Charge Up Dane County - Site Hosts for EV Charging Infrastructure (Round 2)

The purpose of this document is to provide interested parties with information on how to apply to be considered as a site host for public EV charging according to the specifications set forth within this document.

The County intends to use the results of this RFP to award up to 30 site host agreements consistent with the Office of Energy & Climate Change's Charge Up Dane County program to identify Site Hosts for EV Charging Infrastructure .

This is the second (and likely final) RFP for site host candidates as part of this project.

Consistent with its Charge Up Dane County grant from the US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Dane County is selecting EV charging station host sites to support OECC efforts to expand public EV charging infrastructure across Dane County. Selected host sites will commit to dedicate a portion of their parking to public EV charging in exchange for the County providing EV charging infrastructure. For more details on the site host requirements see Attachment A, Site Host Agreement.

OECC's priorities in this RFP are to fill gaps in affordable EV charging associated with at least one of the following priorities:

1. High-density urban and suburban areas where residents lack access to private charging networks; or
2. Rural areas where the private charging market is less likely to install charging stations; or
3. Multi-modal transportation hubs where EV charging can support public and active transit options.

The Dane County Purchasing Division is the sole point of contact for questions and issues that may arise during the RFP process. Thoughout this document we use the terms "vendor" and "site host" to refer to the entities who will respond to this opportunity and apply to host EV charging stations at a particular site; in some cases a single vendor/site host may apply to host EV charging at more than one location, so there may be more sites than site hosts/vendors.

Dane County is poised to be a regional leader in electrifying transportation, with a strong electric bike share network, a new all-electric bus-rapid transit system, and rapidly electrifying municipal fleets. While these low- and no-carbon transportation options benefit our community and reduce GHG emissions, they are not equitably distributed throughout the region. Adding publicly accessible EV charging infrastructure is critical for making EV transportation available to everyone, especially those living in rural areas, low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, and multi-family housing.

Charge Up Dane County will use a data-driven, community-informed approach to build new EV charging stations. Stations will be sited, designed, and operated to prioritize and deliver benefits to disadvantaged, overburdened, and underserved communities. The host sites selected through this RFP will support those efforts.

The selected host sites will receive complimentary installed EV charging infrastructure as well as maintenance and operations support for five (5) years, in exchange for offering public to access to reasonably-priced EV chargers on their site. The full terms and conditions are detailed in the attached site host agreement (Attachment A), which site hosts will need to sign if the site moves to the design phase.

Under this RFP the County will select promising host sites and then the County will refer those promising sites to a desktop technical review and a site visit. The host sites that are deemed viable will be asked to sign the site host agreement attached to this RFP (Attachment A) and then moved to the design phase. As part of the design phase the County will conduct a required environmental review. FHWA will review the initial design and then release the federal funds for the final design and construction; that action is subject to the availability of federal funds.

In July 2025 the County concluded the first RFP seeking site hosts. Under that RFP there were 57 applications of which 51 met at least one of the priority criteria and were thus advanced to further site review. As of this RFP a total of 48 sites from the first RFP remain under consideration. Dane County aims to install EV infrastructure at at least 68 sites in total.