Most trucking companies have a small office and a garage, and the largest power use is the air compressor. As these companies begin to look at electrifying their fleets, some might discover that energy storage could work for them. This panel will take the audience through a trucking company’s challenges while converting to electric power. The panelists will discuss past implementation successes, the present plan and the future roadmap and transformation vision, including the transition to digitalization. They’ll explain why location is so important to trucking companies, how much it could cost to install electric infrastructure at the fleet owner’s location and the impact of electric rates on time-of-day usage. Panelists will also cover various utility practices driven by the local board of public utilities that limit their ability to respond quickly when new load is anticipated. They will also discuss the available technologies and innovations (such as energy storage) and how to leverage the right tools to control power usage. The examples presented will illustrate how a strategy for electric charging is cost effective.

One of the objectives of charging infrastructure investment is to encourage rapid adoption of EVs by relieving “range” anxiety while reducing GHG emissions. However, EV charging system loads create challenges to electricity grids. This presentation will explore possible solutions to help reduce the negative grid impacts caused by EV and EV charging. One solution is to build EV charging infrastructure as connected microgrids which can enhance capacity and provide services, for example, frequency regulation, demand response, ancillary services and curtailment. This approach can reduce the investment needed to integrate EV charging systems into the grid. The presenter will cover utilities’ interest in EVs as a manageable electric load in the near term and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) in the longer term. Benefits of utilities working with automakers on managing charging site demand will also be covered. In addition, the link between EV microgrids and FERC Order 2222, which mandates that ISOs offer renewable DER markets allowing smaller DERs bid into the market, will be presented. Finally, the presenter will disclose how EV microgrids can supply needed synthetic inertia, which is declining due to fossil-fuel generator retirements, while providing reliability to the loads behind the microgrid meter.

Following the September 2023 Run on Less - Electric DEPOT demonstration, the team at North American Council For Fleet Efficiency (NACFE) has been crunching the data and asking more questions of all the participating fleets, OEMs, EVSE and utilities, trying to learn more about EV truck charging at scale. In this session, NACFE present the numbers and experiences from all parties involved in bringing large scale EV truck depots to life. Attendees will see the latest data, just released in August. This will include information from the first fleet that has a full microgrid (wind, solar, battery and controller to island). While the fleet did have the needed minimum EVs to participate in the official DEPOTS demonstration, the company is clearly leading the industry in a new direction.

Attendees will learn why collaboration is required if the industry is going to meet the challenges legislated in California and other states…infrastructure delays prevented two of the 10 fleets from having their permanent smart charging systems in place in time to participate in DEPOTS. Real operations data doesn’t match the presumption that all trucks will charge slowly overnight in a smart, managed and cost friendly fashion with a one-to-one relationship of trucks to chargers. Utilities can have difficulty understanding and adapting to this reality.  NACFE findings reveal that slow infrastructure buildouts can negatively impact the utility and surrounding community, as well as the fleet. This presentation aims to identify ways that truck fleets and utilities can work together more proactively to find ways to be more effective and quicker with approvals and system installation when it is time to move.

As more electric trucks hit the road, the industry will discover unanticipated constraints. Companies planning to electrify their fleets must understand the realities and challenges involved in obtaining needed power and develop strategies to deal with them. In this session a panel of experts will reveal current challenges which include lack of available power that could lead to a two- to-five-year delay in their electrification plans. Utilities’ challenges and delays can be caused by needs to reinforce existing lines and/or build new substations, accurately determining how much capacity is needed, and understanding availability of software to manage charging infrastructure. Fleet owners’ also must consider similar questions related to software along with impacts of extreme hot and cold temperatures on battery life and range, ways to avoid or limit capacity charges from their utilities, cost effectiveness of building charging infrastructure on leased property vs. finding a depot where charging is already available, and availability of time of day rates. In addition to revealing the importance of a strategy, this panel will also discuss the risks fleet owners might encounter when not partnering with the local utility, various charging strategies, and how energy storage might be part of a successful strategy.

With the goal of ubiquitous access to public charging, GRID Alternatives and the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) are coordinating a robust project team to partner with the utility sector to develop and test new business models for discounted public EV charging. Representative(s) from the project team will present the initial results of these pilots, along with case studies. These pilot results will be replicable models that can be brought to scale, with utilities, communities, and policymakers across the country. The discussion will reveal the important issue of affordable charging access for low-income renters. Although home charging is not only convenient and cost-effective, many low-income individuals live in multi-unit dwellings (MUDs) and rental properties where the installation of personal charging equipment is not feasible and many MUDs lack the infrastructure entirely. To achieve true equity, charging infrastructure must reach EV drivers from all socio-economic backgrounds. Low-income renters are currently dependent on public charging, which typically costs 2-3 times what it would cost to charge at home. The result is disproportionately high costs for this subset of drivers. While many government and utility assistance programs help families pay for home energy, there are no significant programs at the state or federal level to address the economic burden of gasoline. The transition to electric vehicles is a generational opportunity to change that. This panel will discuss these aspects of charging access and the project as a whole, which is supported by grant funding from the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation (FY23 Ride and Drive, FOA DE-FOA-0002881). Attendees will hear about how to overcome barriers to affordable charging access for low-income renters, how to engage community and utility partners to pilot access to public subsidized charging, and the next steps and policy levers for bringing subsidized public charging to scale across the country.