The Logan County Police Department in Logan, Ohio have convinced their city council to convert their police vehicles over to electric. Police Chief Jerry Mellinger stated that the idea is to save money on fuel. The city will save almost $2 million in fuel costs over the next 30 years thanks to the transition to electric vehicles. Their next phase is to change other emergency vehicles like fire trucks to electric. The police department received a grant through the Sustainable Ohio Public Energy Council to begin this project and help pay for the circuits and installation.

They will be using a new way of utilizing electricity to power their EV chargers. The Logan Police Department will be using microgrids to upkeep with their electricity. Since they are emergency vehicles, they need fast charging and cannot always have time to sit overnight in order to charge. They also need access to electricity in the event of a power outage. A microgrid will be a miniature power grid that covers their local government’s facilities so that their emergency vehicles like police cruisers, fire trucks and ambulances still have charging access. The city has the potential to save over $1 million with the use of their microgrids at city facilities.

The change over to electric vehicles has become more relevant in the last few years since the Biden Administration has begun efforts to reduce the amount of carbon emissions and proceed with climate change goals through electric vehicles. President Biden hopes to have half of all vehicles sold in 2030 to be electric vehicles.

Click here to read the full article originally posted by Police 1