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EVgo Coming Soon sign
Source: EVgo

Chase is partnering with EVgo to pilot electric vehicle charging stations at select branches across the country, the company announced Thursday. The move is part of the bank’s push to promote sustainability and reduce its carbon footprint.

The company said it’s aiming to have EV chargers installed at 50 branches across the country by summer 2023. Construction on the first location in Carmel, Indiana, has already begun, and will open this summer.

Locations will have between two and six DC fast chargers, with most having four. The chargers will not be reserved for Chase customers. The aim is to also have the general public use the charging stations.

Chase has just over 4,700 locations across the lower 48 states, so the 50 selected branches represent a small portion of the bank’s overall footprint.

Becky Griffin, chief administrative officer of consumer banking at JPMorgan Chase, said the company will monitor usage rates to decide whether to extend the pilot program broadly.

“We haven’t done an installation like this before,” she said in an interview. “To the extent that we see success … we’ll evaluate and decide if we want to expand further.”

Griffin said Chase is always looking for ways to innovate its vast branch network, and this partnership made sense given the real estate footprint and accompanying parking lots.

The first 50 locations are in states where customer demand is high, including California, Illinois, Indiana, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania. Additionally, the locations are where people run daily errands and might have 15 or 40 minutes to spare, so installing fast chargers — rather than ones that take several hours — was a key part of the decision to partner with EVgo.

“Having access to fast charging in everyday settings of life — the local bank being a great example as well as an important community staple — is truly key,” EVgo CEO Cathy Zoi said in a statement.

Chase declined to comment on the value of the deal or the financial structure of the partnership.

The company also said that it will add solar panels to around 400 additional branches by the end of 2022. At present over 350 branches have on-site solar. The electricity generated is then used to power the company’s facilities. 

Expanding rooftop solar is a relatively easy step toward cutting a company’s carbon footprint, and Chase is far from the only company using available real estate.

Target, Home Depot and Lowe’s are some of the big-box retailers that have tested rooftop solar at specific locations, while McDonald’s, Sweetgreen and Restaurant Brands’ Burger King are also exploring solar power at specific locations.

— CNBC’s Hugh Son contributed reporting.