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."
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.
Approach
The Electric Transportation program utilizes several approaches to advance research in the rapidly changing landscape.
Utility Customers
- 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
Thought Leadership on Markets and Technology
- 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
Research, Development, Testing, and Collaborative Demonstrations
- 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
Leadership on Informing Standards
- 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
Tools and Analyses to Enable Market Transformation
- 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)