Burnaby residents will have more locations to charge electric vehicles, now that several local businesses have received government funding to install charging stations.
Environment Minister Terry Lake was at Burnaby's Brentwood Town Centre on Wednesday to announce 454 new charging station locations throughout B.C., paid in part by the government's community charging infrastructure fund.
Businesses, municipalities and institutions applied to the fund - which covers 75 per cent of the charging stations' purchase and installation costs - and 71 organizations were selected through an early bird application process.
Five Burnaby businesses were on the list: Best Buy, Computrol Fuel Systems, Metropolis at Metrotown, Mott Electric and Shape Properties Group. Metro Vancouver, which was also on the list, plans to install stations in Burnaby as well. The grant recipients must have the stations in by March 31, 2013.
As part of the media event, Lake pulled up in his own electric car and demonstrated how to charge it.
"It is extremely encouraging to see such widespread interest across the province, both at the local government and business level, in setting up electric vehicle charging stations," Lake said in a press release. "As an electric vehicle owner myself, it is great to be able to add an increasing number of convenient locations to charge up and make owning an electric vehicle even more attractive than it already is in B.C."
As an incentive for British Columbians to go electric, the provincial government is also offering rebates of up to $5,000 off the pre-sticker price for qualifying electric vehicles.
