The planning and investment to support millions more EVs needs to happen now. Here’s how utilities and regulators can do it. Originally published October 25, 2024 by Rocky Mountain Institute. Authored By Ben Shapiro, Nick Pesta. View full article HERE.
This is the pivotal decade for making electric vehicles (EVs) a key part of our transportation system. Many signs suggest that we’re on the right path, most directly the continued growth in EV sales – from passenger cars to buses to the trucks that power our economy. Yet we risk the speed of the transition by not preparing our electric grid for this level of growth as quickly as we need to be.
Planning is Key
The power required at a site like public fast charging at a highway plaza or a big trucking depot can be as large as a professional sports stadium or even a small town. The scale of planning needs to match the scale of the power needed. That means planning and investing in grid infrastructure now, so that millions of EVs can seamlessly integrate into our networks as soon as they hit the road.
How Do We Prepare
RMI has been working to tackle this issue from different angles. In collaboration with GridLab and Advanced Energy United, our CHARGED Initiative convened dozens of experts to develop actionable ways utilities can prepare the grid for high levels of electrification. We are exploring policy and regulatory changes needed to fully utilize EVs and other customer devices as grid resources through the Virtual Power Plant Partnership.
Most recently, based on a series of expert interviews with a diversity of stakeholders, including current and former utility commissioners, utility representatives, researchers, and non-governmental organizations, we developed a set of Transportation Electrification Building Blocks that collectively create a strong foundation to help utilities, regulators, and other stakeholders appropriately plan for and invest in upgrades needed to support EV load growth, while also protecting ratepayers.
Stakeholder-informed strategies can help utilities and regulators plan and develop the grid further in advance
Our strategy aims to address the root causes hampering more rapid upgrades to the grid: uncertainty as to when and where specific upgrades will be required; a 20th-century regulatory paradigm that isn’t well-suited to the current period of rapid growth in electricity demand; and the deep-seated risk aversion of utilities and their regulators.
Six Step Proposal
We propose six steps — or building blocks — that can help to determine the needed type, location, and timing of grid upgrades, as well as how best to provide that infrastructure quickly without putting undue risk on either utilities or their customers.
1. Plan against long-term EV market expectations.
Strategic investment in the electric grid to support transportation electrification first requires an understanding of how many EVs will be operating in the future.
2. Improve load forecasting practices.
Better load forecasts will be critical for planning and budgeting infrastructure investments.
3. Prioritize efficient, cost-effective use of distribution infrastructure.
The challenge of meeting new EV demand will be much more difficult, slower, and expensive to address if utilities rely solely on traditional distribution capacity upgrades.
4. Align grid connection with customer needs.
EV charging project developers need to know that their schedules will not be interrupted by slow grid connection processes.
5. Improve risk sharing and mitigation.
Innovative approaches to risk sharing and mitigation, such as through new partnerships between utilities and customers or third parties, will be important to enable the scale of grid investment required to support anticipated levels of EV load growth.
6. Enable accountable, longer-term utility capital investments.
We must ensure needed infrastructure investments are made far enough in advance to avoid the grid becoming a bottleneck which prevents electrification.
Together, these building blocks have the potential to dramatically increase the pace of grid infrastructure investments by reducing uncertainty and risk, unlocking the full potential of the transition to electric vehicles.
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