Duke Energy Progress LLC joins Duke Energy Carolinas LLC in seeking approval of a three-year pilot program to study costs and benefits of large-scale electric vehicle charging infrastructure in South Carolina.

The Duke Energy Corp. utilities said in an Oct. 16 news release that the pilot will cost $10.4 million and offer programs to residential and nonresidential customers to evaluate the feasibility of electric vehicle charging.

The residential EV charging program will provide rebates and ongoing quarterly participation payments for up to 400 residential customers of Duke Energy Carolinas.

Both utilities will offer a program for school bus charging that will facilitate the replacement of older, diesel school buses with electric school buses. "Duke Energy will provide financial support for the purchase of about 30 electric school buses," the company said in the news release.

The offerings across both service territories also include an EV transit bus charging program and a direct-current, fast-charging program.

Duke Energy Carolinas told state regulators its portion of the costs is about $7.1 million, while Duke Energy Progress estimates it will cost about $3.3 million to roll out the program in its service territory.

(SC PSC dockets 2018-321-E and 2018-322-E)