Arapahoe Basin is now able to welcome drivers of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles with five, dual-port charging stations in the Early Riser parking lot (the lower lot adjacent the lifts).

The 10 spaces are about as close as you can get to the action. The Chargepoint Level II stations will deliver 25-30 driving miles per hour of charging. So, if you drove up from Denver, you can top off in about 3 hours. (Feel free to bring your Tesla but you must provide the adapter.) 

And, for the rest of the Winter 2021-22 season, the chargers are FREE! They can be used while our parking lot gates are open: 7 AM to 6 PM, daily.

All we ask is that you please move your vehicle once it is sufficiently charged and not take up a charging space all day. By lunchtime, plenty of parking spots open up in Early Riser and you won't have to go far. Thanks for looking out for your fellow EV drivers!

---

---

Looking to the future 

“We believe that having a viable network of charging infrastructure in Colorado, including in rural and mountain areas, is a necessary step to helping more people feel like they can transition to hybrid and electric vehicles. It also helps big car companies see places like Colorado as more viable markets.” – Mike Nathan, Arapahoe Basin Sustainability Manager 

Adding charging stations is an small but important piece of our sustainability plan and our goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2025. Perhaps the most significant of our sustainability goals is achieving 100% renewable electricity – that will get us closer to carbon neutrality than any of our other initiatives.

A-Basin is currently at 53% renewable electricity. As it stands, our electricity mix is 20% solar (Xcel Energy Renewable Connect Program – directly offsets all snowmaking power needs), about 30% Xcel grid renewables, and 2-3% from our multiple onsite solar arrays. The remaining 46-47% is coal and natural gas on Xcel’s Colorado power grid.

You can learn more about our progress in our most recent sustainability report.

---

The highest ski area-based renewable energy project in the world is located on the roof of our Snow Plume Refuge building (12,456').

---

We intend to eventually transition our own vehicle fleet to electric and plan to install additional EV charging stations. We currently have one electric UTV and are preparing ourselves for a future with electric snowcats and snowmobiles. As our work trucks and travel cars need replacing, we see no reason to purchase additional vehicles with internal combustion engines.

In the meantime, A-Basin partnered with the Colorado Carbon Fund (CCF) in 2019 to offset our gasoline, diesel and propane use. This includes everything from our snowcats to our work trucks. The CCF partnership allows us to support Colorado projects such as grassland protection, carbon sequestration farming and the Larimer Gas to Energy Project. These offsets account for roughly one-quarter of our total greenhouse gas emissions and move us substantially closer to achieving carbon neutrality.

You can offset your emissions, too! Find out how, here.

Thanks to our partners who helped make this happen: The EV chargers at A-Basin were funded via two separate grant programs. The Xcel Energy EV Readiness Program covered the cost and construction efforts of all underground and utility work to bring electricity to the stations. The State of Colorado Energy Office Charge Ahead Grant reimbursed A-Basin for 80 percent of the cost of purchasing, installing, and commissioning the charging stations ($45,000).