Increasing Electrification Infrastructure in Homes and Buildings
As America transitions toward a clean-energy electrical grid, the focus will be on power plants, transmission lines, substations, transformers, and distribution lines – all grid components that will likely need to be revamped.
Remarkably, much of this sweeping transition will hinge primarily on what activity starts at the home – where about 80% of EV charging is done today and where tens of millions of new or replacement EV chargers, batteries, smart panels, solar panels, and heat pumps will need to be installed.
If America is to meet the ambitious but crucial goals of engendering a carbon and pollution-free electric power sector plus a net-zero emissions economy, consumers will have to increasingly adopt this array of clean-energy and transportation technologies. Businesses, of course, will need to do the same.
Befitting its revolutionary nature, the scale and scope of this transition will be enormous – involving in some way most of the nation’s physical capital, encompassing factories and industrial buildings, commercial buildings, and all types of housing. As of 2021, the U.S. had about 128 million housing units, of which 81.7 million were detached, 8.2 million attached single-family homes, and about 31.8 million multifamily apartment units.
A 2021 Pecan Street Inc. study, focusing exclusively on residential electric capacity, determined that as many as 48 million of those single-family homes will need electric service panel upgrades “before they can fully electrify.” Data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) further underscores the massive task required to upgrade U.S. housing to accommodate Level 2 EV chargers: As of 2022, NREL found just 1246 EV charging ports at all private U.S. multifamily residences (most being Level 2 EV chargers).
Broader U.S. EV adoption will indeed demand significantly upgraded home-charging capacity because many older, non-renovated American homes cannot accommodate faster EV charging (Level 2) and other electrification technologies.
In June 2023, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) released its “2030 National Charging Network” study assessing EV charging of all types at residential and commercial properties. The study projects that “to support... a scenario of 33 million EVs on the road by 2030” the national EV charging infrastructure will require: “26 million Level 1 and Level 2 charging ports at privately accessible locations—including single-family homes, multifamily properties, and workplaces, and 1 million Level 2 charging ports at publicly accessible locations—including high-density neighborhoods, office buildings, and retail outlets.”
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S&P Global Mobility also predicts that by 2030, “a total of around 2.13 million Level 2 and 172,000 Level 3 public chargers will be required, in addition to home EV chargers” to serve the 28.3 million EVs projected to be traversing U.S. roads.
A 2022 Boston Consulting Group (BCG) survey of 1,000 EV owners across the U.S., Europe, and China determined that EV owners are willing to “pay a lot more to power up their cars at fast-charging public facilities.”
But the survey noted that “[t]his sentiment may be short-lived, though.” It added: “Most EV owners today are relatively wealthy— the cars tend to be costly—and are not overly price sensitive. Thus, for them the convenience of a fast charge likely more than outweighs the expense. But in the coming years, as EVs drop in price and reach mass adoption, less well-heeled drivers may balk at the increased expense of fast charging and lean more toward slower public charging facilities.”
The good news is that over the longer term, solar generation and newly emerging bidirectional charging technology will help reduce EV usage costs for consumers while helping accelerate the transition to a clean-energy grid. By installing solar panels and battery storage alongside EV charging stations, it is possible to provide charging capabilities where the grid may not otherwise be able to support it. Moreover, bidirectional charging technology can provide a way to store excess solar energy during the day and use it to charge EVs, homes, and even businesses at night, a concept known as vehicle-to-home (V2H).
With bidirectional charging and battery storage, EV batteries can also receive energy from the grid and discharge it back into the grid, essentially using EVs as a mobile energy storage system that can feed excess electricity into the grid during high demand, a concept known as vehicle-to-grid (V2G). This helps stabilize the grid and avoid blackouts while providing a revenue stream for EV owners.
Bidirectional charging will also help reduce EV ownership costs by allowing owners to sell any excess stored energy in their vehicle back to the grid or use it to power their homes during peak hours when electricity prices are higher.
If you’ve not already read our new white paper, Electrification2030, we encourage you to do so here. But if you prefer to review it piecemeal, we’ll also be posting abbreviated versions of the sections from the paper’s Part 1 here on LinkedIn.