Colorado awards $23.2M in fast-charging grants from NEVI and state funds

The Colorado Energy Office (CEO) and the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) announced $23.2 million in grant awards on September 22, 2026 under the state's Direct Current Fast-Charging Plazas program, funded by the federal National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program and the state's Community Access Enterprise (CAE). The release says the grants will fund 270 new fast-charging ports at 35 locations and will help increase the state's existing network of more than 1,680 fast-charging ports by 16%. Awardees named in the release include 7-Eleven, Electrify America, EVgo, Rivian, Tesla, Love's Travel Stop, Phillips 66 and the Town of Eagle; the release says the projects are expected to be completed over the next two years, so by about September 2028.

The release's headline count is unreconciled with its own list: the awardee list names 34 locations, and the awards spreadsheet it links carries 34 rows labeled May 2026 whose entries in the column the sheet labels "Charging Stations Requested at Location" sum to 260; the sheet has no awarded-ports column, every May 2026 row's status reads "In progress", and neither document says which way the port gap runs. The sheet's total row for the round shows $18,845,000 of NEVI funds, $4,130,000 of CAE funds and $220,000 in a column it labels "BESS EI", which sum to $23,195,000; its separate "Location Funding Request" column totals $23,375,345.08. In the requested-ports column, sites in this round run from 4 to 20, the largest being Electrify America's three sites in Denver, Golden and Greenwood Village at 20 each.

Including this round, the release says the Energy Office has provided about $71.8 million through the program for 795 new fast-charging ports, and that 83% of the state highway network is within 30 miles of a fast-charging station, up from 40% in August 2020. CDOT said on August 27, 2026 that the state had approximately 486 public fast-charging locations, with 17 NEVI-supported locations open and 33 awarded locations under development. The release says the Energy Office will continue to offer funding through the program from both NEVI and the Community Access Enterprise, with the next request for applications opening September 28, 2026. Among the NEVI rounds The Duck Curve covered in September 2026, Wisconsin awarded $25 million for 42 sites on September 8, 2026 and North Carolina $14.4 million for 14 corridor sites on September 11, 2026.