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Could Utah become the epicenter of a electric highway connecting Disneyland to Yellowstone National Park and everything in between? State leaders think so.

Those leaders joined Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) on Wednesday to announce that the utility has received $4 million from the U.S. Energy Department to develop a network of electric vehicle charging stations along Interstates 15, 90, 70 and 84.

The goal, according to RMP CEO Cindy Crane, is to build enough charging stations that drivers of electric vehicles could make it from Disneyland in California to Montana's Yellowstone and to other points of interest along the way.

By doing so, they hope to grow the number of electric vehicles in the West to more than 50,000 in the next decade.

The project, which will involve building charging stations every 100 miles along 1,500 miles of highway, will also receive $10 milion from the state, according to Laura Nelson, executive director of the Governor's Office of Energy Development.

That spending, Nelson said, was approved by state lawmakers in 2016 as part of RMP's controversial Sustainable Transportation and Energy Plan, or STEP.

While $14 million should pay for the needed stations, said James Campbell, a legislative policy adviser for RMP, the regional utility is also working on an incentive program that would allow other businesses — gas stations with existing amenities, for example — to assume the operation and ownership of the charging stations.

The electric highway corridor will be served by direct-current fast chargers capable of refueling an electric vehicle in 20 minutes, Campbell said, and charging station users may want a place to shop or rest while they wait.

Campbell said RMP intends to start building this summer, starting in the Salt Lake City and Park City areas, with plans to complete the corridor over the next three years. RMP would focus on the Wasatch Front first, he said, then grow throughout the state with special attention paid to Utah's national parks, and ultimately, reach into neighboring states.

The plan to make the Wasatch Front the corridor's initial focus could have significant effects on Utah's air quality, said Alan Matheson, executive director of the Department of Environmental Quality.

Gas-powered vehicles remain the largest source of emissions contributing to the region's wintertime pollution episodes, and zero-emission electric vehicles provide a great opportunity to address that, Matheson said. But limited availability of charging stations has so far been a barrier to growth of electric vehicles' popularity.

State Sen. Stuart Adams, R-Layton, one of STEP's legislative sponsors, said he saw the corridor as proof that technology will provide the solutions to air-quality problems.

"We love mobility in the state of Utah . . . We like to drive," Adams said. "Technology is a great thing, because it answers a lot of the problems. Driverless vehicles allow us to do more with less."

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