Unlikely Partners on the Dance Floor: Stakeholders Uniting to Support the EV Transition with Microgrids
Relationships will be key to the successful electrification of the transportation sector, according to Aron Bowman, president of ELM MicroGrid and ELM Solar, a distributed energy, resource and microgrid provider.
Bowman recently sat down with Rod Walton, managing editor of Microgrid Knowledge, to discuss why he and ELM are so bullish on the state of the e-mobility transition, despite some lingering challenges.
The nation’s electric grid is facing unprecedented challenges in the coming years with skyrocketing demand from both data centers and an influx of electric vehicles hitting the road. As a result, utilities are reimagining their role in meeting that demand, Bowman said.
Utilities are “recognizing that they need to be a part of that solution, but that they might not be able to be the total solution,” he told Walton.
Gone are the days when we can think about electricity delivery in “us or them” terms. To ensure demand is met and grid reliability improves, we must adopt an “us and them” mindset, blending grid power, on-site generation and energy storage, Bowman explained.
Customers are excited about EVs
ELM has seen a lot of excitement from fleet owners around the EV transition, Bowman told Walton. From school buses to local delivery companies and even garbage trucks, fleet operators are anxious to leverage not only the decarbonization and sustainability benefits of EVs, but also the cost savings derived from lower maintenance and operational costs.
“There are a lot of advantages that these fleet operators see to going electric,” Bowman said, but they’re restricted by the lack of infrastructure to support the transition.
One of the reasons support is lacking is because, in its current state, the grid alone will not be able to service the additional load. As a result, interconnection times for EV fleet infrastructure can be upwards of a year, which in turn stalls EV adoption.
It’s a chicken and the egg scenario, and it’s going to take multiple types of energy resources to solve this problem, Bowman said. “The real solutions come when we build things together."
Microgrids can balance the use of grid power with on-site solar generation and energy storage to support EV charging, ultimately reducing the strain on the grid. Working with the EV chargers to optimize dynamically how much and when customers are charging their vehicles is also part of the equation.
“It's definitely a dance,” but the partners are starting to get in sync, including once-reluctant utilities, Bowman said.
“They’re really starting to open up and have a partnering conversation with the end customer. I'm not saying it's all the way to where we all want it to be yet, but it's definitely starting to progress in the right direction,” he said.
Finance community are getting on the dance card, too
Bowman and Walton also discussed financing, another major hurdle for fleet owners looking to make the switch to EVs.
“This market has really started to mature as far as the technology and capabilities, and so we're really starting to see the finance community get comfortable with bringing in pre-approved finance packages,” Bowman explained.
It used to be that every customer project had to go through a vetting process. Now, “it's no different than when you go to buy a car,” he said.
