Kim Gaffett attended the latest Block Island Land Trust meeting with a plea for the conservation groups to get involved with the acquisition of an electric vehicle charging station for the island.A proposal has been made by resident William Young to partially fund the purchase of a level-three charging station. He has appeared at meetings of the Block Island Utility District to pitch his proposal, which on the face of it appeared simple, but quickly became more complicated. If the charger was simply given to the power company to own, BIPCo would need to apply to the R.I. Division of Public Utilities and Carriers for a new tariff for the charger. And, part of the proposal from Young was to share any profits with local non-profit organizations. The problem? BIPCo is a non-profit and not allowed to make excess money on the sale of electricity, so there wouldn’t be any profits to share.
A work-around was arrived at whereby the not-for-profit Block Island Solar Initiative could own the charger and simply buy the power from BIPCo and distribute any excess revenues as it sees fit.
Young had offered to fund up to 50 percent of the charger’s approximately
