ORIGINAL REPORTING: The Regulation EVs Urgently Need

Are regulators hindering EV acceleration? Utilities and state regulators are working to scale up charging infrastructure, finding that interoperability is key.

Herman K. Trabish, Oct. 9, 2018 (Utility Dive)

Editor’s note: Nothing can stop the transition to transportation electrification but there are many complications slowing it.

The road to transportation electrification is now driven by demand from policymakers and the public through private sector automakers and charger providers to electric utilities and their regulators. Networked electric vehicles (EVs) can be a highly flexible distributed energy resource (DER) and, as a distributed storage system, support the power system's transition to low-cost, low-emissions renewables. Carmakers are rushing to meet consumer demand. And charger providers and utilities are beginning to collaborate on charger infrastructure deployment, when regulators greenlight the build-out. "Today's infrastructure is clearly inadequate to accommodate greater penetration of EVs," according to Philip B. Jones, former Washington utility commissioner and current executive director of the Alliance for Transportation Electrification.

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Not a single region or use-case is ready for the transformation that is nevertheless gaining momentum, Jones said in a September 13 webinar previewing a new paper on transportation electrification from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Streamlining collaboration between utilities and charger providers and standardizing communications protocols were among Jones' chief concerns. State-level guidance is needed because a disengaged White House has provided none, he added. And because "the auto industry will change more in the next 5 years than it has in the last 50," General Motors Chair and CEO Mary Barra wrote in the most recent GM annual report… click here for more

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