Collaboration Essential for Future EV Growth, EPRI Testifies to Congress

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Jul 31, 2024, 10:00 ET

WASHINGTON, July 31, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The electrification of the U.S. transportation sector is an unprecedented challenge and collaboration will be critical to meet future electric vehicle (EV) needs, EPRI Director of Transportation Britta Gross testified today before the U.S. Senate Budget Committee.

The U.S. government has a goal that half of new vehicle sales will be electric by 2030. To date, the 5.2 million EVs on U.S. roads today have added approximately 18 terawatt-hours of energy demand—largely unnoticed, Gross explained. "If the appropriate investments are enabled, the grid can support this transition," she said.

Last year, EPRI launched EVs2Scale2030™, a three-year initiative including energy companies, fleet operators, auto and truck manufacturers, and charging providers, in coordination with federal agencies and national labs, to accelerate the grid interconnection of EV charging infrastructure.

As Gross explained to the committee, there are several challenges to greater EV infrastructure integration implementation, including:

Timing: While a fleet operator today can order a dozen heavy-duty electric trucks for delivery in four to six months, the time it takes to bring additional power to that site to serve vehicle charging could range from 18 months to several years if grid upgrades are needed. "This longer lead time for the grid upgrades means the utility sector already needs to begin planning today for the transportation loads expected over the next 5-10 years," she said.
Market complexity: As Gross explained, "There are over 3,000 utilities (including investor-owned utilities, public/municipal utilities, and rural cooperatives) and tens of thousands of fleet operators who have seldom had to deal with electric utilities. This means a fleet operator or a charging property developer with hundreds of sites nationwide has to be able to identify the right utility to begin planning efforts and then figure out how to apply for service when utilities all use different processes, application forms, differing questions, and different levels of detail required in their applications."

EPRI's publicly available eRoadMAP^™ tool provides a visualization of when and where EV loads are expected on the grid at the distribution feeder level, which allows key industry stakeholders the ability to prioritize and plan years ahead for grid investments. To help address market complexity, EPRI is also developing an online data exchange platform—GridFAST^™—that customers with transportation projects can use to automate the process of identifying and connecting with utilities to begin early project planning and apply for service through a common service application form. The platform is expected to be available by the end of this year.

"To address these transportation-specific challenges and pain points, key industries have to work together with utilities in unprecedented ways to share their electrification plans earlier with utilities – and utility regulators – so that there is advance knowledge of where and when loads will show up on the distribution system. This…is critical for investment planning and accelerating grid interconnections for customers, while utilities also balance the need to ensure they continue to provide reliable electrical service to the broader public across all loads," Gross concluded.

Read a copy of Gross's prepared testimony here. To learn more about EPRI's EVs2Scale2030 work, visit EVs2Scale2030 | EPRI Micro Sites .

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About EPRI

Founded in 1972, EPRI is the world's preeminent independent, non-profit energy research and development organization, with offices around the world. EPRI's trusted experts collaborate with more than 450 companies in 45 countries, driving innovation to ensure the public has clean, safe, reliable, affordable, and equitable access to electricity across the globe. Together…shaping the future of energy.®

SOURCE EPRI