Utilities waking up to the potential profits in EV charging stations

BY JAMES BRUGGERS reports for Today’s Climate

Electric vehicle, charging. Credit: Zhang Peng/LightRocket via Getty Images
Electric vehicle sales are growing, and so is demand for charging infrastructure. Automakers, cities and businesses have started providing it. Now electric utilities are getting in on the revenue opportunity. Credit: Zhang Peng/LightRocket via Getty Images

With electric vehicle sales climbing, utilities are investing in thousands of new EV charging stations, recognizing that if they don’t move now, they could lose out on a growing and increasingly competitive market.

The latest example is Duke Energy, which this week proposed a $76 million program in North Carolina that it described as the largest investment in electric vehicle infrastructure among utilities in the Southeast.

“This is definitely part of a broader movement in the electricity sector to electric transportation,” said Noah Garcia, a transportation energy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “They are seeing the opportunity is ripe now as the technology has matured.”

Utilities also see selling power to motorists “as a way to shield or insulate them from other shifts in power sectors,” Garcia said. It could help them make up for some sales losses as increases in energy efficiency and private rooftop solar, for example, cut into growth in traditional electricity demand.

A lack of charging stations has been an impediment to electric vehicle sales in many parts of the country, but that landscape is starting to change.

States have started requiring power companies to add charging stations. Some utilities are moving on their own to fill the gap. And a variety of companies, as well as local governments and communities, are putting in their own charging stations.

Tesla, which is currently selling the most electric vehicles in the United States, has chargers at hundreds of locations in the United States and 1,400 globally, and other automakers are also getting in the game.

Automakers like Telsa began installing charging stations as their electric vehicle sales rose. Lack of charging infrastructure was an early impediment to sales in many areas, but that landscape is changing. Credit: Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Automakers like Telsa began installing charging stations as their electric vehicle sales rose. Lack of charging infrastructure was an early impediment to sales in many areas, but that landscape is changing. Credit: Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Electrify America, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, has expansive plans stemming from the legal settlement over its diesel emissions cheating scandal. It’s investing $2 billion over 10 years in electric vehicle infrastructure and education, including putting in fast-charging stations that can add 20 miles per minute in 39 states, and chargers in 17 major metro areas. Volkswagen is separately funding charging stations in dozens of states through an environmental mitigation trust set up under the settlement.

California, Oregon and, most recently, New Mexico, have passed legislation requiring utilities to submit investment proposals to their regulators to accelerate transportation electrification, Garcia said. New Jersey and Illinois are actively pursuing similar legislation, he said.

There is a clear incentive for the utilities to start providing charging infrastructure sooner rather than later, said Brett Smith, an auto industry researcher at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

“If the independent companies are in all the prime spots,” he said, “what is left for the utilities?”

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Fail to hold an advertised public meeting? This could result


Howard D. Geneslaw, an attorney with the Gibbons law firm, sent this notice today.

A recent decision by New York’s Appellate Division, Second Department, serves as a reminder of the importance of promptly filing administrative determinations, holding required duly noticed public hearings, and the consequences of failing to do so.

In Corrales v. Zoning Board of Appeals of the Village of Dobbs Ferry, Livingston Development Group in November 2012 submitted an application for the development of twelve condominiums. The Building Department forwarded the application to the Planning Board, which conducted a public hearing after which it recommended approval subject to certain conditions. The Village Board of Trustees, which retained site plan approval authority, granted site plan approval conditioned on, among other things, the applicant obtaining approval from the Architectural and Historic Review Board (the “AHRB”).

Thereafter, the applicant applied to the AHRB, which denied its application. The applicant appealed the denial to the Zoning Board of Appeals (“ZBA”). While that appeal was pending, neighbors – one of whom did not receive notice of the Planning Board’s earlier public hearing – asserted that the proposed condominium use was not permitted in the zoning district. The neighbors’ attorney also raised this issue at a subsequent meeting of the AHRB, during which the assistant building inspector gave the opinion that the proposed use complied with applicable zoning regulations.

The neighbors, viewing the assistant building inspector’s oral opinion as an official “determination,” filed an appeal with the ZBA. It ruled that in forwarding to the Planning Board…Click Here to View Full Blog Post

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Who’s next to ban single-use plastic bags? Maybe Massachusetts or Vermont

Cody Ellis reports for WasteDive

  • As legislative sessions across the U.S. continue, several states are making moves toward banning single-use plastic bags and charging for replacement options. In Washington, for example, SB 5323 passed the state Senate and is in committee in the House of Representatives. An environmental committee already evaluated the bill favorably and recommended its passage.
  • Last week, the Vermont Senate advanced a bill (S.113) that would prohibit single-use plastic bags and expanded polystyrene foam, mandate a fee for paper bags and require vendors to only give out single-use plastic straws on request. Gov. Phil Scott is “not opposed” to the plastic bag ban, according to VT Digger.
  • In Massachusetts, a bill (H.771) that would ban single-use carryout bags and charge for replacement options was the subject of an April 2 hearing. At least 90 communities in Massachusetts, including Boston, already have some sort of restrictions on bags.

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Shell quits trade group over climate position

But the oil giant stayed in the American Petroleum Institute despite “some misalignment.”

By Steven Mufson

Steven Mufson reports on climate change for the Washington Post

Citing differences over climate change, Royal Dutch Shell has pulled out of an industry trade group called the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.

Shell said that it was at odds with the refining and petrochemical group on the Paris climate agreement, carbon pricing, fuel mandates and the reduction of methane emissions.

But Shell decided to keep its membership in the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and seven other trade associations, despite what Shell called “some misalignment” between its views on climate policy and theirs. The company said it would try to change the positions of those groups.

Shell’s decision to break with one influential trade association while justifying its decision to stick with others comes as shareholders and activists have ramped up pressure on major energy companies to lay out their approach to tackling climate change.

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EPA’s own adviser finds Trump’s rollback of car rules could cost jobs


 BY DINO GRANDONI with Paulina Firozi
THE LIGHTBULB (Washington Post)

Highway traffic into Los Angeles. (Reuters/Mike Blake)

An environmental adviser to the Trump administration projects that its attempt to reverse Obama-era fuel-efficiency standards could have a steep long-term toll on the U.S. economy and eventually cost the country hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The research by an outside adviser picked by former Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt — and funded by grants from the auto industry — is sure to fuel critics of the Trump administration’s attempts to stall rules meant to reduce the amount of climate-warming and illness-causing pollution produced by the nation’s automobiles. 

While cutting the car regulations would give the U.S. economy a short-term jolt, it would in the long run forestall job-creating automotive innovation while putting less money in the wallets of motorists who would have to spend more on gasoline, according to the adviser John D. Graham, who is dean of Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and his four colleagues. 

The Trump administration’s proposal to freeze standards on tailpipe emissions for new cars and light trucks at 2020 levels, or otherwise watering down their stringency, would create 236,000 fewer jobs by 2035 than if the Obama-era standards stayed intact, according to the paper published late last month in the peer-reviewed Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.

“The final result of our paper is that the possible Trump administration changes to the standard will reduce the short-term loss but it will also significantly reduce the long-term benefit,” said co-author Sanya Carley, associate professor at Indiana University. 

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