Cookeville Electric Watching Electric Vehicle Trends As They Grow In Use

The increase in electric vehicles has not impacted Cookeville’s electricity usage so far.

Director Carl Haney said that the city currently has two commercial charge stations, one at Sam’s Club and one on West Jackson Street. He said that in looking at current data, they typically average the same amount of usage as a convenience store.

“The Telsa one uses a little more than that,” Haney said. “But we plan for that, we plan for capacity built into our substations and our lines. So it doesn’t really put any burden on us at this point.”

Haney said that another aspect of electric vehicle charging is the residential side. He said that those who install charging stations at their own residences can actually save money because they just pay the going rate of the city rather than what the commercial charge stations cost.

Haney said that this comes as a larger conversation as the federal and state governments are trying to plan for charging stations along major interstate corridors. He said while Cookeville isn’t in the first phase of the plan, the department will keep an eye on these trends to see how electric vehicles will play into future infrastructure and usage plans.

“We like to keep an eye on it and watch how it’s moving and how it grows in this area,” Haney said “Just so we can make sure our system is able to handle that and any businesses, new development that comes in, we monitor that. So it just will be interesting to see how that moves forward.”