Dive Brief:
- The Electric Power Research Institute launched on Monday a three-year initiative to manage the expected grid stress from increased electric vehicle charging, with collaborators like Amazon joining the program since it was announced in April.
- The program, EVs2Scale2030, is working on a mapping platform that can “zoom down to the feeder level” to provide granular data to utilities about EV and charging deployments, in conjunction with a secure data exchange where users, including fleet operators, can provide those deployment plans at an “aggregated, anonymized level,” said EPRI Director of Transportation Britta Gross in an interview.
- Since April, “the program has really rounded out,” Gross said, with requests from more and more stakeholders to join the advisory board – including fleet operator Amazon.
Dive Insight:
EPRI had intended to solicit input from fleet operators for EVs2Scale2030, but did not anticipate high-level involvement such as advisory board membership, Gross said.
“But Amazon said, ‘No, we need to be in this program, this program needs to succeed,’” she said. “And that is, of course, also a major marker of the criticality of the program.”
Amazon, which has a pledge to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across all its operations by 2040, is committed to bringing 100,000 electric delivery vehicles on the road by 2030 in partnership with Rivian, according to a July release from the company.
“No one company can solve the climate challenge alone, and stakeholders across the industry need to come together to transform fleets at an unprecedented scale and speed to meaningfully impact emissions,” said Udit Madan, vice president of Amazon Transportation, in a Monday release from EPRI.
Other members of the advisory board include Xcel Energy, whose Executive Vice President, Group President of Utilities and Chief Customer Officer Brett Carter serves as the board’s chairman, commercial vehicle manufacturer Daimler Truck, the Edison Electric Institute, and utilities like Consolidated Edison and National Grid.
The program is collaborating with more than 500 stakeholders overall, including the Department of Energy, “to ready the electric grid in support of the accelerated development of EV charging infrastructure,” EPRI said in its press release.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration projected earlier this year that electricity consumption from the transportation sector will increase from 12 billion kWh in 2021 to more than 145 billion kWh in 2050.
“Every stakeholder is thinking about how to get the job done,” Gross said. “For fleet operators, you need the attention of the utility industry, you want to send a very clear demand signal.”
Gross said the need for early demand signals is “becoming crystal clear.” Demonstrating demand to the utilities has to be done “years in advance, not three months in advance,” she said.
“The grid interconnections just don't happen in three months,” Gross said. “Utilities are going to need, in some cases, two to four years of heads-up time to react and to do planning and plan and prioritize their investments.”
She urged anyone with interest in solving the challenges posed by transportation electrification — such as utilities, manufacturers, fleet operators, charging providers, fueling retailers, and commercial charging as a service providers — to contribute to EVs2Scale2030.
“That's really important if you want in on helping shape these tools, these processes, how all 3,200 utilities are going to interact with all of the folks making this transition to electric transportation happen,” Gross said. “This is the time, right now, to get involved.”
