In March of this year, Salt River Project (SRP) introduced the “Plug in and Save Rebate,” which aims to offer a $1,000 rebate to residential customers who are purchasing or leasing a new plug-in electric vehicle (EV) from a Valley dealership.

The pilot program is a part of SRP’s greater mission to drive Arizona towards a more sustainable future by increasing the number of EVs on the road. The utility company is working under an ambitious sustainability goal to support the adoption of 500,000 EVs on the road by 2035—a large increase from the reported 20,000 EVs that are currently registered in SRP service territory in the greater metropolitan Phoenix area.

Catherine O’Brien, electric vehicle lead in SRP’s Sustainability Policy & Programs department, says that the inspiration for the pilot campaign was born out of a mission to help restart Arizona’s local economy off on the right foot.

“Over this last year, there was a huge hit to the economy. And while we [SRP] already had certain customer programs in place, we wanted to look at the ways that we could help the economy recover faster by identifying different types of potential EV initiatives that tied in with our EV strategy and corporate goals,” says O’Brien.

Only residential customers who purchase or lease a qualified new plug-in EV on or after February 15, 2021 from Valley-based car dealerships are eligible for the rebate. In an effort to truly incentivize the company’s EV push for the future, SRP is also offering $250 off of a Level 2 charger when it’s purchased from SRP’s marketplace.

And according to O’Brien, the EV rebate is set to be available through the end of the year, or at least until program funds have been depleted.

“We plan to survey and really understand what the motivations are for any customers who participate in this rebate program. And hopefully this type of incentive will provide a lot of opportunity for us to learn what factors a customer considers when choosing to either purchase or not purchase an electric vehicle.”

Looking ahead, EV strategies and initiatives will undoubtedly be a central priority for SRP in the coming years.

“This is really a great time to start adopting electric vehicles— there’s been a lot of different studies which have reported a huge improvement in air quality when this pandemic first happened, and there were less cars traveling on the road. I think, because of that, this is really a great time to ask: ‘Why should we bring those pollution levels back up, when we can just move forward in trying to maintain it or make it better with the reduction in tailpipe emissions from from the adoption of electric vehicles?'”

For more information, visit www.srpnet.com/ev.

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