Transportation electrification is a historic opportunity for electric utilities to expand their value and service potential inside their service territories. This transformation promises to impact all areas of transportation from ports to airports to fleets of buses and trucks to a rapidly expanding catalogue of new passenger electric vehicles. Key challenges of deploying the required infrastructure of charging stations include aligning with the pace of market development on the vehicle side and adapting the grid to support this expanding load category. The first category with high motivation to convert is fleets, where the cost of transportation and environmental benefits are clear.
Fleets, including transit buses, school buses, heavy duty trucks, medium duty delivery vehicles and light duty trucks and cars, are ready to electrify now. Convenience stores offer an emerging and sustaining wave of new infrastructure siting, notable because drivers are accustomed to refueling at these sites. Focusing on fleets and convenience stores offers utilities and cities a focused strategy that answers the question: “Where should we put these chargers inside our cities for optimal effectiveness?”
Focusing siting on these two areas benefits cities and utilities – an immediate benefit because concentrated fleets of EVs are ready now; and a sustaining benefit because mapping convenience stores across a city allows for a staged deployment of chargers.
This session will showcase how, with collaboration, utilities can become pro-active leaders in the development of this new overlay infrastructure and also stimulate rapid EV adoption, revenue from new loads, thought leadership in partnership with cities, economic development and innovative new solutions that will drive grid modernization.