Grand opening held for Montagne Center electric vehicle charging station

Beaumont, Texas – Lamar University students and employees have one more reason to take a hard look at the benefit of driving electric vehicles—especially now that they can get them charged for free.

Officials with Entergy Texas and Lamar today held a grand opening for an electric vehicle charging station at the Montagne Center. This is the second charging station at a Lamar school with a similar station installed at Lamar Institute of Technology earlier this year.

The Montagne Center location is the fifth charging station Entergy has put in place in Southeast Texas. All but one are located at university or college campuses.

“We are grateful to Entergy for including Lamar University in its plans for providing charging stations,” said Brian Sattler, director of public relations. “The number of electric vehicles on the road will grow, and a large number of our students commute to campus, so having this option for fueling their vehicles is great.”

The station will be available for students, faculty and staff to use at no cost. Entergy Texas will collect usage data for research about the chargers’ impact on consumers and the electric grid. Eventually, members of the public will be able to make use of the charging station also.

“Electric vehicles are gaining widespread acceptance as an important technology solution for the nation’s energy future,” said Vernon Pierce, customer service director, Entergy Texas, Inc. “But infrastructure must be in place to support the evolution of the technology. We hope our donation of EV chargers to schools in Texas will help start that process.”

The next generation of affordable, consumer-friendly EVs—such as the Chevrolet Volt or Nissan Leaf—are becoming more common in the U.S. market. A total of 3.2 million plug-in electric vehicles are expected to be sold worldwide by 2015, according to Pike Research.

In recognition of that, Entergy’s Environmental Initiatives Fund provided for a total of 17 chargers to be installed at colleges and universities throughout the Entergy service area. Donating the chargers will help Entergy learn by doing while helping advance the technology at institutions such as Lamar Institute of Technology. The fund was created to move projects forward that are designed to reduce greenhouse gases.

The charging stations are currently capable of providing a full charge to any electric vehicle on the market. They were donated by Entergy and paid for by Entergy shareholders.

The chargers are manufactured by Coulomb Technologies and are part of Coulomb’s ChargePoint Network, the largest EV driver network in the world. The company has network operations centers in the U.S., London and Hong Kong.

Entergy, Inc. delivers electricity to more than 400,000 customers in 27 counties. It is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation. Entergy is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including more than 10,000 megawatts of nuclear power, making it one of the nation’s leading nuclear generators. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.8 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

A doctoral research university, Lamar University is a member of the Texas State University System and has more than 14,500 students working toward bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees both on campus and online. For more information visit Lamar.edu, or BeACardinal.com.

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Entergy Texas’ online address is entergytexas.com
Twitter: @EntergyTX
Lamar University’s online address is lamar.edu