Charging Ahead: Grid Planning for Vehicle Electrification

This report is a national-level examination of transportation electrification challenges that impact integrated distribution planning. The report’s primary audiences are utilities, utility regulators and other state decision-makers, EV manufacturers, charging station operators, aggregators, and other technical experts. It explores the challenges of grid planning for electric vehicles and describes roles for existing processes, customer-collaborative processes, and proactive multi-stakeholder processes in enabling vehicle electrification. Challenges include forecasting EV adoption, characterizing locational and temporal impacts, identifying mitigations to avoid the largest impacts, and developing roadmaps and grid plans. The report concludes with four priority actions that can be taken today: improving forecasting, embracing smart charging, incorporating future-ready equipment, and promoting proactive upgrades.

A webinar discussing this study recorded in December 2023, can be viewed here.