Vehicle Electrification at the ARC Industry & City Forum

Transportation is one of the fastest-changing and most exciting sectors in the global economy. Connected & autonomous vehicles, shared mobility concepts, and the shift to electric vehicles (together referred to as CASE) are some of the most exciting avenues. Of these, vehicle electrification is most mature.

Electrification has been gaining momentum recently, with millions of private light-duty vehicles on the road, nine- and ten-figure vehicle purchase orders on the commercial side, and vast investments by OEMs and suppliers in their EV programs.

At ARC’s 24th annual Industry & City Forum, we were joined on our panel by three leaders in the EV space showcasing how vehicle electrification is becoming a reality, how charging can be done in harmony with the broader energy system, and what policy is needed to support the move to sustainable electric mobility.

Innovative Public Policy in the City of Orlando

Our first presenter was Chris Castro, Sustainability Director for the City of Orlando, a LEED-certified gold sustainable city. He shared how the city has been promoting sustainable (mostly electric) transport via the Green Works Orlando program.  Most EV charging is done at home, though some are done at work or “destination” locations like shopping centers. More importantly, these publicly visible chargers serve to boost consumer confidence and help raise EV adoption. To this end, the city of Orlando has deployed hundreds of level 2 chargers in public spaces around the city such as parks, venues, and parking lots, with more coming soon.

To further accelerate infrastructure rollout, the city has developed a novel on-bill financing program in partnership with the municipal utility called the OUCharge-it program. A business with on-site parking can have level 2 or level 3 chargers installed on its property for use by employees or customers with no upfront cost, and pay off the equipment on their electricity bill across a seven-year term.

The city is also targeting its own fleet, setting a goal of 100% electric or alternative fuel vehicles by 2030. Currently, the fleet has 179 including hybrids, having secured discounted purchase costs by leveraging the Climate Mayors EV Purchasing Collaborative, a platform enabling cities to bid for EVs together.

To electrify the bus fleet, the city, utility, and transit authority created a new battery-as-a-service model, where the utility buys and leases to the transit agency the battery and charging gear, and the operator makes the lease payment out of the sizeable fuel and maintenance savings that e-buses provide. After eight years the utility replaces the battery with a new one and uses the older one for solar plus storage applications on the grid – a “public-public-public partnership” according to Mr. Castro.

Public knowledge and perception is key to raising EV adoption. The city of Orlando gets 75m visitors in a year for a population under 300k. This presents challenges to the city, as well as a unique opportunity to expose people from all over the country and even the world to EVs. Through the “Drive Electric Orlando” program, visitors to the city can rent an EV which doubles as a VIP pass – earning them free priority parking at theme parks and lodging destinations. The city also hosts local EV ride and drive events to promote exposure and education around electric vehicles for its residents.

Mortenson Presents Fleet Readiness Study & Infrastructure Needs

Our next presenter was Joffrey Wilson, Strategy and Market Development Director at Mortenson - an EPC active in the renewables and utility space, having expanded to microgrid and commercial EV charging infrastructure installations as well in recent years. To start, he presented results from a survey done in conjunction with the 2019 Advanced Clean Transportation Expo, illustrating demand and perceptions around EVs from fleets in attendance. 

They found that fleets expect roughly half of their vehicles to be alternatively fueled (EV, CNG, H2, etc.) in 5-7 years. Breaking that down further, 3 in 5 respondents also believed that EVs would be the superior option at that time, with the others predominantly opting for CNG and hybrid powertrains. The group believed the number one barrier to clean vehicle adoption would be infrastructure.

On that note, Mr. Wilson explored the challenges in building commercial charging infrastructure and the need for proactive planning and forethought. He shared some lessons learned from his firm’s experience building major charging infrastructure installations. The construction process can be complicated and larger installations such as high power overhead opportunity chargers for bus fleets can take many months, or over a year if power infrastructure upgrades are required as well. In projects like these, early stakeholder engagement with the serving utility, municipal government, and EPC should be conducted in parallel with the vehicle purchasing process. This allows proper time and attention for siting, permitting, construction planning, and energy delivery requirements. Not planning properly is expensive and can lead to new vehicles sitting idle as they wait for charging infrastructure.

Mr. Wilson summed it up like this “Number one, planning upfront. Making sure infrastructure is part of the discussion as soon as you start to talk about vehicle electrification”.

The Mobility House on Charge Management & VGI

We then welcomed Gregor Hintler, Head of North America at The Mobility House (TMH), a leading provider of EV charging software solutions. He introduced the need for charge management to be a part of any savvy electrification project.

EVs do tend to provide fleet operators with a lower TCO due to sizeable cost savings in fuel and maintenance. That is unless they are hit with onerous demand charges from their utility. Mr. Hintler pointed out that “Electrifying fleets often focus on the vehicles themselves but pay little attention to the infrastructure required, as well as how to manage the use of that infrastructure to actually get to the operational cost savings”. 

Charge management software such as TMH’s ChargePilot solution precisely controls energy flow to vehicles while they are plugged in, allowing the intelligent spreading of energy consumption to avoid demand charges as well as shifting it to when energy costs are lower, all while making sure the vehicles are prepared for their mission profile the following day. Spreading out demand load and reducing peak power needs also allows for a reduction in on-site power capacity, saving the operator on costly power distribution upgrades.

Mr. Hintler also discussed the potential for vehicle-grid-integration (VGI) applications, “it’s becoming clear that as we transition to EVs, we are going to have a ton of batteries on wheels that are not going to be used 80-90% of the time. That means a lot of economic opportunities since those batteries could be used to provide valuable services to the grid”. 
Vehicles sitting idle could be used to store some of the excess clean energy generated by highly variable renewable resources such as wind and solar. To further smooth out grid net load profiles and avoid the use of expensive peaker plants, idle batteries can discharge excess energy back into the system (vehicle-to-grid or V2G).

Getting individuals and fleets to agree to have their vehicles charge at opportune times for the grid can be done with a price signal from the utility, saving both parties money. Incentivizing discharge from vehicles could be done with a bill credit or even more creative methods. One of TMH’s clients, a large stadium in Amsterdam with V2G enabled in its parking garage, offers priority parking for EV drivers that allow some backup power to be drawn by the building if needed during the event. Mr. Hintler suggests that as V2G technology evolves and the cost of bi-directional chargers improves, charge management software should be ready for it.