Welcome to Electric Transportation Wiki

Overview

Electric Transportation falls under the Electrification and Customer Solutions section of the Electric Power Research Institute's Power Delivery & Utilization sector, which, "provides transmission, distribution, and end use R&D to guide utilities and stakeholders toward a safe, secure, resilient, affordable, reliable and environmentally responsible, integrated grid."

Market Transformation Underway

The emergence of electric transportation has been a once-in-a-century paradigm shift for the energy industry and for society at large, offering enormous potential environmental and societal benefits. Indeed, EVs are close to a tipping point:

• At the end of 2019, nearly 1.4 million EVs were on the road in the United States—double the amount in mid-2017.
• In 2019, new light-duty EVs added 920 gigawatt-hours in annual energy load to the U.S. grid.
• Global EV sales are accelerating, particularly in Europe and China.
• The diversity of products is growing quickly. In the United States, a total of 46 EV models are available, including recent releases of crossovers, trucks, and sports utility vehicles.
• Dozens of EV applications for commercial and industrial fleets are emerging, including deployments of electric garbage trucks, transit buses, and school buses.
• The density of public charging infrastructure is increasing. Utilities are proposing more than $3 billion worth of infrastructure projects.
• Over the past decade, battery costs have fallen by more than 80%.
• By 2024, EVs are expected to reach price parity with gasoline-fueled vehicles.

Benefits for Society, Time-Sensitive Action

According to an EPRI-Natural Resources Defense Council study, widespread electric transportation powered by a cleaner grid has the potential to reduce greenhouse gases by as much as 77% between 2015 and 2050. However, EV market transformation is time-sensitive: Because cars sold today are expected to last an average of about 12 years—with many lasting a decade longer—postponing the scale-up of EVs could result in missing 2030 climate targets.

Another challenge for utilities is that tapping into the benefits of electric transportation can be a complicated endeavor, requiring multi-faceted expertise and the ability to track a rapidly changing landscape. Key questions include:

• How are individuals, businesses, and municipalities using electric vehicles (EVs), and how do these uses vary regionally?
• What do customers want from their utilities regarding EV-related programs?
• What is the status of EV-related standards and how it is expected to evolve?
• What new EVs are being released, what are their capabilities, how many have been sold and where—and what are the likely grid implications of all of this?
• What charging infrastructure is needed and where?
• Which of the hundreds of press releases about new technologies, products, and partnerships matter?

Comprehensive Electric Transportation Expertise

The experts in EPRI's Electric Transportation program conduct in-depth research on these and other critical issues. EPRI's comprehensive research, data, and tools can help utilities expedite actions to achieve their EV-related goals—whether they have recently started engaging with the EV market or are long-time market participants.

The program also gathers key insights through its collaboration among utilities, automakers, charging infrastructure companies, and other major national and international EV industry stakeholders. Utilities can use EPRI's comprehensive suite of resources to help them serve as their customers' trusted EV advisors, and to inform their short- and long-term investment decisions to help enable reliable, safe, affordable, and environmentally responsible electricity.

Estimated Program Funding (2022): $5.0M

Approach

The Electric Transportation program utilizes several approaches to advance research in the rapidly changing landscape:

Utility Customers

Approach	Accomplishments	Current Year Activities
Analyses of customer driving and charging behavior, customer preferences and needs, EV load shapes, charging infrastructure requirements, and EV market potential to inform the design of effective utility EV programs	Led industry-first customer EV pilots to understand driving and charging patterns and to assess grid impacts and implications for demand response	Collect and analyze data on where, when, and how people charge and drive, and how these behaviors are influenced by local charging infrastructure, vehicle capabilities, and other factors. A recent example is a project to investigate driving and charging behaviors of Tesla owners. Analyze utility customers' preferences and needs with respect to EVs and charging and distill implications of these preferences to inform the design of effective utility EV programs

Thought Leadership on Markets and Technology

Approach	Accomplishments	Current Year Activities
Webcasts, newsletters, executive briefings, a utility-only working group, and other communications to provide insights on EV markets, technologies, and trends A lay-friendly publicly available suite of consumer guides on EVs, commercial and industrial electric transportation, and charging infrastructure	Created a suite of free, publicly available consumer guides for EVs and charging. Utilities distribute these guides at EV "ride and drive" events Since 2016, published a monthly newsletter, providing hundreds of subscribers at utilities with expert commentary on EV industry news, technologies, and trends. The newsletter is ongoing.	Distill insights and provide expert commentary on EV markets, technologies, and trends in quarterly webcasts, monthly newsletters, executive briefings, and timely hot topic summaries Host a utility-only working council to discuss and address critical issues related to commercial and industrial fleets Analyze battery size, charging power, and other specifications of newly released EVs and charging equipment and distill implications for designing effective utility EV programs Publish and update a suite of publicly available, lay-friendly consumer guides to EVs, commercial and industrial electric transportation, and charging infrastructure

Research, Development, Testing, and Collaborative Demonstrations

Approach	Accomplishments	Current Year Activities
Laboratory testing and collaborative field demonstrations of EVs and EV charging equipment (AC and DC) to collect data and analyze performance and grid impacts Development, field demonstrations, and deployment of advanced smart charging and vehicle-to-grid communications technologies that can enable smooth grid integration of EVs Development, field demonstrations, and deployment of municipal, commercial, and industrial electric transportation technologies (road and non-road applications) Research on and development of EVs and EV components along with data collection and performance assessment	Developed the Open Vehicle-Grid Integration Platform, an open-standards communications software that enables utilities to manage EV charging and that standardizes business relationships among utilities, automakers, and drivers. Nine EV manufacturers and 15 utilities have collaborated with EPRI on this effort. Pioneered the use of electric trucks and vans in commercial and industrial fleets, demonstrating the cost-effective use of battery EVs in numerous nationwide pilots and demonstrations Helped to advance various EV technologies used by major automakers and charging station companies	Develop, demonstrate, deploy, and evaluate smart EV charging and DC fast charging systems, assess grid impacts, and use the results to inform effective strategies for grid integration of EVs. Participants in collaborative demonstrations and pilots include utilities, automakers, equipment manufacturers, and charging station providers. An example is the ongoing demonstrations of EPRI's Open Vehicle-Grid Integration Platform. Develop, demonstrate, deploy, and evaluate commercial and industrial electric transportation technologies. Participants in collaborative demonstrations and pilots include utilities, EV manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, transit agencies, and school districts. Examples include pilot programs for transit buses and school buses. Analyze performance of EVs and their components, such as batteries and drivetrains Assess new technologies, such as EV batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, marine technologies, electric transport refrigeration units, and vehicle-to-grid interfaces. Use the results to inform how and when utilities and their customers adopt various technologies.

Leadership on Informing Standards

Approach	Accomplishments	Current Year Activities
Open forums for collaboration among utilities, major automakers, charging equipment manufacturers, charging station operators, national laboratories, and other national and global EV industry stakeholders to address technical challenges and inform standards	Led a collaborative effort to inform a standard charging plug design for light-duty EVs Led a collaborative effort to inform a standard for electric bus charging Hosted the Infrastructure Working Council for nearly 30 years. The council is ongoing.	Regularly convene utilities, automakers, equipment manufacturers, national laboratories, nongovernmental organizations, and other national and global stakeholders in collaborative meetings to advance technologies and inform standards for EVs and charging equipment The public Infrastructure Working Council focuses on standards for light-duty EVs, and the public Bus and Truck Working Council focuses on standards for medium- and heavy-duty EVs.

Tools and Analyses to Enable Market Transformation

Approach	Accomplishments	Current Year Activities
Analyses of the implications of smart charging and vehicle-to-grid systems for electricity rate structures, demand response, and costs and benefits for grid operations Analyses of the environmental benefits of EVs (such as emissions reductions and improved air quality) Analyses of the economic benefits of EVs to utilities, utility customers, and society Development of user-friendly tools that can help utilities identify cost-effective solutions to accommodate new loads from commercial and industrial EV fleets Development of user-friendly tools that utilities" commercial and industrial customers can use to determine the most cost-effective ways to deploy charging infrastructure for EV fleets Local EV market assessments in specific utility service areas (including quantifying current EV sales, projecting future EV sales, and mapping charging infrastructure) to inform	Demonstrated (in collaboration with the Natural Resources Defense Council) that EVs have lower emissions than gasoline-fueled vehicles and improve air quality Provided analyses that informed a utility and local government in establishing a charging station network Developed an easy-to-use forklift cost savings calculator for a large utility and its customers	Develop and apply tools to model impacts of EV adoption on distribution circuits up to the transformer level Develop and apply tools to model environmental impacts of EVs and analyze emissions related to EV use at national, regional, and local scales Develop tools that can help utilities identify cost-effective solutions to accommodate new loads from commercial and industrial EV fleets Help utilities develop user-friendly tools that their commercial and industrial customers can use to determine the most cost-effective ways to deploy charging infrastructure for EV fleets Quantify current EV sales, forecast future EV sales, and map local charging stations in specific utility service areas to inform investment decisions on utility EV programs, grid upgrades, and charging infrastructure Create utility dashboards that clearly and concisely communicate utility-specific trends, such as EV growth, charging station growth, and EV availability.