SEPA offers electric utilities strategies to accelerate EV infrastructure deployment

As electric utilities prepare to support an approximately 11 percent increase in total U.S. electricity consumption predicted to occur by 2040, the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) is facilitating the sharing of best practices and strategies for improving EV charging infrastructure and deepening relationships with customers.

“All utilities should prepare for an EV future, which will yield significant benefits for utilities, their customers, and broader society,” SEPA said in a recent report entitled, “Utility Best Practices for EV Infrastructure Deployment.”

As of April, nearly $3 billion in transportation electrification investments have been approved or are pending approval by state utility commissions, the SEPA report said, citing data from Atlas EV Hub, which tracks U.S. transportation electrification regulatory filings by investor-owned utilities.

“If you think about how many vehicles we have here in the United States and when we have a large portion of them electrified, that’s a sizable amount of energy to provide,” said Erika H. Myers, Principal, Transportation Electrification, at SEPA. “We know utilities are excellent at deploying large infrastructure projects. Electric vehicle infrastructure is no different. These are things that we know our utility members are capable of doing and doing very well.”

Many customers do not have direct experience with EVs, and therefore utilities should convey the benefits of transportation electrification and how those investments may actually result in a lower total
 cost of ownership for EV customers.

“When customers are considering installing EV charging infrastructure, their first stop is often the utility,” said Danielle Kievit, Clean Energy Product Manager at Puget Sound Energy (PSE) in Washington. “It is essential that the utility can address questions and play an active role in customers’ electrification goals.”

PSE created its Up & Go Electric transportation electrification program to support statewide goals of having 50,000 EVs on the roads by 2020. As part of those efforts, the company provides EV information to customers through Ride & Drives, online calculators, technical assistance, newsletters, and social media marketing. PSE also owns and operates charging infrastructure under the program and gleans insight into EV drivers’ charging behavior to learn how to efficiently scale smart charging, according to the report.

In neighboring Oregon, Portland General Electric (PGE) operates in one of the top five U.S. markets for EV drivers and has aimed to stay ahead of the curve through developing a transportation electrification strategy. Among a number of milestones achieved by the company and detailed in the report, PGE worked with the regional transit provider, TriMet, to implement charging for five electric buses serving a 100 percent wind-powered route—the first in the nation. Additionally, PGE made investments in public charging infrastructure to support its customers’ charging needs and better understand charging patterns and utilization. And the utility launched an electric school bus pilot program to increase access to electric transportation for Oregon students.

This is the second report in less than a year that SEPA released to guide utilities toward supporting the projected growth of transportation electrification that will place sizable demands on the energy grid. The group released an October 2019 report, “Preparing for an Electric Vehicle Future: How Utilities Can Succeed,” which called for utilities to proactively plan for a variety of infrastructure deployment scenarios and to better address internal and external program challenges.

Myers sees the reports as guideposts for utilities of all sizes that are grappling with how to best facilitate the transition to EVs.

“If you know where you’re going with regard to your objectives for your EV programs and activities, that will help you [zero in on] programs to determine which ones would be the most effective to achieve your desired outcome and would yield the best return on investment per year for the utility and the best outcomes for customers.

The latest report includes a number of suggestions for utilities:

• Immediately begin EV infrastructure planning because upgrades could take years to complete.

• Gather a strong cross-functional EV team. The team is vital to lead the utility through program launch and project implementation. The dedicated team should have a broad scope, access to funding, and authority to make decisions.

• Prioritize the customer experience at each level of EV infrastructure planning and project implementation.

• Consider EV programs and process improvements that can benefit lower-income and underserved customers and will support transportation and health equity.

• Ensure that infrastructure deployed, either through utility programs or otherwise, is technologically capable of participating in utility load management programs.

“The utility still has the need to connect customers to the electric grid,” said Myers. “They need to think about where they can streamline that process and make it more efficient and transparent for members of the EV charging infrastructure community. So helping certain network providers understand what the process for an interconnection is, how much money it would cost to provide an energy service upgrade, how long the lead time is to energize a site, is important.”

Customer confidence in a utility’s ability to fulfill EV energy demands is crucial to the entire energy transformation, she added.

“You want to give your customers as much assurance as possible that they will have what they need. Utilities can help make sure that these customers have adequate infrastructure so they don’t worry about being stranded, that they understand what the cost will be from a rate perspective, that they know with some level of assurance that they will save money on charging their car versus using gas or diesel.”

The SEPA report is published in conjunction with the 580+ member SEPA Electric Vehicle Working Group and Distribution Planning Subcommittee, with subcommittee co-authors representing key EV stakeholders, including Commonwealth Edison and Southern California Edison, among others.