Harnessing hydropower technology and underutilized infrastructure to power our EV future.

By Adam Rousselle

Nov 22, 2021

The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act recently signed into law by President Biden will create the single largest investment in renewable energy technologies by the U.S. government. Electric power industry professionals and the broader utility sector are rightly excited about the new law’s investment in our nation’s critical infrastructure -- from roads to bridges, to rural broadband.

At Renewable Energy Aggregators (REA), we share this enthusiasm and are eager to help meet the law’s ambitious goal of accelerating America’s transition to electric vehicles by developing clean, reliable and secure energy. But this transition can only be achieved if the public and private sectors work together in partnership and cooperation. To that end, REA is urging the Federal Government to update regulations to allow for the construction of electric charging stations across the nation’s interstate highway system.

Presently, Title 23 of the Code of Federal Regulations forbids the use of rest stops along the interstate highway system for EV charging. This prohibition is a massive barrier that will prevent the U.S. from leading the world into a renewable energy future. A sustainable network of EV charging stations is critical to the future of commercial transportation because it addresses the challenges of climate change and cybersecurity vulnerabilities to the electric grid. This urgent need is why REA is building America’s Hydropower Highway to provide renewable, clean and secure energy to power electric charging stations across the nation’s entire interstate highway system.  This Highway, backed by a broad-based coalition of renewable energy and engineering companies, funded with private equity, will use untapped water and abandoned land to power a new fleet of all-electric trucks and cars.

We must not allow this moment to pass without doing all we can to secure America’s clean energy future, and that includes reimagining where we have electric charging stations, and how they get their power.