Fairfax County Supervisor Walter Alcorn joined Waterford Square Condominium Association residents yesterday to cut the ribbon on their new electric vehicle charger.

This community installed their dual-port Level 2 EV charger with help from the Charge Up Fairfax program that provided a $10,000 grant, plus crucial technical assistance. Waterford Square marks the fourth community in Reston to put in chargers through this countywide program.

Overall, Hunter Mill District communities make up 47% of Charge Up Fairfax participants, Alcorn said. 

Waterford Square Condo President Steve Garver said the program helped them jumpstart the process, pointing out that it’s a chicken and egg problem to transition to EVs.

“We felt that it's a long-term commitment,” he said. “Initially it's kind of this catch 22. Nobody is going to get a car that they need to charge if they don't have a way to charge it. On the other hand, when you first put the charger in, there's not a lot of people who use it.”

Currently, he said three residents will use the charger, and another two own electric vehicles.

“I think it's the future,” he said of EVs which are especially suitable for his neighbors who don’t put a lot of miles on the road.

“Clearly, it's better for the environment than gas and these days a lot less expensive.”

The condo association’s property manager agreed that the chargers will result in long-term benefits for all residents even if they don’t own an electric vehicle now.

“We do feel that the units have improved resale value because of the opportunity for new buyers to potentially have a place to charge their electric cars or get an electric car,” said Hannah Baratz with Abaris Real Estate Management.

Hunter Mill Leads the Way: Representing Almost Half of Program Participants

Of Charge Up Fairfax’s 30 participants currently, 14 communities — or almost half — are located in the Hunter Mill District.

Four communities in Reston and Vienna have already installed chargers through the program, including Waterford Square.

Last August, Midtown North Condos at Reston Town Center installed two dual-port chargers for their 75-unit association. They received a $7,000 grant from Charge Up Fairfax. In Vienna, the Westwood Village Unit Owners Association put in two dual-port chargers with help from a $5,000 grant.

In 2024, Harper Square Cluster was Charge Up Fairfax’s very first community to install two dual-port chargers. This 50-unit townhouse community, which doesn’t have private driveways or garages, received $5,000 in assistance from the program.

Harpers Square Cluster is the first community to install #EV chargers with the help of the county's Charge Up Fairfax program.🔌🚗 Their community decided to make this move to help reduce carbon emissions, and your HOA can do the same by applying to Charge Up.💚 https://t.co/2PYIR0BNyi

— Supervisor Walter Alcorn (@WalterAlcornFFX) December 21, 2024

How Charge Up Fairfax Can Help

With over 1,500 homeowners and condominium associations in Fairfax County, Charge Up Fairfax can make a real difference for these groups that don’t have a private driveways or garage to install EV chargers.

“We are kind of at the forefront on this one and there not a lot of communities in the region, or even around the country, that are trying to tackle this,” Supervisor Alcorn said when the program was proposed in 2022. “We are really talking about roughly half of our population that live in communities, like I do, that don’t have a garage or a private space that they could put a charger. So, this is a big deal.”

The program got its start thanks to requests from Reston residents who approached Alcorn four years ago with their challenges in install chargers.

Charge up Fairfax offers both technical and financial assistance to homeowners associations, places of worship and nonprofit organizations that want to go electric.

The program specifically helps these groups install Level 2 chargers that require a dedicated 240-volt circuit. Level 2 equipment charge at a rate of 10-20 miles per hour, and it generally takes about four to 10 hours to recharge an empty EV battery with one of these chargers.

Fairfax County Installs EV Chargers to Meet Climate Goals

The Charge Up program supports Fairfax County’s ambitious climate goals laid out in its Community-Wide Energy and Climate Action Plan. Overall, the county aims to become carbon neutral in its government operations by 2040 with the community as a whole achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

Because transportation accounts for 50% of greenhouse gas emissions in the county, the climate action plan aims to have 15% of all cars registered in Fairfax County as electric by 2030.

Currently, only 3% of cars registered are electric — or 29,055 vehicles —according to the county’s Electric Vehicle Readiness Strategy released last year.

Electric or hybrid-vehicles make up 13% of the county government’s own fleet of more than 2,900 cars, trucks, buses and heavy equipment.

The strategy reports that there are 369 non-home EV charging station locations in the county, providing a total of 1,395 ports.

Besides working to increase residential EV chargers through programs like Charge Up, Fairfax County is also installing its own charging stations that will be accessible to the public. 

Today, there are over 100 Level 2 charging ports at various county government facilities, including community centers, parking garages, and government office buildings. EV charging stations at county-owned facilities are available for public use for a fee on a first-come, first-served basis.

Last summer, the Board of Supervisors accepted a $2.5 million grant from the Federal Highway Administration through a regional effort to install more publicly accessible charging stations across the DMV, especially underserved communities. 

Find EV charging stations at county facilities by visiting the ChargePoint website and use their "Find Stations" feature.