The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was passed by the US Senate, calling for $550 billion in new spending over the next five years. For utility companies, some of the highlights are $73 billion for Grid Modernization and $7.5 billion for EV Charging Infrastructure. Another interesting inclusion is the $65 billion for high-speed internet infrastructure – required for connected homes etc. – and digital equity. The graph below provides an overview of how the bill matches up with the ambitions set by President Biden in the American Jobs Plan.

The following sections in the Bill pertain specifically to Transportation Electrification:

• Sec. 11401 - Grants for Charging and Fueling Infrastructure: A grant program is to be established that so that an eligible entity – such as a state or urban planning agency can receive a grant to contract with a private entity “to strategically deploy publicly accessible electric vehicle charging infrastructure, hydrogen fueling infrastructure, propane fueling infrastructure, and natural gas fueling infrastructure along designated alternative fuel corridors that will be accessible to all drivers of electric vehicles, hydrogen vehicles, propane vehicles, and natural gas vehicles.”
• Sec. 25006 – Electric Vehicle Working Group: Mandates the establishment of an electric vehicle working group to make recommendations regarding the development, adoption, and integration of light-, medium-, and heavy-duty electric vehicles into the transportation and energy systems of the United States. The working group will consist of 25 participants from different stakeholder groups and will report on the barriers and opportunities for transportation electrification which will form the basis for the governmental transportation electrification strategy.
• Sec. 71101 – Clean School Bus Program: This section authorizes $5 billion over 5 years and provides grants for replacement of existing school bus fleets by states and local governments. $2.5 billion is reserved for electric vehicles and the other half for low emissions vehicles such as gas, hydrogen, propane and biofuels.

In addition to these sections, there are several sections on data collection and analysis for transportation research – as well as demonstration and R&D projects for second-life applications of EV batteries and battery recycling (Sec. 40112 & Sec. 40208).

This Bill in itself is far removed from what the Biden administration presented as their ambitions in the American Jobs Plan with regards to transportation electrification. The Plan proposed an investment of $174 billion dollar to “win the EV market”, including a focus on supply chains from raw materials to battery and vehicle manufacturing, sales rebates and tax incentives for American-made EVs ($100 billion), and grants and incentive programs that should lead to a national network of 500,000 EV chargers by 2030 ($15 billion).

The current bill includes only half of the $15 billion in the American Jobs Plan, and the current Bill does not include the sales incentives proposed. But more action is expected as the Democrats are planning additional EV funding through the Budget Reconciliation Bill that has a framework agreement of $3.5 trillion which should be fully offset by new tax revenues (prohibiting new taxes on families making <$400.000), health care savings, and long-term economic growth. The framework includes the following instructions for the different Senate committees involved:

• $198 billion for the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for activities including “financing for domestic manufacturing of clean energy and auto supply chain”
• $83 billion for activities within the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology that include “investments in technology, transportation, and more”
• $67 billion for the Committee on Environment and Public Works which includes “Investments in clean vehicles”
• $37 billion for the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for “electrifying the federal vehicle fleet”

In addition, President Biden signed an Executive Order on August 5th that is aimed at half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 being electric, with backing of the major US automotive OEMS in line with their earlier commitments and aspirations that we analyzed in this article. It also includes new emission standards. The Executive Order is not legally binding though and the Budget Reconciliation bill – although it can be passed with a simple majority – still needs to find unified support from a not so unified Democratic party.

By end of 2020, there were 106,000 publicly accessible EVSE ports. So a major increase is necessary to get to the ambitions from the American Jobs Plan to get to 500,000. The number of 500,000 is supported by analysis from Atlas Public Policy that calculated the need for 495,000 public chargers to get to 100% passenger electric vehicle sales by 2035 – requiring an investment of $39 billion for these public charges and a total charging infrastructure investment of $87 billion by 2030.

If the targets for EV sales and charging infrastructure buildout are met, that presents another challenge: integrating these vehicles into a clean power system. For example, the “Pathways to Carbon-Neutral NYC” study modeled that 1.5 million Zero Emissions Vehicles would be needed by 2050 to reduce 2020 transportation emissions by 80% in New York City. This would not just require over 900.000 chargers (between private, public, L2, and DCFC) but also add 6,000 GWh per year of electricity demand provided by renewable energy sources. This requires significant build out of renewable energy generation, energy storage, but also peak shaving through managed charging of these electric vehicles.

Timing and throughput of EV charging will become only more important for utilities to manage with further EV adoption. Charging too many vehicles at the same time will lead to overburdening generation capacity and T&D infrastructure, including very costly expansion of that infrastructure. Solutions to manage this charging over a large fleet of EVs in a utility operating area will help lower the system cost of adding all of these new EV loads, as well as grid balancing support and the possibility to integrate more renewables into the generation mix.

In our Vehicle-Grid-Integration Forum last year, we highlighted Weave Grid, EV.Energy, and Nuvve and discussed the technology for managed charging and Vehicle-2-Grid solutions that can help with this challenge. In our “Utility V1G Lessons” Forum on August 26th we are bringing in two utilities – Silicon Valley Clean Energy and Madison Gas & Electric – to learn about how they have implemented EV.Energy’s solution to build customer programs for demand response and carbon-free EV charging.

I hope to see you at the Forum, and I would love to hear your thoughts on the Transportation Electrification policy/funding landscape or any other questions about the Infrastructure Bill in the comments below. We’ll be diving into other areas of the bill – like the $73 billion for Grid Modernization – in future articles. It is also important to remember that the bill needs to pass both the House and Senate before landing on the President’s desk and that there is still a long way to go to get it across the finish line.

If you are interested in further coverage of the Bill please follow these links:

• Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS)
• Renewable Energies & Energy Storage