Commissioners Can Alleviate EV Growing Pains
Tanuj Deora is Executive Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer at the Smart Electric Power Alliance. He joined SEPA in January 2015 to lead SEPA’s research, advisory, communications, and programs teams. His previous experience includes leading the Colorado Energy Office, developing wind energy projects in New England and the Rockies, and consulting in the McKinsey electric power practice.
Erika Myers specializes in renewable energy and electric vehicle infrastructure and staffs SEPA’s Electric Vehicle Working Group. Prior to joining SEPA, Erika spent nearly four years as a consultant with ICF International and five years with the South Carolina Energy Office.
As of October 2017, more than seventy-one thousand electric vehicles (EVs) were sold in the United States, representing approximately one terawatt-hour of annual electricity consumption.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that by 2040, fifty-four percent of new cars sold in the U.S. will be EVs and will use over four hundred terawatt-hours of power annually. And it is no wonder.
As purchase costs continue to decline, electric car and light truck owners will have lower operating costs and much less pollution than they have from internal combustion engines. Consumers will save their pocketbooks and their lungs.
The projected rapid adoption and corresponding demand for the charging infrastructure may fundamentally change how quickly states need to ramp up grid investments to meet the coming energy demands.
This projected growth in demand should be good for electric utilities. However, that isn’t necessarily the case. Demand for charging during peak demand hours would increase costs to utilities. Only with a managed charging approach can utilities take full advantage of the benefits of electric vehicles to the grid.