Utilities make progress with electric vehicle managed charging, but more work needed: SEPA
The electric utilities sector is successfully developing initiatives to help manage growth in electric vehicle (EV) charging, but the sector can and should do even more if it wants to ensure enough load capacity is available, according to a May study by the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA).
“Managed EV charging can be a powerful tool to better align and balance a power supply that is increasingly diverse, decentralized, renewable and intermittent with flexible demand,” said Erika Myers, SEPA’s principal for the group’s transportation electrification initiative and author of the report “A Comprehensive Guide to Electric Vehicle Managed Charging.”
“Utilities are uniquely positioned to take critical proactive steps now before EV adoption rates accelerate, laying the groundwork to optimize policies, regulations, standards and protocols for the future so that EVs can be valuable grid assets,” Myers said.
Utilities need to develop managed charging programs to handle load demands on the electricity grid. With more than 20 million EVs expected to be on the road in the United States by 2030, utilities will be faced with consumers who could potentially strain the power grid should they recharge their EVs during peak demand times. But utilities can deploy passive and active managed charging initiatives to ensure that the electricity grid can meet consumers’ needs.
“Right now, the two most common strategies from the technology perspective are to control charging through the charger itself or through the vehicle. Either way, you can successfully modulate charge. Both have pros and cons in terms of their effectiveness, both from a cost perspective as well as from an actual load control perspective,” Myers told Daily Energy Insider.
However, “I think we’re in the very early days and we should absolutely not limit technology deployment strategies. We should be trying everything. As long as those different technologies can somehow be aggregated through a centralized demand-response program, I’m less concerned with the way in which we communicate signals,” she said.
Current Landscape
While the power sector has made great strides to develop managed charging initiatives, utilities still have a way to go, according to the report. Stakeholders have not converged around a common managed charging open protocol or set of protocols that could help reduce costs, avoid stranded assets and streamline the implementation of aggregation programs, Myers said in the report. Furthermore, utilities will need to develop ways to send communication signals between devices and vehicles that are inexpensive, reliable and user-friendly, she said.
“The [charging] technology is still very much in the early days, which is not surprising considering that the technology companies have been around for less than a decade at this point,” Myers said. “There’s still a lot of work to be done to basically ensure that you have a strong connection with those chargers to be able to modulate those charges in a reliable manner.”
“We’ve got to work more closely with the industry, as the utilities sector, to define what are the parameters of the technology that we need to have deployed in the equipment and how best to achieve the targets for the number of EV chargers … that can participate in demand response events,” she said.
To advance managed charging options, utilities will need to work with regulators, automotive companies, EV charging manufacturers, technology providers, and customers to address issues such as ensuring equipment interoperability, improving network communication, and developing an appreciation for market mechanisms, standards and protocols.
“The broad deployment of managed charging will depend upon establishing the reliability of hardware, software and communication systems, finding ways to generate benefits and lower costs, and delivering results that yield a sufficient economic return on investment,” the report said.
The report recommends that utilities provide incentives that encourage customer and third-party investments, such as rebates, as well as establish open protocols as parts of a utility-managed program. Utilities can also help to develop the standards for managed charging equipment and software that can be used to modulate charging rates or shift charging events.
“From a regulatory perspective, things have been fairly open in terms of the strategies utilities can employ to integrate managed charging into their EV programs,” Myers told DEI.
Case Studies
The report also includes several case studies that highlight how various utilities have implemented managed charging programs. SEPA estimates that there are 38 utility-run managed charging pilot and demonstration projects to date.
For instance, Avista, whose service territories include Washington state, Idaho and Oregon, developed a pilot program in which it installed and maintained chargers on residential and commercial premises and then rate-based the assets. Avista was seeking to learn through the pilot program how to deploy managed charging without upsetting customers.
“Electric transportation is about a better energy future for everyone, and for utilities to better serve all customers – whether they are driving electric or not,” said Rendall Farley, manager of electric transportation at Avista. “ Managing new EV charging loads at scale, shifting from on-peak to off-peak times, will be one of those key opportunities.”
Meanwhile, at Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), the company partnered with automaker BMW to conduct tests. One program looked at demand response and load curtailment using 96 Mofel i3 drivers and proprietary aggregation software to delay charging via celluar telematics. The second phase of that program involved over 350 participating vehicles, and users were provided with more managed charging information to make charging decisions.
“PG&E is committed to accelerating the adoption of clean, electric vehicles in California. As more EVs hit the road, their effective integration into the grid becomes increasingly important to ensure both grid reliability and customer satisfaction,” product manager Karim Farhat said.
“If implemented wisely and collaboratively, managed charging can help realize several benefits, including reducing driver and ratepayer costs, improving grid infrastructure utilization and integrating more renewables,” Farhat said.
Much progress has been made in the last several years that could pave the way towards a future with more EV usage, according to the report. For instance, the percentage of EV supply equipment manufacturers with managed charging-capable equipment has grown from 33 percent in 2017 to 63 percent in 2019.
“Residential [charging] was the number one segment that utilities are most interested in pursuing a managed charging program, and so in the early days, it seems like it will be the potentially most popular use case,” Myers said.
“But I think there are other future opportunities for things like like fleet electrification and workplace charging,” she added.
