Minnesota’s ZEF Energy Inc. added Charge EV, LLC, a collaboration of 29 community owned electric cooperatives, to its list of investors.
Charge EV’s founding co-ops are located throughout the Midwest in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Together they are working to build a national electric vehicle (EV) charging brand powered by co-ops and investing in EV-focused companies.
“Charge EV’s investment is not only important for growing our business, but it also demonstrates their belief in the ZEF Energy’s ZEFNET utility platform and ZEFNET-enabled Level 2 and Level 3 chargers,” said Matthew Blackler, CEO of ZEF Energy. “The EV market is taking off and having our chargers easily accessible will create a better EV driver experience. We believe connecting drivers with their serving utility is essential to achieving the beneficial load growth dream” said Blackler.
ZEF Energy has successfully worked with electric co-ops and municipalities since 2014. The company has won numerous grants and contracts across the Midwest, including the U.S. Department of Energy’s Michigan to Montana (M2M) Interstate 94 Corridor project, which will install ZEF Energy chargers along the I-94 corridor.
ZEF has the largest installed base of open standard DC Chargers in the Midwest. The ZEFNET platform is a turn-key approach to managing residential and commercial charger load and allows utilities to gather revenue grade metering and conduct precision load control.
“As cooperatives, we align with ZEF Energy’s vision of the EV industry. Our collaboration further demonstrates we can build innovative and forward-thinking solutions in the Midwest," said Shannon Clark, CEO & General Manager of Richland Electric Cooperative (Richland Center, Wis.), one of CHARGE EV’s founding cooperatives.
“The ZEF investment allows us to have input into our needs as utilities in the EV market and ZEF is well positioned because they offer both hardware and software.” Blackler added, “Co-ops are forward thinking organizations and they recognize EV’s will play a big part of their future. We look forward to working with CHARGE EV, spreading the word both regionally and nationally, for what can be achieved through picking the right partner, using Co-op branded hardware and software and pragmatic program delivery for rural electric cooperatives to make EV load growth, beneficial load growth.” The companies did not disclose terms of the investment.
