As I was sitting at the recent Litchfield town meeting and listing to the EV charging station comments by Selectman Zullo, it seemed to be a one-sided view why the town should install EV charging stations on town land and sell electricity on the retail market to power private motor vehicles. He said the stations would promote economic development and generate revenue. Most important, visitors coming to town in EV’s are going to need a place to charge. The way Mr. Zullo sounded, the town couldn’t overlook having six beautiful retail charging stations on town property.

This has to be one of the most attractive additions to the town since traffic lights were installed. Since Mr. Zullo is part of the committee which proposed the stations, he wasn’t concerned with why the town shouldn’t have them.

If some of the major concerns were brought to the attention of the residents at the meeting, the voting may have had a different outcome. Recently, at the PZC meeting, the commission ended without a resolution, because of concerns about the safety of the charging stations. Whether they approve the stations in the future, at least they are willing to look into the concerns and risks these stations may have with the general public.

One of their concerns was with connection breaks. These are a few more risks of installing EV charging stations, which the PZC hopefully will review before approving these stations:

1. Electric shock is a hazard.
2. High-voltage fires related to lithium-ion batteries and overheating.
3. Tripping and falling on charging cables or dropping a cable cord.
4. Cyber attacks are always a high risk.
5. Collisions with pedestrians and vehicles.
6. EV drivers using public charging stations experienced charging failures or equipment malfunctions that left them unable to charge their vehicles over 20% of the time. At least one in five attempts fails.
7. Being public chargers in remote areas makes them targets for vandalism (especially at night), which brings more crime to a town.

As a resident of Litchfield, many thanks to the PZC for their concern before considering approval of the charging stations.

Richard Morin
Litchfield