Edison Electric Institute spearheads new National Electric Highway Coalition
The newly announced National Electric Highway Coalition formed by the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) plans to provide electric vehicle (EV) fast charging ports along America’s major travel corridors by the end of 2023.
“With the formation of the National Electric Highway Coalition, we are committed to investing in and providing the charging infrastructure necessary to facilitate electric vehicle growth and to help alleviate any remaining customer range anxiety,” EEI President Tom Kuhn said in a statement released on Dec. 7. “EEI and our member companies are leading the clean energy transformation, and electric transportation is key to reducing carbon emissions across our economy.”
EEI member companies, which are all of the nation’s investor-owned electric utilities (IOUs), already have invested more than $3 billion in customer programs and projects to deploy EV charging infrastructure and to accelerate electric transportation, according to the organization. And as EV sales ramp up, EEI estimates that more than 100,000 EV fast-charging ports will be needed to support the projected 22 million EVs that will be on U.S. roads in 2030.
That kind of growth, said Philip B. Jones, executive director of the Alliance for Transportation Electrification, means that the EV industry must accelerate the deployment of charging infrastructure.
“With scores of new battery-electric vehicles coming to market over the next couple of years, we need to get the charging infrastructure sited, built, and funded,” Jones said on Tuesday.
And while federal infrastructure funds will help in this effort, “this is only a down payment of a much larger effort,” said Jones, noting that electric companies, which are regulated by state commissions, are in a prime position to “help leverage all funding sources, help fill the infrastructure gaps, and help manage the deployment of these chargers with a long-term view.”
The new coalition — which currently consists of 51 IOUs, one electric cooperative, and the Tennessee Valley Authority — merges the Electric Highway Coalition and the Midwest Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Collaboration.
“By merging and expanding the existing efforts under way to build fast-charging infrastructure along major travel corridors, we are building a foundational EV charging network that will help to encourage more customers to purchase an electric vehicle,” Kuhn said. “We owe a great deal of gratitude to the electric companies that created so much momentum at the regional level, paving the way for us to expand this effort nationally.”
Jones added that the new coalition will help develop a framework for providing charging stations across state boundaries so that EV owners can “charge conveniently and quickly without a fear of running out of electric fuel.”
Alliance for Automotive Innovation President and CEO John Bozzella also endorsed formation of the new coalition and said that the nation’s auto industry also is committed to vehicle electrification.
In fact, the auto industry will invest more than $330 billion in the technology by 2025 and make available a record number of EV models in that time frame, he said.
“This, however, is only one piece of the puzzle. Addressing issues such as grid resiliency, energy demands for charging, and equitable rollout of charging infrastructure will be an integral part of a successful future for EVs in America,” said Bozzella.
The National Electric Highway Coalition will help support the EV transition by facilitating electric power industry engagement in transportation electrification across the country, he added.
“We look forward to continuing our partnership with EEI and collaborating with public and private-sector stakeholders to expand the charging infrastructure necessary to meet the ambitious targets for electrification in the coming years,” Bozzella said.
Kuhn also noted that EEI member companies are electrifying their own fleets and, collectively, are on track to electrify more than one-third of all fleet vehicles by 2030. They also remain engaged with commercial fleet customers and are working together on electrification planning for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, according to EEI.
In total, the National Electric Highway Coalition’s member companies together serve nearly 120 million U.S. electric customers across 47 states and the District of Columbia.
