When Chapel Hill Transit in North Carolina wanted to begin replacing its diesel-powered bus fleet with new zero-emission electric vehicles, it reached out to Piedmont Electric Cooperative to make sure there would be enough power to charge them.

“It was sometime in 2020 that they approached us,” recalls Larry Hopkins, the Hillsborough-based co-op’s vice president of engineering. “We realized right away that we were going to have to put in some new infrastructure.”

Piedmont Electric worked with the transit agency for two years, designing a 750-kilowatt transformer to provide electricity to four charging stations capable of fully charging a bus in less than four hours.

Four of the transit agency’s 99 buses were electric by mid-2023, and officials had ordered seven more that were set to arrive by the end of the year. The Town of Chapel Hill plans to purchase 10 additional electric buses that will most likely arrive from manufacturers sometime in 2025, says Nick Pittman, assistant transit director.

“Our partnership with Piedmont Electric has been extremely important,” Pittman says. “Purchasing electric buses has been a learning experience for all of us, and it has been good to have the cooperative by our side to work through the challenges and to help us understand the necessary equipment as we expand our battery electric bus fleet.”

The 34,000-member co-op has also helped the Town of Chapel Hill manage costs. Pittman estimates that the transit agency, which serves the University of North Carolina campus as well as the town, saved more than $25,000 on its electric bill in 2023 by charging its buses during off-peak hours.

Piedmont Electric offers discounted time-of-day rates for EV owners who charge their vehicles during the night and early morning hours, when overall demand for electricity is low.


“Chapel Hill Transit is doing a really good job of keeping most of their charging off-peak,” says Ed Durham, the co-op’s manager of energy services. “I’m working with them to optimize that and hopefully move them to a completely off-peak load.”

Encouraging EV owners to charge during off-peak hours helps to keep rates down and ensure the system doesn’t get overloaded, co-op leaders say.

“We’re maximizing the number of off-peak usage hours, which benefits everyone,” says Susan Cashion, Piedmont Electric’s vice president of compliance and administration officer. “And we’re being good stewards of the environment by encouraging beneficial electrification.”

The co-op and the transit agency have also worked together to educate the community about electric vehicles. Last September, Piedmont Electric held an EV Day, setting up a tent at a local shopping center for people to learn about the co-op’s special rates and get an up-close look at EVs owned by co-op members. Piedmont Electric also unveiled a new DC fast-charger for EV drivers to use when they visit the shopping center.




“Chapel Hill Transit brought one of their electric buses, and about 20 people went for a ride,” says MaKayla Killens, the co-op’s public relations specialist. “A lot of people didn’t realize that Chapel Hill had purchased electric buses, so our event helped spread the word. Our members thoroughly enjoyed it.”

The co-op is now preparing for the additional buses and other large vehicles—including one of the town’s garbage trucks—to go electric.

“We’re building another substation and upgrading the circuit,” Hopkins says.

Co-op leaders say the key to serving new EV fleets is to be part of the planning process from the beginning.

“With government accounts, you should always consider them a key account and be in close touch with them,” Durham says. “It’s good to get ahead of the curve and make sure you know what their load is really going to look like.”

Hopkins says that Piedmont Electric’s president and general manager, Steve Hamlin, and its board have been “very supportive of EVs for over a decade.” The co-op started offering special rates to EV owners about eight years ago in anticipation of more of its residential and commercial members choosing electric cars and trucks.

Commercial fleets are changing quickly as Amazon, Walmart and other large companies electrify their delivery trucks, Cashion says.

Co-ops that serve truck stops should prepare for a growing number of electric tractor-trailers that could dramatically boost demand for chargers, Hopkins says.

“If you have a truck stop in your service area, go talk to those people now,” he advises. Piedmont Electric serves a large truck stop and has been talking to them for years, Cashion says.

“In five to 10 years, it could be another large industrial load,” she says. “Ten years ago, we reached out to them, and they didn’t even want to talk about EVs. Now, they see the opportunities that are coming.”

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