Dane County issued the Round 2 Site Host RFP on August 22, 2025 with applications due by Tuesday, September 30.
Our Round 1 RFP for site hosts closed on June 16, 2025. The status of that RFP is summarized below.
This map illustrates the areas with multi-family housing, rural parts of the county and areas identified as low income (and thus likely underserved by existing EV charging). The map also shows existing public charging (both Level 2 and Level 3) and it shows the locations of Charge Up Dane County Round 1 site locations that are moving forward to preliminary design.
You can use this map to understand whether your site is likely to fit our identified priorities.
You can also use this map to help us identify potential site hosts in high priority areas where there are no existing charging stations. Watch our video below to learn more about using the map and determining eligibility.
Interested site hosts are required to register as vendors at the County's eProcurement Portal.
Learn more about the County's procurement process here.
Refer to this User's Guide for details on setting up a vendor account.
If you want to submit multiple applications (which is perfectly fine) then you will need to create multiple vendor accounts as there's a limit of one application per vendor account.
Our priorities are locations that fit at least one of the following criteria:
Requirements for site hosts include:
All of the requirements are detailed in the Site Host Agreement, which is Attachment A in the RFP.
Entities should consider applying to be a site host because there are multiple benefits including:
Charge Up Dane County aims to fill the gaps in the existing charging network, to offer affordable charging in areas where the private market is unlikely to offer that charging.
Our focus is on Level 2 charging, not fast charging. Other entities are already filling the fast-charging gaps in the County.
Compared to fast chargers, Level 2 chargers will have a nominal impact on an entity's electric bill. Our aim is to set charging fees so that the site host recovers all electricity costs as well as the State of Wisconsin EV excise tax and any associated handling fees.
OECC will host a webinar on Tuesday, September 9 at 10 am Central to review the Round 2 RFP and respond to questions. The webinar will be recorded.
Register for Webinar
We received 57 applications in the Round 1 RFP that closed in June 2025. Of those 57 applications, 51 met at least one of our priorities (multi-family area, rural or multi-modal).
Those 51 eligible sites are now under review to verify suitability and compliance with grant guidelines. This involves a desktop review, site visits and engagement with the site hosts, which enables our design team to generate preliminary designs and required environmental paperwork. It is unlikely that all 51 sites will proceed forward so we are not posting a list of sites until we know better which sites will are most viable.
Our goal is to submit the first set of viable sites to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) at the US Department of Transportation for approval later this fall. Once we have FHWA approval we can proceed to construction.
At the same time we are preparing a Round 2 RFP where we will solicit additional site hosts. We anticipate that the Round 2 RFP will focus on remaining gaps in EV charging infrastructure. Our goal is to have 60 - 70 new EV charging infrastructure sites in total at the end of this program so we anticipate that the Round 2 RFP will be our final site host RFP.
OECC hosted a webinar where we talked about the Charge Up grant and the Round 1 site host RFP opportunity. Staff responded to questions from attendees. Watch the video recording to learn more about this opportunity. .
WATCH WEBINAR RECORDING
