Creating Energy Security through Electrification

Renewable energy options offer ample opportunities for reducing carbon emissions caused by fossil-fuel based transportation as policymakers, fleet operators and various levels of government transition toward zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs).

This shift involves changing grids to support more renewable technologies and different methods of energy generation, as these grids will require more capacity to handle the additional power management needs.

“Charge management and distributed energy resources like batteries, solar and microgrids are critical components that will help ensure that the grid can support that shift to electrification, thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Tyler Hughes, WSP vice president of business development and national electrification lead.

However, this also poses new challenges for utility companies to increase the supply of clean electric energy to meet consumer demand. Adding behind-the-meter resilient technologies that are natively direct current, such as stationary battery storage and solar panels are a critical component to helping to support grid capacity needs. These technologies can generate and store power during “off peak” times to help lessen the burden on the grid if EV charging needs to happen during “peak” hours.

ZEVs are at the forefront of reducing carbon emissions, as they have substantially less carbon impact when compared to traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.

“When we’re talking about reducing carbon impact, some would argue that if an electric vehicle (EV) is charged by a coal fire power plant, then you’re still emitting CO2 in the process, but there’s still a significant reduction in CO2 emissions,” Hughes said.

According to Hughes, this is because vehicles with ICEs are simply outmatched by the sheer efficiency of pure EVs. Even without vehicle upgrades and the decommission of coal plants, there would still be less greenhouse gas emissions if there was a switch to all electric.

“Part of that is the energy simply lost to heat with an ICE vehicle, whereas with an EV the energy goes directly to the wheels, so even in the case of a coal fire power grid, you’re still seeing a reduction in overall emissions,” Hughes said.

Among the electrification challenges that need to be addressed is ensuring that there are enough EV charging stations available, especially in a tourism hub like Florida. 

“More charging stations may need to be built, and at the same time we need to make sure there’s enough grid capacity to support those additional charging stations,” said Kung Ven, WSP Energy lead for the Southeast region.

The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which was established by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law program, is establishing a national network of alternative fuel and charging infrastructure along the national highway system corridors. These alternative fuel corridors will be designed to support EV charging and will help address this long-distance driving concern.

“NEVI is a great first step, but we’ll need to go beyond just what NEVI offers,” Hughes said. “I think as more things get deployed, you’re going to start seeing business models that can really capitalize on the need for EV charging to become successful and begin to deploy in the state. Charging is profitable, and they’re the next gas station, so you’ll start seeing that convenience store setup around these charging stations.”

Another challenge of this transition is upgrading distribution grids. For the most part, there’s sufficient transmission and overall generation capacity for vehicles to become all electric. But there can be issues when it comes to the distribution of this power.

“If you have a high concentration of EVs in one area, those specific distribution feeders may not have the capacity to charge everything,” Hughes said. “We see this especially in heavy duty markets like buses. In Florida specifically, there’s a real concern that there’s enough electric infrastructure for natural disasters, for those who have to evacuate or shelter in place in the event of a hurricane, because you don’t have a portable energy source in gasoline anymore.”

In addition to making sure there is necessary infrastructure and distribution grid upgrades to charge these EVs, there are developing technologies that can help in the event of emergencies.

“In the event of a hurricane, you could make bus trips to the local hospital, plug them in and make sure the emergency department is still able to operate in the event of a power outage, Hughes said. You’re essentially creating fleets of mobile energy sources that can be plugged back into grids into places that are down, or you can support community centers or microgrids. It can be a huge asset in the event of an emergency, and it’s a possible solution that electrification can give to those situations in Florida.”

WSP experts are supporting projects on decarbonization strategies to achieve adoption of ZEVs in complex regional environments, ranging from ports and real estate endeavors to public services.

In Florida specifically, WSP is providing detailed design work for Miami-Dade County’s first all-electric bus depot, which will power about 100 buses and will receive secondary service from Florida Power and Light in order to charge all these buses at full capacity.

“They have charge management solutions to try and lessen the load on the grid, but FPL and Miami Dade are both very conscious that resiliency is a critical aspect of this, as well,” Hughes said. “There are redundant feeders from geographically diverse locations that help make sure the charging time is as efficient as possible and that there’s capacity in case all the vehicles need to be charged at the same time.

“It’s going to be a great, state-of-the-art facility and one of the first all-electric bus depots in Florida.”

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