Projects shall provide safe, convenient, cost-competitive, reliable, and easy access for drivers to recharge mass-produced plug in electric vehicles with industry standard charging equipment. Projects shall expand the network of infrastructure geographically along underserved roadways and/or strengthen the existing network by providing equipment that is compatible with more makes and models of vehicles and by providing additional locations for fault tolerance and redundancy. The department shall ensure projects meet the following requirements:

(1) Bidders must have private sector partners contributing to the project who stand to gain indirect value from development of the project including, but not limited to, motor vehicle manufacturers, retail stores, or tourism stakeholders;

(2) Bidders must demonstrate that the proposed project will be valuable to electric vehicle drivers and will address a gap in the state's electric vehicle charging station infrastructure;

(3) Projects must be expected to be profitable and sustainable over time for the owner-operator and/or the private sector partner, inclusive of indirect value gained;

(4) Bidders must specify how the project captures the indirect value of charging station deployment to the private sector partner;

(5) Bidders and their private sector partners must agree to operate and maintain the stations for at least five years and must meet the requirements in the department's solicitation materials for networked equipment offerings, station operations and uptime, public access, payment options, customer service, signage, and period of performance; and

(6) Bidders and their private sector partners have the ability to reinvest any proceeds from ongoing operations to expand the power and amount of chargers at a given site to accommodate higher utilization rates in the future.