Utilities
Electric utilities are responsible for the delivery of electricity to homes and businesses, including metering, billing, and customer service. Accordingly, utilities play an essential part in the rollout of EV charging infrastructure, and they are among the first partners that should be considered for EVSE installations.
Some coordination with the local utility is necessary in almost all charging station installations, and a need for deeper coordination is even more likely in rural areas, where the infrastructure may be less robust and high-capacity EVSE installations are more likely to require upgrades to electrical service.
With all EV infrastructure projects, it is important to engage with the local utility from the beginning—even in the conceptual stage. This can avoid costly and time-consuming changes later in the process.
Utilities have a strong interest in the deployment of EVSE, and they have been investing heavily in both the deployment of EVs and the rollout of charging infrastructure. In the first seven months of 2020, State regulators approved more than $760 million in proposed utility investments in transportation electrification. The majority of these programs involve either direct utility ownership of EVSE installations or “make-ready” programs in which utilities pay for necessary site upgrades.
See Project Development and Scoping for more information on different ownership models.
See the figure below for an overview of roles a utility can play in an EVSE project.
Furthermore, the Electric Highway Coalition—which comprises 14 major utilities representing more than 60 million residential customers across 29 States and the District of Columbia—announced in March 2021 a plan to build “one seamless network of chargers from West Texas to the Gulf of Mexico and all the way up the Eastern seaboard.”
Importance of Coordination
Partnering with a utility can be useful or necessary for:
- Addressing grid-level constraints that may arise in larger-scale project planning (see Types of EV Infrastructure Planning for a discussion of community- and corridor-level planning). A utility can also help with site-selection by providing valuable information about the limitations and costs related to electricity supply at each potential site.
- Working through multiple stages of the project-planning process—for example, to understand local grid limitations or needs for upgrades, to determine the best ownership model, to determine electricity rates and pricing structures, and to provide technical and programmatic support for EVSE installations (see the Project Planning Checklist).
- Identifying financial opportunities, such as rebates and other forms of financial support directly from the utility, or potentially partnering with utilities on proposals. See Funding Resource Clearinghouses for resources to help identify local utility funding programs.
Tribal utilities can also be a liaison to other Tribal Government entities needed to collaborate for EV infrastructure deployment on Tribal Lands.
Types of Utilities
Utility Partnerships: Charger Installation with Rural Electric Cooperatives
An electric cooperative serving the Roaring Fork and Eagle River Valleys in Colorado, partnered with a charging network to install and maintain Level 2 home and workplace chargers for participating members at low or no upfront cost. In exchange, members pay an additional fixed charge on their utility bill over three years. The co-op is also working with community partners to invest funding from the Colorado Energy Office into DCFC stations. In 2019, the co-op partnered with the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority to deploy eight electric buses by installing bus charging infrastructure, developing new electricity rates, and providing renewable energy options for charging. In 2020, seven additional BEBs were brought into the co-op’s service area through investments by Eagle County Transit, Town of Avon, Town of Vail, and Aspen School Districts.
The nearly 3,000 electric utilities in the United States fall into four categories:
Investor-Owned Utilities
Investor-owned utilities (IOUs) are the most prevalent, serving nearly 75 percent of customers nationwide. They are owned by shareholders, and their rate structures and other operational aspects are highly regulated.
While IOUs originally began in larger cities—where the higher density of demand made a stronger business case for investing in electricity distribution infrastructure—today, they have a presence in most parts of rural America and operate in almost every State.
Publicly Owned Utilities
Publicly owned utilities (POUs) are utilities run by Federal, State, or municipal entities and, in some cases, political subdivisions. Historically, POUs began in smaller cities and towns that did not initially attract interest or investment from IOUs.
While POUs are generally smaller (serving an average of about 12,000 customers each) and may lack the resources of a large IOU, they are not subject to the same stringent regulations as IOUs and may have more flexibility in terms of ownership models and other partnering opportunities.
Cooperatives (co-ops)
Cooperatives (co-ops) are not-for-profit member-owned utilities that are usually located in rural areas and have a presence in 47 States. Distribution co-ops deliver electricity to their members (customers) while generation and transmission co-ops produce or purchase power that can in turn be provided wholesale to distribution co-ops. Co-ops expanded rapidly after the 1936 Rural Electrification Act to bring electricity to communities not served by IOUs or municipal utilities.
Distribution o-ops tend to be smaller (serving an average of about 24,000 customers each), but like POUs, they are not subject to the same stringent rate structure and operational regulations as IOUs.
Tribal Utility Authorities (TUAs)
Tribal Utility Authorities (TUAs) are entities formed by Tribal Governments to regulate energy activities or to assume responsibility for and control of delivering power to customers on Tribal Lands. Tribes have formed TUAs to address power outages and poor service from existing electric utilities, limited or poor interaction with State and Ffederal entities to resolve energy challenges on Tribal Lands, ensure that electric service reaches remote areas of a reservation, and to expand economic opportunity and improve the health and well-being of residents of Tribal Lands, among other reasons.
Identifying Opportunities and Making Contact
Given that individual counties may have multiple utilities and potentially multiple types of utilities operating within their boundaries, prospective EVSE site planners should become familiar with all the utilities in their region and determine which utility serves their prospective EVSE site. This will let site planners identify all options for potential partnering, which could be important given the wide range of EV programs and varying levels of interest and involvement among utilities.
For information on the territory served by each utility in the United States, including basic information about each utility, see this map of electric utility service territories.1 Local county or city governments may also provide maps and online tools to help identify which utility providers serve a particular address.
There are also State-level resources for identifying utilities, including maps or directories, such as the following examples:
To contact a utility, it may be best to first work through a larger coalition, Tribal Government, or regional partnership. For site planners not working with a coalition, the next best approach may be to work with charging network providers, who often have well-established relationships with local utilities (see the Charging Networks section).
Another option is to contact the utility directly. As noted earlier, utilities may have widely varying interest in—and resources devoted to—EV infrastructure. Many utilities have prominent information on their websites about electric vehicles and EV infrastructure, and often this information targets entities looking to invest in charging infrastructure.
Lastly, in areas with smaller utilities, or where EV rollout has been slower and information is sparse, it may be worthwhile to contact one of the national organizations representing utilities. These larger national resources can provide EV infrastructure site planners with ideas about the types of opportunities available. Even if the local utility does not have a well-developed program, knowing what type of utility it is and how to get information at the national level might help with understanding the available partnership options. National resources might also open the door for larger EV infrastructure developers to propose new partnership programs with their utilities.
The three main national organizations representing utilities are the Edison Electric Institute, which represents IOUs (see Figure 4.4 for a portal for all EV-related programs of any IOU in any State); the American Public Power Association, which represents POUs; and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which represents co-ops. Smaller regional associations such as the Arizona Tribal Energy Association and the Midwest Tribal Energy Resources Association serve Tribal electric-sector interests.
1 To view this map, filter out (un-select) all layers except for “Electric Retail Service Territories.”
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