Fully charged mission to bring more E.V. chargers to Door County

They're working to keep tourists and locals who drive electric vehicles fully charged.

• Video shows E.V. chargers around the Sturgeon Bay area
• Destination Door County has an E.V. mini-grant available of $1000 each for businesses.
• “I think it's the wave of the future to go to clean energy,” said Darrin Bittorf, Door County Medical Center.
  

(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)

One local group is trying to bring more E.V. chargers to the peninsula.

Locals and tourists who drive electric vehicles will soon have more places to charge up thanks to an E.V. mini-grant program.

"We wanted to make sure that we could start to build out infrastructure for visitors to door county and residents to be able to charge up while they're tooling around the peninsula," said Jarosh.

Jon Jarosh with Destination Door County says the program to add E.V. chargers to the area was started last year. Nine businesses got a grant of $1000 each.

There are currently more than 70 E.V. chargers at various places on the peninsula and they hope to grow that number. Prices vary depending on many factors, Jarosh says their goal is to help support public chargers and build the county's infrastructure.

"We know that there will be demand for them. The faster the charger is, the quicker that a person can charge their vehicle. So, we certainly encourage the ones that have a little bit more juice to them. But those also do tend to be more expensive," said Jarosh

While you can find E.V. chargers at many places like motels and hotels, now you can find them elsewhere, including hospitals.

The Door County Medical Center got a grant last year for its Sturgeon Bay location and its clinic in Sister Bay.

"We wanted to have these chargers available for all of our patients and we wanted to make sure people knew they were here and so that's why we're gonna do the project here as well as up in our new Sister Bay clinic," said Boettcher.

Andy Boettcher is the assistant director of the DCMC Foundation. He says the grant money helps and Boettcher's coworker Darrin Bittorf says the E.V. chargers aren't difficult to maintain, and he thinks having them is worth it.

“I think it's the wave of the future to go to clean energy,” said Bittorf.