Zero Emission Transportation Association charts national needs to successfully complete electrification transition
In a policy brief titled “Powering the EV Market: How Electricity Providers are Planning for the Future,” the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA) this week laid out the energy needs if the United States truly seeks to achieve transportation electrification.
“There is a lot of misinformation out there about how the grid will handle a transition from gasoline to electricity as a transportation fuel. This policy brief shows how electricity providers are meeting current demand and planning for the future,” Albert Gore, executive director of ZETA, said. “The key to enabling zero emission transportation is ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned and that the necessary grid investments can be made in the right place and at the right time.”
Based on case studies from across the country and estimates drawn from current projections, ZETA stated that power generation demand is likely to average another 1.89 million new homes annually. Put another way, between 15-27 terawatt hours (TWh), or 0.3 percent – 0.6 percent of annual capacity, of annual new power generation could be needed between now and 2050.
Consider that, just two years ago, the U.S. fleet of electric vehicles used 6.1 TWh of electricity to travel 19.1 billion miles – about 0.15 percent of the total national energy generation for the year. A year later, in 2022, the United States produced 4,242 TWh.
To pursue changes of such magnitude, strategy will be needed at all levels to make it viable. ZETA called for electric providers to utilize both new programs and methods to accommodate forecasted increased demand. New technologies like vehicle to grid integration should be pursued and new forecasting capabilities developed. At the same time, it said that electric providers should be encouraged toward targeted, proactive upgrades of the distribution grid, while state regulators should come to terms with the changing state of things and support and encourage providers’ investments.
All in all, it called for a top to bottom approach to improving the domestic supply chain and increasing coordination in the public and private spheres.
