchases
2012:400 Fleet EVs, 300 consumer EVs purchases
2013: 1,000 Fleet EVs, 2,800 consumer EVs purchases
2014: 1,200 Fleet EVs, 4,000 consumer EVs purchases
EV defined: For purposes herein, EV includes any plug-in electric such as full battery
electric, hybrid electric, converted hybrid or internal combustion vehicles.
PGR RI Champion: Al Dahlberg, albert_dahlberg@yahoo.com, 401-524-1151
Project Get Ready:
Helping Communities Become Electrified Vehicle Pioneers
Project Get Ready (PGR) is an initiative of the Rocky Mountain Institute (Amory Lovins’
Colorado think tank, www.rmi.org) designed to help communities prepare for and
welcome plug-in electric vehicles. Its goal is 20 pilot cities to be pioneers in the adoption
of plug in electric vehicles by committing to get 2% of registered vehicles to be plug-ins
within five years.
To qualify for PGR status, we had to convene stakeholders, draft a strategic plan using
RMI’s menu of action items and get a memorandum of understanding signed by political
leaders. Speaker Gordon Fox and Mayor Cicilline signed the MOU.
Rhode Island: First PGR state and community in the northeast
RI was the sixth site nationally, joining Denver, Houston, Toronto, Portland and
Indianapolis. RI is the first state and first community in the northeast. There are now
twelve sites across the US and Canada. Plug-in electric cars are well suited for RI since
we are a compact state with a stable, dense population that does not drive long distances.
The Value of Project Get Ready
PGR communities are sharing best practices, lessons learned, and policy development,
while RMI is providing industry partnerships (Nissan, NREL, UL, GE), technical
expertise, websites, message boards, advice on standards and technology, and tools like
an online cost calculator to figure out the payback period on plug-in electric vehicles.
Automakers need to assess consumer interest in plug-ins and want to debut their vehicles
where the infrastructure, policy changes and groundwork are already prepared.
Plan Going Forward
Our plan is to work over the next several months recruiting institutions, companies,
municipalities and the state to commit to installation of charging equipment (EVSE). Our
goal is 30 commitments for EVSE by January 2011, our one year anniversary. This will
raise consumer awareness in advance of these vehicles being offered for sale and provide
for a period of time to identify and overcome any obstacles to installation of EVSE such
as connections to the grid, permitting or signage. This will prepare us for residential
installations in the fall of 2011 when these vehicles start becoming available.
We launched the first public EVSE in Rhode Island at Cardi’s Furniture in West
Warwick on August 27, 2010.
Link to article of 1st charge spot in RI:
http://www.projo.com/news/content/CA-ELECTRIC_CHARGE_08-26-10_VUJM3EM_v13.245ed1b.html
Link to article on PGR RI:
http://providence.thephoenix.com/news/111405-electric-cars-rhode-island-plugs-in/
This is awesome. Great to see RI is making great strides and also doing great work in collaboration with the Rocky Mountain Institute and Environment Northeast.
Posted by Dave and Ori January 25th, 2010 at 4:04 pm