The electrification of transportation presents a monumental opportunity for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing energy efficiency. However, the utility industry faces significant challenges in providing timely electric service for transportation electrification (TE)Â projects, particularly for fleet customers with Medium and Heavy Duty (MHD) trucks and/or those requiring the charging of large numbers of light-duty vehicles. This article explores these challenges, the attributes of transportation electrification projects, and the need for interim solutions to bridge the timeline mismatch.
Timeline Mismatch and Load Characteristics
Fleet customers transitioning to electric vehicles (EVs) often encounter a timing mismatch between the lead time required for procuring EVs and installing charging infrastructure and the time required for utilities to provide electric service. The gap between customer readiness and utility capacity installations can range from 12 to 18 months, leading to the postponement or cancellation of fleet EV deployments. For instance, while EV orders can have lead times as short as 4-6 months, utility lead times for MW+ service capacity can be 18-24 months or longer.
Transportation electrification projects often result in load increases of 5-10 times or more at existing sites, significantly differing from incremental load additions seen in traditional utility customer projects associated with a building structure. The uncertainty and variability of transportation electrification load characteristics further complicate utility planning and service processes. Without historical load data for large transportation electrification deployments, especially in fleet applications, estimating load becomes more challenging, leading utilities and customers to make conservative planning assumptions that can overstate charging load and understate available capacity.
Interim Solutions for Bridging the Gap
To address the timeline mismatch, customers and utilities must adopt interim solutions. On the customer side, utilizing spare electric capacity within the facility and deploying distributed energy resources (DER), such as distributed generation (DG) and energy storage (ES), can serve as temporary measures. On the utility side, providing construction services for short-term power needs and leveraging DER options can offer interim solutions. Several utilities already have programs for onsite generation and resiliency purposes, which can be adapted for interim power needs in electric vehicle deployments.
One concept is the Minimum Viable Power (MVP) level, the minimum power required to enable a customer to begin vehicle deployment. Power levels as low as 200-300 kW can be sufficient for initial operations. Construction or temporary service delivery, a common practice for utilities during building construction projects, can be extended to large EV projects. Additionally, DER options on the utility side of the meter can provide short-term grid capacity and share the value across multiple customers.
Planning and Customer Engagement
Effective planning for EV deployments requires a collaborative approach between utility and customer planning processes. Customer load requests and available capacity calculations impact project timelines and can be influenced by conservative utility planning practices. Utilities often assume worst-case scenarios in load planning, leading to longer timelines and increased costs. Some utilities are beginning to use seasonal and time-of-day available capacity, but this practice is not yet common.
Improving utility and customer engagement processes is crucial for optimizing solutions and meeting customer needs. Many transportation electrification projects are implemented by fleet managers or operations personnel with minimal experience in facility management and no previous need for electric utility engagement. This lack of knowledge and resources highlights the importance of pilots and early customer deployments. Effective customer communication, including assigned Key Account Managers and knowledgeable Single-Point-of-Contact (SPOC), is essential for successful transportation electrification projects.
Regulatory and Policy Considerations
Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJs) play a significant role in project timelines and processes. Improvements are needed to address issues with AHJs to ensure timely service for transportation electrification projects. Policy and regulatory strategies can significantly impact the ability to provide timely service for these projects, making the support of Public Utility Commissions (PUCs) and other regulatory bodies crucial for necessary grid upgrades.
Recommendations
- Utility adoption of available capacity ratings incorporating customer load profiles with seasonal and/or time-of-day ratings. This requires circuit/substation metering to provide this data. Utilities that do not currently have this metering capability should create programs to do so.
- Customer engagement processes for TE projects should communicate available utility capacity thresholds (transformer, circuit, substation) and timelines required for construction if these thresholds are exceeded. While some utilities do this, it is not standard practice across the industry.
- Customer engagement processes should be relationship-based, not transactional. Engagement for TE projects require discussing things such as customer load estimation, energy management, deployment schedules, MVP, and interim power needs, which is difficult to accomplish without utility representatives well versed in fleet electrification projects.
- Utility Load Request templates should be updated to include additional information for TE projects, or a separate TE load sheet should be created. Existing load sheets used by utilities, with few exceptions, are not sufficient to capture TE load parameters. EPRI’s GridFAST project will facilitate these updates.
Moving Forward
In conclusion, the utility industry could address several challenges to support the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. By implementing interim solutions, improving planning and customer engagement processes, and addressing regulatory considerations, utilities can bridge the timeline mismatch and ensure the successful deployment of transportation electrification projects. This collaborative effort will be key to meeting the evolving needs of the electric sector and advancing the transition to a more sustainable transportation system.
This article is excerpted from a recent EPRI white paper that can be downloaded here: Interim Service Solutions and Timely Grid Connections for Large Transportation Electrification Projects