Purpose of Request:
The California Energy Commission (CEC) in partnership with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), and the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) are seeking information to support potential medium- and heavy-duty corridor projects under the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program (CFI Program). California plans to be the lead applicant for a Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 tri-state medium- and heavy-duty (MDHD) CFI corridor proposal. In this Request for Information, the three states are seeking input regarding where sites would be most used and useful in the near term (2024-2027), site characteristics, power level and types of charging, and other factors that will better inform the states’ application to deploy publicly accessible charging infrastructure for zero-emission MDHD vehicles.
The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation (JOET) recently released its National Zero-Emission Freight Corridor Strategy.1 The strategy describes a phased approach for zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) charging and fueling infrastructure, establishing hubs from 2024 to 2027 and connecting those hubs from 2027 to 2030. The JOET encourages parties to align with this strategy in funding applications, and this RFI seeks to gather insights to aid in sequencing the tri-state CFI application(s) with this strategy. The vision of the three states is to identify a limited number of MDHD battery electric hubs and connections in a tri-state FY 2024 CFI application for publicly accessible battery-electric charging infrastructure. California, Oregon, and Washington retain the vision of fostering a West Coast MDHD battery-electric and hydrogen highway along Interstate 5 (I-5) (and beyond) in the coming years. The two future rounds of CFI applications may consider a focus on publicly accessible hydrogen fueling and filling in gaps for both MDHD charging and hydrogen fueling stations.
California intends to submit one tri-state application for FY 2024 for three project sites in California, two project sites in Oregon, and two project sites in Washington to achieve a publicly accessible network of hubs that reflect the National Zero-Emission Freight Corridor Strategy2 along I-5. Funding awarded to the tri-state project would be competitively bid in a formal solicitation process by each state.
The FY 2024 Notice of Funding Opportunity has not yet been released for CFI. The three states are doing advanced planning, and seek responses and comments to this RFI, via docket by June 10, 2024