San Diego Gas and Electric is getting ready for the next wave of vehicle electrification in California. The company is getting ready to build a massive charging network to support heavy-duty vehicles.
The California Public Utilities Commission recently gave SDG&E the green light to deploy the infrastructure necessary to electrify at least 3,000 buses, trucks, and forklifts. It’s a major undertaking that SDG&E believes will take five years to complete.
California already has good deal of EV infrastructure in place, but the vast majority of it is tailored to small passenger vehicles. It won’t be able to cope with demands from the electric delivery trucks, garbage trucks, transit buses, school buses, and other heavy-duty EVs that manufacturers are now shipping.
We’re excited to announce our major program to help electrify large vehicles and industrial equipment has been approved by the California Public Utilities Commision! Learn more: https://t.co/Y6G2pAcBtA #cleantransportation pic.twitter.com/oqgIN3uxUk
— SDG&E (@SDGE) August 15, 2019
With this new infrastructure in place, SDG&E hopes to help make a big dent in greenhouse gas emissions. In San Diego and southern Orange County there are currently more than 100,000 fossil fuel-burning commercial vehicles like the EVs SDG&E is prepping for. They produce a large chunk of all vehicle emissions — which account for more than 40 percent of California’s total GHGs.
Big vehicles have equally big batteries on board, and SDG&E wants to seize on the opportunity that presents. They anticipate using this heavy equipment as rolling energy storage that can take on charge when the supply is high (think bright, sunny days that are maxing out solar arrays) and share it with the grid when needed.
That supply, incidentally, is among the cleanest you’ll find in the U.S. According to SDG&E, generates 45 percent of the power it supplies to its customers from renewable sources.
In addition to building a charging network that’s beefy enough to handle a steady flow of commercial vehicles, SDG&E is introducing a new rate plan for businesses. It’s intended to give them a little added incentive to make the switch to EVs.
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