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Maine is considering new kinds of electric rates to encourage more widespread home adoption of electric vehicle chargers and heat pumps while easing the strain these technologies add to the power grid.
Central Maine Power, the larger of the state’s two investor-owned utilities, is working with regulators and advocacy groups on designs for time-of-use rates, which charge customers more for electricity use at times of day when demand on the grid is at its peak.
But these rates are only one piece of the puzzle, stakeholders say. They anticipate more planning work to come on complementary technologies that will make it easier for customers to change their energy use.
Time-of-use and related tools to limit and shift electricity demand are currently most common among larger commercial and industrial customers, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. But as home electrification accelerates, some utilities have begun trying out similar programs for residential ratepayers.
Central Maine Power is currently piloting seasonal heating and electrification-focused rates, and the smaller Maine utility, Versant Power, has its own time-of-use programs for heat pumps and electric vehicle charging already in place.
The Maine Public Utilities Commission is working to expand time-of-use rates on multiple fronts, including in one proceeding that was required as part of the June settlement in Central Maine Power’s latest rate case. The utility, which is owned by Connecticut-based Avangrid, is due to file a proposal on the issue Dec. 1.
“I personally believe that there’s a great opportunity here for all of our policy goals to be advanced,” said deputy Maine public advocate Drew Landry, whose office acts as an ombudsperson for residential utility customers. “But if we do it wrong, there’s a chance that we could undermine all of them.”
Transportation and buildings are Maine’s top sources of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. This underlies the state climate plan’s ambitious goals for expanding the use of electric vehicles and heat pumps, which use electricity for high-efficiency water and space heating as well as air conditioning.
Maine relies more than any other state on home heating oil but has made strong progress on switching to heat pumps, already meeting its initial target of installing 100,000 new units by 2025. The large, rural state is also hoping to accelerate its so-far slow progress on electric vehicle adoption.
The utilities commission’s goals for its ongoing time-of-use work with Central Maine Power and other stakeholders are to “incentivize customers to shift usage away from the summer peak,” encourage wintertime use of heat pumps and other efficient systems, and complement state rebate and discount programs for this kind of technology.
In its upcoming proposal, the utility must consider at least four alternative rate designs specific to electric vehicles and heat pumps and consider a rebate program for customers who successfully reduce their electricity usage at peak times. The utility is also asked to propose a “customer education and communication plan” on these initiatives, and will have to draft data-gathering plans to aid in future, similar rate design processes.
Rates in this particular proceeding would fit under the distribution charge on customers’ bills. A separate ongoing docket looks at tying similar rates to the supply charge, which is a larger part of ratepayers’ costs.
Landry, the deputy public advocate, said more use of heat pumps and electric vehicles is sure to drive up New England’s peak demand, which typically falls between 5 and 9 p.m. in summer and, increasingly, winter.
Absent large-scale energy storage, Landry said, this increased demand could exceed available renewable power supplies, potentially adding to emissions. New England’s grid remains largely reliant on natural gas and, in recent years’ cold snaps, has tended to burn oil and coal as its backup fuels.
Widespread electrification will require significant and costly investment in transmission and distribution infrastructure, stakeholders say, no matter how rates are designed.
But they see time-of-use as a way to moderate that impact. These rates, Landry said, send a price signal that encourages electricity use at “off-peak” times when it will be easier and cheaper on the grid — nudging people, for example, to wait to charge their cars until near bedtime as opposed to right after work.
The solution is less straightforward for heat pumps, but Landry said pre-heating with a smart thermostat or using an electric thermal storage system could help limit the need for intensive heating during peak hours.
Landry and others agreed that helping customers access technology to manage their electricity use — and making it extremely simple to navigate related rate changes — will be vital to success.
“There needs to be careful consideration and effective implementation of consumer protections to make sure that it doesn’t create financial hardships for customers who are either low-income and/or have high energy burdens, in this time of high electricity prices,” said Phelps Turner, a senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, which is an intervenor in the distribution-focused utilities commission proceeding.
Landry said he feels customers need “an action they can take in response to the price signal.” Otherwise, the rates “may simply penalize customers for using electricity when they have limited options,” he said, or “may be perceived as being burdensome,” creating a potential backlash.
Efficiency Maine, the quasi-governmental agency that runs energy rebate programs for the state, already offers a “load management” incentive of $50 upfront plus $50 a year for electric vehicle drivers who give the agency permission and electronic access to set their cars to charge automatically overnight by default.
“Study after study shows that the cost of our transition, very broadly — like the amount of generation, transmission, distribution that we need to fully electrify our economy — is dramatically lower the more load control you have associated with it,” said Ian Burnes, the agency’s director of strategic initiatives. He referenced a recently published draft study from ISO-New England, the regional grid manager, showing that transmission costs to accommodate increased load rise sharply with higher peak demand.
This means programs like Maine’s existing electric vehicle incentive will be important pairings to any future time-of-use rates, he said. “What we’re trying to build off of is to have devices that can respond to prices,” he said, “so the customer just has to say, ‘I’m just going to set this up once,’ and then the device does the work for them.”
With Central Maine Power’s initial time-of-use plans still in progress, there are open questions remaining around whether participation should be “opt-in,” and whether and how these rates might apply only to people who use relevant technologies or to all ratepayers.
Either way, customer education will be key, said the Conservation Law Foundation’s Turner — either ensuring that ratepayers understand the benefits of signing up if the rates are voluntary, or offering easy steps they can take to avoid penalties and achieve cost savings if the rates are automatically applied.
Burnes said he also hopes that more data-gathering by the utilities and agencies like his will help assess the “fairness” of current and future electrification-focused rates.
Smart meters will be one tool to achieve this, he said, with a goal of determining whether new rates only make power cheaper for some more than for others, or whether they create savings across the system.
Wisconsin will lose out on millions of federal dollars for electric vehicle charging infrastructure if the state does not pass legislation to allow stores or other owners of EV chargers to bill drivers for the amount of electricity they get when they plug in.
Billing by the kilowatt-hour is a requirement to participate in the federal National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which has promised Wisconsin $78.6 million and the chance to apply for a pot of $2.5 billion in competitive funding if it meets the program requirements.
The goal of NEVI is to develop charging corridors along highways, with chargers available every 50 miles.
Advocates are hoping for legislation that would make the change needed for federal funding, by enshrining in law that billing for electricity at an EV charger is allowed and would not make the owner a public utility.
The legislature takes a break from Nov. 16 to January 16, hence advocates say time is of the essence to meet the March 2024 deadline for federal funding.
Legislation allowing billing by the kilowatt-hour was introduced in 2021 but didn’t pass. Advocates say they are expecting Republican state Sen. Howard Marklein to introduce a bill this fall. A spokesperson for Marklein’s office said they expect the bill to be circulated for co-sponsors next week.
“We have a sense of urgency we didn’t have last year,” said Francisco Sayu, director of emerging technology for RENEW Wisconsin. “That limitation on electric vehicle charging stations has slowed down the Wisconsin market. We don’t have as many EV charging providers in the state as we could.”
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has a plan for deploying charging stations in keeping with the NEVI requirements, but the law change is needed to receive the funds.
Currently in Wisconsin, entities from municipal governments to convenience stores that host chargers can only collect a parking fee or bill for the amount of time a vehicle is plugged in.
“We may be the only state left in jeopardy of losing federal funding for EV corridors,” said Tom Content, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin (CUB).
The consulting firm EVAdoption reported that in fall 2021, there were 2,251 charging stations in Illinois, 1,226 in Minnesota and 881 in Wisconsin, including level one and two and fast-charging stations. There are 15,700 electric vehicles registered in Wisconsin, compared to 66,880 in Illinois and 24,330 in Minnesota, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Even adjusting for Illinois’ larger population, Wisconsin still lags on both fronts.
Electric vehicle advocates and owners say Wisconsin’s charging network is woefully lacking, making it harder to rely on an electric vehicle in the state.
Corey Singletary, utility analyst for CUB, testified before the Public Service Commission about a road trip he took with his family in their electric Ford 150 Lightning pickup, from Madison to Minneapolis along Interstate 94.
This heavily-traveled corridor proved difficult to traverse with an electric vehicle: at one Electrify America charging station, two out of four chargers were inoperable, there was a half-hour wait for the remaining chargers, and they delivered less power than expected. The family had a similar experience at a different charging station on the return journey.
Singletary’s testimony came in a rate case for Xcel Energy, which is seeking the commission’s permission for its subsidiary Northern States Power Company to operate two fast-charging hubs. Singletary said CUB is in favor of the move. Ideally, he said, the state needs more chargers operated both by utilities and by public and private entities.
“One of the questions is whether or not it’s appropriate for monopoly companies like the public utilities to own and operate EV charging stations,” Singletary said. “There is a concern or belief that utilities will be able to leverage their monopoly position to disadvantage other third parties.”
But since the EV charging market is so nascent, more utility participation could actually jumpstart private investment.
“If things can be provided more efficiently and effectively by a competitive provider, that’s great,” Singletary said. “But right now, there’s not really effective competition in the EV charging space, so the bar is very low. If you allow utilities like Xcel and MGE to kickstart this space and get some utility-owned chargers out there, and if they are all subject to regulation, you set a minimum bar for everyone else to clear, and that helps all consumers.”
In a rate case before the commission, MGE is proposing to change to billing by the kilowatt-hour. Utilities are allowed to bill by the kilowatt-hour without legislation but still need commission approval for changes.
MGE owns 53 EV chargers. That includes 13 DC Fast Chargers – eight of those at a fast-charging hub in downtown Madison – and 40 Level 2 chargers around the area. The utility charges $5 an hour for fast-chargers and $2 an hour for slow chargers.
In testimony before the Public Service Commission, MGE rates director Brian Pennington noted that in 2017 most chargers could deliver about 50 kilowatts, and now many deliver 350 kilowatts.
“This is a seven‐fold increase in power,” Pennington testified. “Likewise, auto manufacturers are increasingly rolling out EV models capable of charging at these higher DC currents. This equates to much more energy being transferred from the grid to the EV’s battery than was possible in previous EV models. Because the MGE public charging tariff has been based on the time spent charging instead of the energy delivered, newer and often more expensive models are able to take advantage of the existing billing structure.”
MGE spokesperson Steve Schultz said that the utility wants to make sure ratepayers who don’t have EVs are not paying unfair amounts to subsidize the utility’s investments in EV charging infrastructure. The current billing model allows vehicles to get a lot of energy for a small fee, and MGE ratepayers are picking up the slack.
“Energy-based public charging will better reflect the costs and benefits of the energy being delivered from the charger to the EV, and thereby reduce cost inequities among customers,” said Schultz.
The EV charging issue in Wisconsin has dovetailed with an ongoing larger debate related to utilities protecting their turf as the energy landscape shifts.
Wisconsin utilities have stridently opposed third-party ownership of solar installations, since — they argue — a company owning a solar installation and providing the energy to the homeowner, church, municipal agency or other entity means the developer is acting like a utility. Solar advocates have long asked the legislature, the Public Service Commission and the courts to provide clarity on the legality of third-party ownership of rooftop solar, so far to no avail.
Meanwhile a bill that would allow third-party ownership of community solar is pending in the legislature.
Utilities have similarly argued that a government or business charging by the kilowatt-hour at EV chargers means they are acting like a utility, selling electricity. That issue and the fact that charging a set fee is likely less lucrative makes it relatively unattractive for companies to develop EV chargers in the state.
“It’s a very risky proposition to come to Wisconsin and risk being labeled a public utility,” said Sayu. “If I was a private investor looking to get into EV charging, I wouldn’t want to run the risk of becoming a public utility. Basically we just want an exception for EV charging, that you can sell electricity to the public [through chargers] without being regulated as a public utility, and that’s it.”
Utilities still stand to benefit from privately-run EV chargers in their territory, since the entity running the charger ultimately needs to buy their electricity from the utility.
Previously, utilities pushed for proposed legislation to ban EV charging hubs powered by on-site renewable energy, since that could disconnect them completely from the utility. This provision was unpopular with clean energy advocates.
Sayu said that realistically an off-grid, renewable-powered EV charging station would not be a good financial proposition, and developers are unlikely to undertake such projects. Among other issues, NEVI funding requires that four vehicles be able to charge at once.
“In order to do that from an off-grid EV charging station you’d have to have a significant amount of solar or wind and a significant amount of storage,” Sayu said. “If you were to build one of those stations today attached to the grid, you’re looking at spending between $700,000 to a million dollars. If you did it off-grid, you’re looking at $15-17 million. No one would build that in a state that has less than 1% EVs.”
In other states, non-utility entities that operate charging stations generally can set their own prices.
“Companies like EVGo and Electrify America have moved away from postage stamp pricing where all rates are the same, making it more locational,” said Singletary. “There is a move in the EV charging industry to have rates more reflective of cost of providing electricity to a particular charging station.”
Such entities could theoretically charge different rates based on time of day too, to encourage charging at low-demand times, which could be seen as “economics 101,” Singletary said.
But “if you are using a DC fast charger on a road trip to Chicago or Minneapolis, you really don’t have a choice — you need to charge when you need to charge,” hence a time-of-day rate would not be an incentive.
“Now in the state of Wisconsin we don’t even have that opportunity to engage in that discussion,” Singletary said, “because everyone but public utilities is relegated to charging essentially a parking fee.”
Correction: Francisco Sayu of Renew Wisconsin estimated that building an off-grid electric vehicle charging station would cost between $15 million and $17 million. A previous version of this story misquoted the number.
This article was originally published by Stateline, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Automakers are planning to put nearly 1 million new electric vehicles on American roads in 2022. Lawmakers are trying to make sure their states are ready.
“We will see a lot more emphasis on electric vehicles in 2022 and 2023,” said Dylan McDowell, deputy director of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, a collaborative forum for state lawmakers. “This is the start of a really big turning point.”
Across the country, legislatures in blue and red states are considering bills to bolster charging infrastructure, expand consumer incentives, electrify state fleets or mandate charging stations in new buildings. States also will be tasked with deploying billions in new federal funds for charging stations approved in the new infrastructure law, and some legislators say they plan to take an active role in that strategy.
“Every state is involved,” said Marc Geller, a board member and spokesperson for the Electric Vehicle Association, an advocacy group that promotes the adoption of such vehicles. “This is being taken seriously in a way it hasn’t been before, because the trajectory is very clear.”
In the United States, the transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, making up nearly 30% of the national total. While many states have plans to switch to renewable electricity sources, reducing vehicle emissions — with millions of drivers making personal buying choices about their cars — is much more complicated. But as the private-sector market for electric vehicles matures, many lawmakers see an opportunity.
Electric vehicle sales in the United States doubled in 2021 compared with 2020, and car buyers in 2022 will have twice as many electric models from which to choose. As the market grows quickly, state lawmakers say they’re focused on making sure infrastructure keeps up, and — in what is perhaps the greater challenge — ensuring that electric vehicle benefits aren’t just enjoyed by their wealthiest residents.
State leaders of all political stripes say they want to ensure their states are ready for the electric vehicle transition. Democratic-led states have typically been more aggressive about that transition through government regulation and mandates, such as the stringent emissions standards set out in California’s Advanced Clean Cars Program. Many Republican states have invested in other efforts such as charging infrastructure and conversion of state vehicle fleets.
Still, some Republicans argue that market forces, rather than public investments or mandates, should be left to work. Some GOP-led states have introduced or passed bills to block their local governments from requiring charging stations in certain locations.
Hawaii ranks No. 2 in the nation behind California for electric vehicle adoption, and lawmakers there are especially active in pushing a suite of proposals to strengthen that transition.
“We’re just at the inflection point where we’re about to take off in a huge way,” said Hawaii state Sen. Chris Lee, the Democrat who chairs the Transportation Committee. “Our charging capacity has been greatly outstripped by the number of EVs out there. We need a lot more capacity, and quickly.”
Hawaii legislators are looking to build more charging stations for rental cars, which make up a significant portion of the tourism-heavy state’s electric vehicles. They’re planning to use federal funds to create charging hubs. Other proposals would put in place a requirement for charging stations in public parking lots and a new consumer rebate for electric vehicle purchases, with a focus on lower-income communities.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in both Indiana and Wisconsin are backing bills that would allow the owners of charging stations to sell electricity by the kilowatt-hour, rather than by the minute—an allowance previously reserved for regulated utilities. That would benefit drivers of slower-charging vehicles. Sponsors say the bills would allow businesses to play a greater role in providing charging infrastructure.
Democratic lawmakers in Vermont also are considering a broad swath of electric vehicle policies, packaged together in the Transportation Innovation Act. The proposal would increase funding for the state’s consumer incentive programs, create a grant program to fund electric school and transit buses, accelerate timelines for electrifying the state fleet, fund grants for charging stations and require large employers to provide charging stations for their workers.
“Our goal is to show our priorities, and we have a lot of different pieces around EVs,” said state Rep. Rebecca White, a Democrat who helped craft the measure. “It might feel like we’re throwing the kitchen sink at it.”
White said the bill’s 60 cosponsors offered it as their “opening salvo” on a transportation package ahead of negotiations with Republican Gov. Phil Scott. Scott’s office did not respond to an inquiry about his stance on the electric vehicle policies.
Many Democratic governors also have put forward electric vehicle proposals as key elements of their 2022 agenda.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, has proposed $100 million in funding for a rebate program to help drivers afford electric vehicles. The program would provide a $7,500 rebate for new vehicle purchases, with an additional $5,000 for low-income residents. Used vehicles would qualify for a $5,000 rebate. The program would be capped to exclude residents making more than $250,000, and it would not apply to expensive car models.
“A real focus for the governor is making sure we’re increasing access to electric vehicles and not just subsidizing purchases for people who were already inclined to buy electric vehicles,” said Anna Lising, Inslee’s senior energy adviser.
Inslee’s budget also proposes $23 million to build out charging infrastructure and $33 million to help transit agencies switch to “clean alternative fuel” buses.
“I haven’t seen as much engagement [on electric vehicle policies] as I have this year,” Lising said. “We’re starting to see it shift significantly.”
In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing more than $6 billion in investments to speed up electric vehicle adoption. More than $250 million would be targeted to assist low-income consumers, with another $900 million to build chargers in underserved neighborhoods.
“The [state electric vehicle rebate program] has traditionally been more subscribed [to] by wealthier Californians,” Jared Blumenfeld, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, said in a press call. “In this clean transportation revolution, the next phase is making sure that low-income communities and communities of color are able to take advantage.”
Newsom’s budget also proposes nearly $4 billion to electrify heavy-duty trucks, transit and school buses.
Some Republican governors also are seeking to invest in electric vehicles. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, for example, has promoted investments in electric vehicles and charging stations. The state’s tax credit for electric vehicle purchases expired last year during the pandemic, and state leaders are considering incentive plans to replace it.
“We have to continue to dramatically accelerate the adoption of EVs,” said Ben Grumbles, the state secretary of the environment. “The focus right now is the range of incentives that we can put in place.”
Grumbles said the Hogan administration also is looking to speed up electrification of the state vehicle fleet, as well as school buses.
Maryland Del. David Fraser-Hidalgo, a Democrat, has long advocated for electric vehicle adoption, and he thinks his colleagues are increasingly on board.
“There’s a critical mass building of more and more EV bills,” he said.
Fraser-Hidalgo plans to introduce an incentive program, likely a tax credit, to encourage consumers to buy electric vehicles. Another bill would allow school districts to partner with utilities to acquire electric school buses.
“It’s not just climate change, it’s public health,” he said. “We’re taking our kids and sticking them in a cube and filling that cube with diesel fumes.”
Other Republican governors have made efforts to ready their states for the electric vehicle transition, but still think government should play a limited role.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example, signed a bill in 2020 requiring the state to craft a master plan for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. In 2021, though, he signed legislation that blocks local governments from requiring their gas stations to add charging stations.
The federal infrastructure package Congress passed last year includes $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations, with $5 billion given directly to the states. Some Republicans oppose the use of government funds to support electric vehicle adoption.
“The vast majority of this bill is brimming with wasteful spending that advances radical Green New Deal policies, including billions of dollars for carbon capture programs, federally subsidized electric vehicle charging stations, and zero-emission bus grants for intercity transit,” U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Georgia Republican, wrote in a news release after the bill passed in the House.
But the funding has gotten the attention of even conservative states that have otherwise shown little interest in climate policy.
Missouri, for instance, will receive $99 million to expand electric vehicle charging over five years from the package. Brian Quinn, a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, said the agency plans to collaborate with the Missouri Department of Transportation to deploy chargers along national highways. The state also plans to help schools apply for new federal funding for electric buses. States must provide a 20% match for the funds they receive under the federal charging program.
Michigan expects to receive $110 million of the charging funds.
“The federal resources mark a huge turning point for the state of Michigan,” Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, a Democrat, said in an interview. “This will get a lot of people over the hump in making the choice to have their next vehicle be an EV. This year is going to be the one that makes the difference.”
Lawmakers in Michigan voted last month to create a $1 billion incentive fund to attract economic investment, including the prospect of a battery plant for electric vehicles. The state has partnered with its Midwestern neighbors to form a coalition focused on a regional network of charging stations, and it also is investing in a workforce development plan to ready residents for jobs in the electric vehicles industry.
In New York, state officials expect to receive $175 million from the feds.
“As more EVs are on the road, the business case for installing charging stations gets better and better,” said Adam Ruder, assistant director for clean transportation with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. “We’re trying to get to that point where it becomes a self-sustaining market. This infrastructure money and the other investments we’re making can really help us get there.”
Some New York officials want mandates. State Sen. Liz Krueger, a Democrat, has sponsored a bill that would require newly constructed buildings to include wiring for electric vehicle chargers in a certain amount of their parking spaces.
“The sooner we start, the more affordable it’s going to be for everybody,” said Justin Flagg, Krueger’s director of environmental policy. “When we get ourselves to that big shift in the makeup of the vehicle fleet and suddenly realize we have to transition all these buildings, we’re going to have to figure something out.”
In Colorado, state Rep. Alex Valdez, a Democrat, is crafting similar legislation that would require a certain percentage of parking spaces in new buildings to be wired for chargers. Valdez, who lives in a Denver high-rise building and drives an electric car, said the bill is informed by his own experience.
“I found out firsthand that these buildings weren’t built with the idea that down the road cars would be powered by electricity,” he said. “This is an opportunity to make sure that we’re doing it right going forward.”
But some mandates have drawn pushback in other states.
Missouri state Rep. Jim Murphy, a Republican, has proposed a bill that would block cities and counties from requiring their businesses or buildings to install charging stations. Murphy said St. Louis County’s mandate requires any business that wants to resurface its parking lot to spend thousands of dollars on charging stations. His bill would require that governments mandating chargers also provide funds to pay for them.
“There’s no feeling that we should stop the growth of EVs, that’s the future,” Murphy said. “But you can’t put it on the backs of small businesses and churches. If we’re going to make the little guy pay for it, I’m going to champion against it.”
Many states, including those that strongly promote electric vehicles, impose extra fees on the vehicles’ drivers, who don’t pay gasoline taxes. The fees are a way to ensure road funding stays intact as more drivers switch to electric. But electric vehicles advocates are wary of plans to adopt or increase those fees.
“We need to come up with really good policies to ensure we have the revenue to keep roads maintained,” said Geller with the Electric Vehicle Association. “But early in the [transition] process is not the time to impose such additional fees that only make a prospective purchaser think twice.”
Some states are exploring a vehicle-miles-traveled fee, which would charge drivers based on mileage rather than gas consumption. California expanded a pilot program on such fees last year. Other states, including Massachusetts and Minnesota, have bills pending that would create similar programs.
As states accelerate the pace of electric vehicle adoption, their gas tax revenues will start to dwindle, and lawmakers are still trying to determine how to replace that funding. The issue likely will take on greater urgency in future legislative sessions as the transition continues.
Burlington, Vermont’s municipal electric utility is expanding a program that gives apartment renters more access to electric vehicle charging.
Originally launched as a pilot in 2019, the program gives apartment building owners a financial incentive to install chargers and make them available to the public. The chargers use a software called EVmatch, which drivers can access through a smartphone app to reserve and pay for charging times.
“The primary focus here is to benefit customers of Burlington Electric who are renters or residents of a multifamily condo building,” said Darren Springer, the utility’s general manager. He said 60% or more of Burlington Electric’s residential customers rent apartments, and the utility wants to make it easier for them to drive electric vehicles.
Springer added that the program could benefit the broader public — not just Burlington residents but drivers who are passing through as well.
The new program is expected to roll out in the coming weeks. Building owners who install a smart charger compatible with EVmatch can get a $1,200 incentive to cover installation. If it’s a building that serves low-income residents, the owner can get an extra $250. And if they make the charger available to the public, they can get an extra $300.
The incentive will be available for each charger the building owner installs, covering up to 75% of the installation cost for each charger. Springer expects it will cover a little more than half the cost of the charger and installation in most cases.
Building owners can choose a charger that’s not compatible with EVmatch and just make it available for tenants to use at no additional cost, in which case they could get a $1,000 incentive toward installation and the extra $250 if they serve low-income residents.
Springer described the program as “a real success story for bringing these different seed stage energy companies to Vermont” through the DeltaClime accelerator program. DeltaClime each year provides funding and mentoring to new energy-focused companies, and the 2019 round led to the pilot that Burlington Electric launched with EVmatch.
Through EVmatch, a sort of Airbnb for electric vehicle charging, owners of compatible chargers can make them available for drivers to reserve. The owner of the charger sets the price — they can charge just for the electricity or make a profit by selecting a price markup.
The pilot in Burlington, which began with 14 chargers at apartment buildings, condos and other multifamily residences, was the first time EVmatch deployed a feature that lets owners allow different groups to use the charger at certain times and prices. In other words, a building owner could make the charger available at any hour to tenants and make it available to the public only during the daytime.
In the original pilot, building owners received a $500 incentive toward installation of a publicly available EVmatch-compatible charger. Ten chargers in the original program were made publicly available, leading officials to believe many chargers under the new program will likely be made publicly available.
Springer said officials are confident the program will be successful since the pilot demonstrated demand for chargers by building owners and drivers. “The EVmatch pilot demonstrated for Burlington Electric that the approach EVmatch offered in terms of software, billing and their app worked well for our customers and for participating multifamily, rental and condo buildings,” he said. “It gave us real-world data and experience with EVmatch’s technology.”
He added that the utility’s customers have expressed interest in expanding charging for the public, for low-income residents and for apartment renters. “This program is aimed at doing exactly that,” he said.
Funding for the new program comes through expanded flexibility for Vermont’s efficiency utilities (which includes Burlington Electric) to fund programs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as from Burlington Electric’s “Tier III” budget. This segment of the budget requires electric utilities to use a certain percentage of sales for projects that reduce fossil fuel use. The program has been budgeted to support about 50 to 60 chargers over the next two years, but Springer added that the budget could be amended if there’s higher demand for chargers.
According to Heather Hochrein, EVmatch’s CEO, making the charger public can serve as a financial buffer for building owners who want to install chargers when their tenants don’t yet have the cars to use them. Conversely, once the chargers become available, tenants might be more willing to get an electric vehicle.
“We’re very excited about this new program,” Hochrein said. She said the pilot in Burlington demonstrated that chargers in multifamily buildings are being used by the public. The incentive Burlington Electric is offering building owners to install chargers is helpful to increase uptake of EVmatch, she added.
The California Energy Commission last year awarded a grant to the company toward the installation of 120 EVmatch-enabled chargers at multifamily buildings in the state. The chargers will be made publicly available using the same user group feature originally launched in Burlington.
Damon Lane, who owns a four-unit rental property in which he lives and rents out the other units, was one of the original participants in the program.
“My intention was always for it to be publicly available,” he said. Neither Lane nor any of the people living in his building own an electric vehicle. But since it’s located near Burlington’s downtown and in a residential area where many people rent apartments, he thought it could be useful for the public.
Through the pilot, Lane got an Enel X JuiceBox charger. The chargers were provided free through the program to owners of multifamily residences, but he paid $30 to get a higher-power charger than what was offered through the program. (It would have cost about $680.) He also received the $500 incentive toward a $910 installation for making it public.
These incentives helped him substantially, he said, because “unless I was going to charge an outrageous rate [on EVmatch], I was never going to recover the installation cost.” And with the EVmatch software to help with booking and billing, he said, “it is quite easy to provide this service to the community.”
Connecticut environmental officials are pushing for legislation that would grant condo owners and renters the right to install their own car chargers, part of a broader effort to dramatically expand the state’s electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
The so-called right-to-charge legislation would prevent condominium and homeowners’ associations, as well as landlords, from prohibiting or “unreasonably” restricting residents who have a designated parking space from installing charging equipment.
Individual residents would be responsible for paying all of the costs associated with the purchase and installation of a charger, which can easily exceed $1,000. But a new state incentive program launched in January could help defray the expense.
Homeowners can receive rebates of up to $500 for a Level 2 charger, as well as up to $500 for any electrical upgrades that might be needed. Various incentives are available for multi-unit rentals, either through the landlord or tenants. Participants can also receive additional credits for charging their vehicles in off-peak hours under demand response programs administered by Eversource and United Illuminating.
A right-to-charge law will help ensure that “the opportunities available to single-family home dwellers to own electric vehicles and participate in demand response programs are also available to those who live in multi-unit dwellings,” about 11% of Connecticut residents, said state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes in testimony submitted to the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee.
At least eight states have similar laws in place: New York, New Jersey, California, Hawaii, Virginia, Oregon, Maryland and Florida.
But at a recent public hearing on the Connecticut bill, organizations representing condominium associations and landlords opposed the measure, saying it is a “one size fits all” approach to housing developments that vary widely in size, layout, infrastructure and parking availability.
Andrea Dunn, a condominium association lawyer from North Haven, said installing individual chargers “may be impossible” in some communities due to challenges such as a lack of an electrical source close to parking areas, thereby requiring the digging up of land, sidewalks and other common elements.
“Even if the unit owner is paying for it, it affects other members of the community,” she said.
Karl Kuegler, Jr., director of community association management for Imagineers LLC, which manages about 200 common interest communities in Connecticut, said many of the standalone garages with multiple bays commonly found at these complexes “have barely enough electricity to supply the lighting and a couple of utility outlets within the building.”
Condominium lawyers had similar concerns when right-to-charge legislation came before New Jersey lawmakers in 2020, but they were able to amend the language to address those issues, said Matthew Earle, an attorney who chairs the legislative action committee for the state chapter of the Community Association Institute.
For example, “one big concern was that older complexes may not have the electrical infrastructure sufficient to handle more than a couple of chargers,” he said.
So the law includes a provision that says if charger installations are going to require infrastructure improvements to provide a sufficient supply of electricity, the association can assess that cost to the charger owners in a pro rata way.
Since its passage, Earle says he has not heard any reports of negative impacts. At the same time, he also hasn’t seen many car charger applications within the communities he works with. Instead, the trend is toward associations installing communal car chargers.
“They are taking advantage of a state program that will provide up to $30,000 to install one — it’s very popular right now,” Earle said. “It seems like a better way of doing it.”
In such cases, buildings partner with a third-party vendor that provides the software that regulates the station and charges vehicle owners for plugging in, he said.
Connecticut’s charger incentive program offers up to $20,000 for charging equipment installed at a multi-unit development, and up to $40,000 in underserved communities.
But communal chargers run by third-party vendors may not be the most equitable solution in buildings that house people of lower means, said Marc Geller, a co-founder of Plug In America, a national nonprofit advocacy group for electric vehicle drivers.
“The real problem with a third party doing it is that folks in multifamily housing end up paying more for electricity to charge their car than folks in a single-family home,” he said. “Solving this problem for multi-family homes is a major equity concern, and there is not just one solution.”
Right-to-charge laws “go some way to give folks the possibility of installing charging, but it can be quite expensive to do it,” he said.
Where possible, he said, he believes the best approach is to connect a parking space to an individual unit’s meter, so that the resident can simply charge on a regular 120-volt circuit. It’s slower than a Level 2 charger, but it allows the resident to charge at utility rates and without a lot of additional expense, he said.
Gannon Long, director of policy and public affairs at Operation Fuel, which provides energy assistance to low-income households in Connecticut, said she hasn’t heard that the right to charge is of any concern to the financially burdened residents of environmental justice communities.
“People aren’t worried about their right to charge — they’re worried about electricity and heating costs,” she said. “And most electric vehicles are way too expensive for most people to afford.”
Right-to-charge language is also included in Senate Bill 4, a comprehensive package that includes a host of measures to drive electric vehicle adoption, including expanding the state electric vehicle rebate program, and setting goals to electrify all school buses and state-owned vehicles. A public hearing is scheduled for Friday.
A bill progressing through the Wisconsin legislature was meant to spur the expansion of electric vehicle charging by confirming that private businesses can sell electricity to drivers at charging stations.
But amendments to the bill have turned electric vehicle proponents against it. The current version would ban government entities from owning or leasing charging stations and would only allow stations to charge for electricity that comes from utilities — not from on-site solar installations.
Clean energy proponents including Renew Wisconsin now say they want Gov. Tony Evers to veto the bill if it passes the legislature with those provisions intact. The Assembly version of the bill has passed committees and could be heard by the full House in coming days.
Scores of private businesses in Wisconsin currently own EV charging stations and bill customers for the energy. But advocates fear utility opposition could shut them down at any moment, especially if utilities decide to build their own charging networks, potentially earning a rate of return in the process.
As a shift to electric vehicles appears increasingly inevitable, the Wisconsin debate highlights the growing fight across the country over who will control and benefit most from that transition.
The situation has much in common with the state’s long-standing angst over third-party-owned solar installations. Utilities have argued such arrangements infringe on their exclusive rights to deliver power to customers, hence third-party solar is essentially impossible in Wisconsin even though no law bans it. A bill currently before lawmakers would clarify that third-party solar ownership is legal, and another bill would facilitate community solar with third-party ownership. The EV bill in the state Senate was introduced by Sen. Robert Cowles, a Republican who is also the lead sponsor of the third-party-solar bills.
“All three bills have this thread of the utility wants to make sure nobody can sell any kind of electricity in any form,” said Jim Boullion, government affairs director of Renew Wisconsin. He noted that at least 34 states have laws specifically differentiating EV charging from utility service. He said only five states — Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, South Carolina and Virginia — have adopted policies restricting EV charging station ownership beyond utilities.
“We’re talking about a different industry than the ‘obligation to serve’ that the utilities have — they’re now expanding into transportation fuels,” Boullion continued. “We think the regulatory system is good and we need it, but the way things are changing in the world, having these strict limits is really hampering the growth of this clean affordable energy source. There has to be some flexibility in the model we’ve had for 120 years to acknowledge this new technology.”
Companion bills SB573 and AB588 explicitly allow private entities to own EV charging stations and bill customers for connecting to them (or “parking near” them). The bills also specify that billing can be done by either time or amount of energy used. Clean energy advocates want to clarify that billing by kilowatt-hours is indeed legal, since billing by time disadvantages customers with cars that charge more slowly or customers charging in cold weather (which slows charging speed).
Legal clarity can further the spread of charging stations across the state, advocates argue, especially as the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act could mean up to $79 million over five years for EV charging in Wisconsin, according to Renew’s analysis. There are currently 379 public charging stations (level 2 or DC fast-charging) in Wisconsin, according to the Alternative Fuels Data Center. They are most heavily concentrated in the southeast and tourist-friendly Door County, with relatively few in the northern half of the state.
As eager as they are for clarification, advocates say the status quo is better than a law that bans sales from government-owned charging stations or charging stations powered by solar. (The bill would still allow both types if they don’t sell power.)
The bill would mean cities and towns could not build for-pay charging stations in municipal parking garages or along commercial strips, for example. The League of Wisconsin Municipalities representing almost 600 towns and cities notes in a letter to legislators that it will revoke its original support of the bill if the amendments remain intact.
League government affairs director Toni Herkert framed it as an issue of equity in her December 2021 letter:
“A complete prohibition against municipalities owning, operating, managing, leasing, or controlling EV charging facilities does not allow for all areas of the state to be reliably served with charging facilities. Limiting entities that can provide charging facilities will simply result in the most profitable areas, where the market dictates successful investment, to be reliably served. We do not want electric vehicle charging opportunities to mirror the lack of market incentives witnessed for broadband investment in rural areas, it will again be those smaller and more rural communities that will be most impacted and under or unserved.”
Flo, a company that develops EV chargers along roads, also opposes that provision. In a letter, Flo senior public affairs specialist Cory Bullis said that such curbside charging stations are often built by local governments to encourage patronage of local commerce.
“Businesses aren’t motivated to single-handedly spend their own money on an asset that will benefit their competitors on the same block, nor are they willing to take on liability of owning an asset that is permitted on public property,” wrote Bullis. “City governments can step up to provide this value to multiple businesses simultaneously, ensuring everyone benefits.”
Bullis noted that Montreal has almost 1,000 curbside chargers, while New York City has 120 and Los Angeles has 200.
“The EV charging industry is still young and quickly evolving; this provision picks winners and losers among EV charging business models by expressly locking us out of the state,” Bullis wrote.
Advocates worry the bill would exacerbate drivers’ “range anxiety,” since the ban on for-pay charging stations owned by the government or powered by solar would make it harder to locate stations in remote and rural areas.
“If I’m going to the state park up north and have solar plus storage [powering an EV charger], then I do not have to run high-power lines out there” to install a charger, said Boullion.
The bill also would prevent businesses with their own solar panels from receiving payment for EV charging, unless they install a separate meter to ensure that no power from the solar panels goes to the EV charger, Boullion explained.
This could be a disincentive for the proliferation of both solar installations and EV charging stations, and it would curb rather than encourage the ideal clean transportation solution: vehicles powered directly by solar energy.
Bergstrom Automotive, a company in Neenah, Wisconsin, has an on-site microgrid capable of generating and storing up to 23 megawatt-hours of solar annually, enough for almost 500 electric vehicle charge-ups. The development was done by EnTech, a Wisconsin-based company that has also installed solar-plus-storage EV charging at a Madison shopping mall.
Even if businesses or governments sell some behind-the-meter or off-grid solar power to electric vehicles, without utilities getting a cut, advocates argue that EV proliferation is bound to be a boon for utilities. Solar-plus-storage arrangements helping to power EVs can reduce demand spikes and stress on the grid, and even power emergency vehicles or provide extra energy during outages, Renew said in testimony submitted to the legislature.
And the more charging stations there are available, the more people will feel comfortable buying electric vehicles. In most cases, the entity charging for use of the charging stations will be first buying that electricity from the utility. Meanwhile, utilities should also see their demand increase as more and more cars are charged at home.
“The utilities will gain a lot of business out of this,” Boullion said. “They will sell a lot of extra energy.”
BJ Johnson and Julie Blumreiter have nothing against electric trucks.
But the duo think the rush to electrify heavy-duty transportation misses an important reality and leaves a yawning gap, which they hope to fill with the engine technology they developed as doctoral students at Stanford University.
Blumreiter and Johnson co-founded ClearFlame Engine Technologies to market engine technology that allows trucks, generators and other motors to run on a variety of low-emissions fuels like ethanol, methanol or liquid ammonia. While these fuels are not zero emissions, various studies have shown pure ethanol’s life cycle greenhouse gas emissions are roughly 40% to 50% less than petroleum-based fuel.
Johnson and Blumreiter argue that it will take years to electrify trucking in the U.S., not to mention other countries, hence an affordable, low-emissions diesel-type engine that can run on various fuels can be a boon to reducing transportation sector emissions. The U.S. Department of Energy, industry sources and major investors have taken interest.
In 2017, Johnson and Blumreiter were chosen among the first cohort in Argonne National Laboratory’s Chain Reaction Innovations fellowship program, providing mentorship and access to Argonne’s emissions testing and other equipment. Blumreiter and Johnson moved to the Chicago area for the fellowship, where the company has been based since. ClearFlame has raised close to $50 million in series A and B funding, has about 50 employees and pilot projects underway with major corporations.
John Wall, former chief technology officer for the global engine maker Cummins, has been an adviser since the Stanford days. He sees ethanol-fueled trucks with ClearFlame technology providing an important “bridge” to zero-emissions transportation.
“Too many people want to say everything will be battery electric, let’s forget about anything else,” said Wall, who also previously worked in diesel research for Chevron. “I’m quite optimistic about battery electric in a number of applications, but some will be hard. Long haul trucking is one of them, and power generation. You don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good. If you can get 40% emissions reductions now, let’s do that and work on the rest.”
Johnson and Blumreiter emphasize that their technology is also well-suited to developing countries, where electrification of transportation is not on the horizon, but feedstock for ethanol — like corn or sugar cane — is available. And depending on the market, ethanol may be significantly more affordable than diesel.
“This is not just a California solution, this is a global solution to a global problem,” Blumreiter said. “Fundamentally our technology is that we can make the diesel engine design and everything that is good about it operate on any fuel. You can choose fuel based on cost and regional availability.”
Several pilot projects are underway with trucks on the roads using engines retrofitted with ClearFlame technology. Blumreiter said she could not name the companies doing the pilots, but they involve at least one major truck stop company and fleet managers who sit on the startup’s fleet advisory council.
ClearFlame markets the technology to allow ethanol or other fuels to be burned in the same type of engine that burns diesel, but at a hotter temperature, which is necessary for ethanol and other fuels to combust.
“If you get it hot enough, anything burns,” Johnson said. “We changed the plumbing on the engine so these fuels operate fine. At its heart, it is very simple. The devil is in the details.”
ClearFlame relies on U.S.-based manufacturers to build its technology, which can be retrofitted into diesel engines. Ultimately they hope original equipment manufacturers like Cummins will decide to build engines with the technology.
Wall said he sees that as a very real possibility, since it is “easy” for a manufacturer to incorporate ClearFlame’s technology into standard diesel engines.
“If a customer calls up and says, ‘I’d like to buy a thousand engines like this every six months for 10 years,’ then you get very interested,” he said. “Now BJ and Julie are working with some of the big fleets to have them understand the technology. the feedback I’ve heard so far is quite positive.”
Testing has shown that ClearFlame’s engine technology achieves equal or greater torque compared to traditional diesel engines, and it eliminates the need for filtering out particulate matter and other after-treatment for pollution.
It’s easier to add pure ethanol to existing fueling stations, ClearFlame supporters say, compared to the infrastructure upgrades necessary for electric charging, or alternative fuels like compressed natural gas or hydrogen. Wall added that trucking companies often run trucks on a major transportation corridor — like Interstate 65 — for about four years, then the trucks are sold to work in regional markets or local deliveries. So adding electric charging or hydrogen infrastructure to major corridors would not support the existing truck market structure, but fueling stations throughout the country could provide pure ethanol, and ClearFlame engines could also burn E85 fuel — with 85% ethanol — that is already widely available.
Johnson said ClearFlame technology could also be used in marine engines, locomotives and other heavy equipment. Mining giant RioTinto is an investor, as the engine technology could help mining companies power their huge machines while reducing emissions. Wind Ventures, an affiliate of major Latin American energy company Copec, is also an investor. Johnson noted that excess wind energy could be used onsite to produce liquid ammonia fuel for ClearFlame engines.
“Trucks are our beachhead,” Johnson said. “One of the beauties of diesel engines is they get used everywhere. A lot of pieces of equipment have a diesel engine-shaped hole in the middle.”
The company CK Power is piloting ClearFlame’s technology in its mobile gensets, generators targeted for use in utility infrastructure and electric vehicle charging stations. Solar is increasingly used by utilities and for EV charging. But Clayton Costello, CK Power vice president of corporate strategy, said there is “no technology yet on the marketplace” that can replace a mobile fuel-burning generator in many situations.
“As there’s more federal spending [on reducing emissions] and customers have more demand for lower-emissions technology, we see a need in many industries for these types of platforms,” Costello said.
Blumreiter and Johnson say they feel they are going against the grain in the clean energy startup world, where much attention is focused on zero-emissions and electrification as opposed to low-emissions technologies; and where software and advanced materials are more common focuses than relatively straightforward hardware.
They are also somewhat non-traditional cleantech startup founders. Blumreiter is one of relatively few women in the space; and Johnson is African American and a former national team member in swimming, having started the sport late and peaked in the pool at the same time he was developing the engine technology.
“Competing at a very high level [in swimming] puts the challenges now in perspective,” said Johnson, who was ranked second in the U.S. and ninth in the world in 2013. “It’s not the first time I’ve tried to do something hard.”
He became deeply interested in climate change around when the film “Inconvenient Truth” was released, “and it became clear climate change would be the issue of our generation.”
Blumreiter grew up in Wisconsin and always had a keen interest in volunteering. As an undergraduate at Stanford, she took a class in thermodynamics because it was at a convenient time, but realized “this is it! Intellectually I was captured — hook, line and sinker.”
She figured her professional and humanitarian interests would progress on parallel paths, but with ClearFlame she feels like she is pursuing her passion for technology innovation while also making the world a better place, she said.
“It’s no surprise that people who are doing something that’s completely different than the prevailing approach to decarbonization are two people who don’t look like your average founders,” Blumreiter said. “That leads to us taking a more global view and never losing sight of affordability and equity as ingredients in what solutions get to market.”
Semi-trucks frequently run on ethanol blends or “renewable diesel” or biodiesel, widely available at service stations. But conventional diesel engines can’t run on pure ethanol or methanol.
Renewable diesel and biodiesel have higher particulate matter emissions than ethanol, while also coming from feedstocks that are not always easily and widely accessible — like animal fats and used cooking oil.
“Ethanol is two carbons and an oxygen and some hydrogen; diesel are larger-chain hydrocarbons, so is renewable diesel — it’s the longer chains that tend to form soot,” Blumreiter said.
Wall said that as the aviation industry tries to reduce emissions, renewable diesel is likely to be increasingly used, diverting availability from the lower-value trucking industry. Meanwhile, as electric cars become more prevalent, demand for ethanol-blend gasoline may go down, lowering ethanol’s market price and making it an even more attractive option for truck fuel, he theorized.
Ethanol has been widely criticized as a false hope for climate mitigation, since growing corn involves significant greenhouse gas emissions and also uses land that might otherwise be growing food. There has been much debate about ethanol’s life cycle carbon emissions compared to fossil fuels, but proponents argue that when best practices are used, its life cycle emissions are significantly lower than traditional diesel or gasoline.
“We didn’t set out to make an engine that ran on ethanol,” Blumreiter said. “Ethanol is something [the U.S.] invested in decades ago for energy security reasons. It wasn’t necessarily cheap or clean then, but it is now.”
Clean energy incentives like California’s Low Carbon Fuels Standard and Inflation Reduction Act funds for alternative fuels and fueling infrastructure could help the deployment of ClearFlame’s technology. Johnson said that funds from the Volkswagen settlement and the federal Diesel Emissions Reduction Act could also be used for retrofitted ethanol-burning engines.
But Blumreiter said she feels the company’s success isn’t dependent on incentives; she thinks affordability and convenience will drive deployment, after more testing and pilot programs are completed.
Johnson likes to think of ClearFlame as the “Tesla of heavy duty.”
“Tesla was close to a trillion dollars [in valuation] before OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] took electric vehicles seriously,” Johnson said. “We’re on fundamentally the same path. You have to go to the market, and prove people want this.”
This article originally appeared in Stateline.
A 60-mile pedestrian and cycling trail in Arkansas, an electric street sweeper in Oregon and truck parking facilities in Florida don’t appear to have much in common — let alone any similarity with a conversion of California highways to toll roads or a roundabout in Michigan.
But all of the projects will be paid for by the Carbon Reduction Program, a five-year, $6.4 billion federal program to reduce the tailpipe emissions that contribute to global warming. The program, known as the CRP, was authorized in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the $1.2 trillion federal investment in everything from roads and bridges to the electrical grid.
The CRP is small in comparison to, say, the infrastructure law’s $40 billion pledge to fix the nation’s bridges. Yet it could be mighty for bringing to life what are known as transportation alternatives, or small-scale infrastructure designed to take cars off the road and therefore reduce emissions. They include sidewalk installation and improvements, pedestrian walkways, bike lanes and trails, and bike share programs.
It takes much less money to make an impact on transportation emissions with such programs, said Kevin Mills, vice president of policy at Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, which advocates for money for walking and bicycling trails and has been keeping a close eye on how the CRP will boost funding for its priorities.
“This program has a big purpose and not a great amount of money given the task before us,” Mills said. “What becomes important is that we make the most of what’s a fairly modest-sized new program so that we can prove its value and hopefully grow it going forward. That puts a premium on things that will give you a big bang for the buck.”
While the broader infrastructure bill was under consideration, many U.S. House Democrats wanted it to devote even more money to climate change-related measures and less to highway projects. After it passed, 16 Republican governors grumbled about an internal Federal Highway Administration memo that encouraged states to emphasize existing repairs, public transit and bike lanes over projects to expand highways.
In the coming weeks, states must submit carbon reduction strategies that demonstrate how they’ll use federal money to reduce transportation emissions. In their strategies, states will be required to identify specific projects and approaches to reach the goals in their CRP plans, said Elle Segal, an advocacy outreach director at Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. The federal program requires that states explain by Nov. 15 how they’ll reduce emissions.
States have some leeway to shift as much as 50% of the money for carbon reduction toward other federally funded transportation projects that don’t have an explicit greenhouse gas reduction component. Some states have done just that, to the disappointment of climate activists and progressive transportation planners. (States also can transfer money from those other federal formula programs to the carbon reduction program.) In some cases, a transfer is a temporary measure and money will shift back; dollars for carbon reduction began flowing to states a year before the carbon reduction strategy plans were due and some states hadn’t yet outlined their priorities for cutting emissions.
In Maryland, the state is focusing on three areas to reduce transportation sector emissions, said Deron Lovaas, who leads the Environment and Sustainable Transportation program for the Maryland Department of Transportation. The most pressing strategy, he said, is to increase the number of electric vehicles on the road, beginning with cars, sedans, pickup trucks and SUVs, followed by medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. That includes steering federal money to electrify the vehicle fleet used by state and local governments.
Up next is reducing overall traffic or vehicle miles traveled. That involves an “array of measures,” Lovaas said, including investments in public transportation, such as rail, bus and shuttle service, and making sidewalks and roads safer for bicyclists and pedestrians and those in wheelchairs.
It’s critical that states go on the record about what they’re doing with their carbon reduction strategies, he said. That will allow states to learn from each other and will provide accountability for how federal money is being spent to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“It’s an important document because carbon reduction from transportation is challenging and requires a multi-year strategy,” Lovaas said. “So that’s how we’re seeing this document. We’re seeing it as important not just for informing the Carbon Reduction Program, but also reflective of Maryland’s broader strategy to decarbonize transportation.”
Many states — including California, Colorado and Massachusetts — already had laws in place that address transportation emissions. Washington’s approach to its CRP strategy, for example, builds upon its 2021 State Energy Strategy. In Oregon, the state’s Carbon Reduction Strategy evolved from its 2013 plan to reduce carbon emissions by 2050 and a statewide transportation strategy that was updated this year. Statewide greenhouse gas emissions goals are codified in state law and executive order in Oregon, as well.
“We built the carbon reduction program on that strong base of actions,” said Brian Hurley, a mitigation program manager with the Oregon Department of Transportation. “We did not have to start from scratch.”
A description by the Minnesota Department of Transportation may best reflect a hard truth in many parts of the country when it comes to carbon reduction policies, regardless of political affiliation: “Land use patterns and unsafe, inconvenient alternatives make driving alone the most convenient choice for many Minnesotans. Cars in Minnesota are mostly powered by fossil fuels, which emit carbon pollution and other air pollutants.”
“Some states are actually way ahead of us federally, in terms of their level of climate ambition and the creativity that they’ve brought to this and the steps they’ve taken,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told The Washington Post last year. “Others, we’re pulling along and really working to encourage them.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, this summer vetoed a budget provision that would have allowed state agencies to seek federal money through a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant to improve energy efficiency in buildings. But Florida hasn’t turned down $320.4 million in CRP transportation funding the state will receive over five years. In its Carbon Reduction Strategy, Florida plans to call for reducing single-occupancy vehicle trips as well as for making it easier to use vehicles or modes of travel with lower emissions. The state’s strategy will also call for using construction techniques with lower emissions.
Florida will use $46 million to build 26 truck parking areas with commercial EV charging stations and other amenities. Safe places for truckers to rest have long been at a premium, but the growth in e-commerce has put even more trucks on the road, further straining the parking supply. And without a place to stop for federally mandated rest periods, truckers spend additional time on the road looking for safe places to park, which means more time spewing CO2 out of tailpipes. Truck parking shortages are considered a “national safety concern” by the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Freight Management and Operations.
Florida is also planning to invest big in its SUN Trails system, Huiwei Shen, the chief planner at the Florida Department of Transportation, said during a Rails-to-Trails Conservancy seminar earlier this year. The non-motorized, shared-use paths received a one-time infusion of $200 million from the state legislature this year.
“It’s a great time for trails in Florida,” Shen said. “It would contribute greatly towards the vision of a statewide interconnected trail system in Florida, and we want to be the No. 1 trail destination internationally.”
In Oregon, the state has $82 million to spend over five years. It set aside $13 million of that for projects in smaller cities and rural areas and for tribes; the federal program requires 65% of the money to go to larger metropolitan areas. Since the bulk of the money will go to parts of the state with more congestion, the state DOT wanted to help smaller communities make some progress on reducing carbon emissions, too, said Rye Baerg, a climate program coordinator with the Oregon Department of Transportation. Among the projects are e-bike lending libraries, solar streetlights and even electric-powered street cleaners sized specifically to clean pedestrian and bike paths so that they’re safer and therefore more attractive to users.
“We had a lot of counties, a lot of small cities, interested in charging and those types of things,” Baerg said. “I think that we saw a lot of interest in our first round of call for projects and I expect to see even more interest now that people know what types of things we’re funding and have a better sense of what the program is next year.”
The small changes add up, said Lovaas, with the Maryland transportation department. For example, if Maryland invests in a new transit line using Carbon Reduction Program money, it can multiply the effect of municipal or state policies that encourage transit-oriented development, Lovaas said. Invest in safe street programs, he added, and it reduces the number of trips people make by car and reduces their emissions.
“So for the short trips, you actually can replace them with walking or biking or rolling or some non-motorized mode,” he said. “You add all that together and you get a pretty big effect.”
Correction: Buildings account for about 40% of Minnesota’s total energy consumption. An earlier version of this story misattributed the figure to heating only.
Michael Overend and Lucy Grina love to show visitors around their home, a modest four-bedroom rambler, built in 1965 on a gravel road just north of Duluth, Minnesota.
The couple’s pride, however, did not always extend to one feature: the utility bills.
“We were embarrassed about how much heat this old house was leaking,” Overend said, “and we were cold a lot.”
Today, the couple is among a small but growing number of northern Minnesota homeowners finding comfort and savings by pairing energy-saving weatherization with an all-electric heating and cooling system known as a heat pump.
Heat pumps are highly efficient, two-in-one appliances that can both heat and cool a home, even in a notoriously cold climate such as northern Minnesota. The technology will likely be a key component of the state’s climate strategy, as buildings are a significant contributor to the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.
While still a niche, utilities, contractors, and advocates expect the technology to take off as more incentives become available and more people become familiar with what it can do.
For Overend and Grina, it started with consulting an expert on building super-efficient homes. They had raised two children in their home, but as they retired they had to decide whether to keep the house and improve its livability or buy elsewhere.
The first step was to get an energy audit, and then contractors plugged holes and added insulation and efficient windows. Eventually, the home was so tight they had to install an air exchanger to keep the air fresh and healthy. That’s standard practice in energy-efficient home construction these days.
Next came the heat pump. The systems have been around for decades, but their performance and efficiency improved by leaps and bounds in recent years. Those improvements, along with growing awareness about climate change and the hazards of burning fossil fuels indoors, have helped raise the appliance’s profile in recent years.
Heat pumps are more efficient than furnaces because they don’t make heat; they move it from one place to another, the same as refrigerators do. The outdoor unit looks essentially like a standard air conditioner. It has a coil filled with refrigerant and a fan that blows air across the coil. The indoor unit also has a coil and a fan. As the refrigerant moves through the system, a compressor pressurizes it and then allows it to expand, causing it to shift between a gas and a liquid. This enables it to absorb heat outdoors and release it inside.
In the summer, the system can be reversed, removing heat from inside more efficiently than a standard air conditioner can.
The most advanced heat pumps can extract heat from the air even on very cold days. This is because of newer, variable-speed, inverter-driven compressors. They are more efficient because they run continuously at varying speeds to match the heating or cooling load in the house, rather than stopping and starting as most furnaces do.
Overend said his system keeps the house toasty down to 20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. There are backup electric radiators, and the system can switch automatically to the backups, but Overend said they hardly ever come on.
Overend said the new system — including removing the old furnace, installing the two heat pumps and some new ductwork, and adding the air exchanger and a new water heater — cost the couple about $25,000, and it has lowered the home’s energy use by 40%.
Savings depend on the type of system the heat pump is replacing. Homeowners who rely on propane can save as much as 30% on home heating costs; those using electric resistance (baseboard) heat can save as much as 50%, according to the Air Source Heat Pump Collaborative, a project of the Minneapolis-based nonprofit Center for Energy and Environment and major utilities in the state.
The collaborative’s manager, Rabi Vandergon, said rebate applications for heat pumps spiked in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, as more people focused on home improvement. Supply chain problems slowed sales some, but numbers are up again this year, he said.
“We expect to see another jump,” Vandergon said. “People want to help with climate change, especially if it doesn’t hurt their pockets.”
Vandergon said the new systems are most valuable for rural residents currently served by propane or electric baseboard heating. The financial case is less clear to natural gas customers, but he’s excited about the rebate and tax credit programs soon to be available through the federal Inflation Reduction Act and Minnesota’s landmark 2023 energy legislation.
Homeowners can save more when they combine heat pumps with dual-fuel programs offered by some utilities. Minnesota Power, for example, offers customers a lower rate in exchange for the ability to stop the heat pump during times of high energy demand, forcing the home to switch to backup heat from another source.
Limited research and the increasing confidence of experienced installers are persuading homeowners that heat pumps really can work in cold climates.
HVAC contractor Chad Thompson has been installing heat pumps since he started Twin Ports Custom Climate just across the border in Superior, Wisconsin, 20 years ago. He’s witnessed monumental improvements in technologies and equally encouraging changes in consumer attitudes.
“The capabilities of the new units have gotten probably 10 times better over the last 10 to 15 years,” Thompson said.
Sales growth has occurred mainly by word of mouth. Things took off during the pandemic, Thompson said, while the region’s increasingly hot and humid summers have probably prompted interest, too. Others are motivated by climate change and the desire to stop burning fossil fuels.
The number of applications for utility company rebates for heat pumps in Minnesota more than doubled over four years, from just over 2,000 in 2019 to 4,600 in 2022, according to the Air Source Heat Pump Collaborative. And sales of heat pumps in the U.S. surpassed sales of natural gas furnaces in 2021, according to the International Energy Agency.
In the northeastern part of the state, Minnesota Power is bullish on heat pumps, offering rebates for the last several years. The company holds annual training events for contractors to learn from experts and manufacturers, and it requires customers to use preferred contractors to get a rebate.
“We want to encourage customers installing electric heat to do something that’s high efficiency, something that’s beneficial to the grid,” said Minnesota Power’s Jon Sullivan, lead worker in customer programs and services. “This technology really helps us along the path to 100% carbon-free energy. It’s also beneficial for other customers who want to cut back fuel combustion as much as possible.”
In 2017, Minnesota’s buildings consumed 40.6% of the total energy used in the state, according to the Minnesota Department of Commerce. Most of that comes from homes, where heating and cooling use more than half of the energy consumed. In spite of efforts to boost efficiency, energy use in buildings is increasing in Minnesota.
Advocates say switching to electric cars and appliances is among the most impactful things a homeowner can do to combat climate change. That’s because electricity is increasingly generated from clean sources. In Minnesota, all electricity sold will be required to come from clean energy by 2040.
As for Overend and Grina, they’re thinking about possible next steps, including an electric vehicle and possibly battery storage to tap during power outages.
“Ten years ago, I had no hope,” Overend said. “I thought climate change was too big for anyone — or for all of us — to solve. I’ve learned that there truly is hope. What we do as individuals makes a very, very tiny contribution to the overall picture. But we can be an important example to our friends, our family, our community.”
Vermont Gas Systems is offering to install electric heat pumps in their customers’ homes, the latest example of how state policy is nudging the utility to adapt its business model.
In order to comply with the state’s climate mandates, the utility is building a broader portfolio of thermal systems that will help both the business and its customers make the transition to a decarbonized future, said Richard Donnelly, the company’s director of energy innovation.
“We offer natural gas, energy-efficient products, weatherization, renewable natural gas, heat pump water heaters, and now heat pumps,” he said.
Expanding its offerings also puts the company in a good position to comply with the state’s new Clean Heat Standard, which became law last week after the legislature overrode a veto by Republican Gov. Phil Scott. Once implemented in 2025, the law will require fuel dealers to reduce the amount of fossil fuel they sell over time, or earn “clean heat credits” by doing things that offset building emissions, such as weatherization services and installing heat pumps.
Under the new heat pump program launched this month, the state’s only natural gas utility will use its in-house service technicians to install centrally ducted, cold-climate heat pumps in qualifying homes. The highly efficient systems use electricity, rather than fossil fuels, to heat and cool homes.
Customers will be able to either buy or lease the systems at rates that factor in the heat pump rebates available through the state’s utilities in partnership with Efficiency Vermont.
“We’ll process that rebate up front for a purchase, and bake it into our lease prices as well,” Donnelly said.
Each system will use the home’s existing ductwork, and be integrated with the homeowner’s gas furnace, which will serve as a backup heating source during extremely cold weather. A smart thermostat will automatically switch back and forth between the heating sources according to the customer’s settings.
“We are offering our customers an opportunity to diversify their heating system, adding in the benefits of resiliency,” Donnelly said. “This is also an opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint.”
In order to qualify, homes must already have ductwork that delivers heat through vents. They must also have a fairly efficient furnace.
An estimated 14,000 of the utility’s 55,000 customers could be eligible. Most homes in the company’s service area have hydronic heating systems with radiators or baseboard radiators; Donnelly said the company will begin offering heat pump solutions for those customers in the future.
The new program comes just over a year after Vermont Gas announced it would begin installing electric heat pump water heaters for its customers. The company is also looking for a site to test its first fossil fuel-free networked geothermal project, another possible business to branch into as the state moves away from fossil fuels.
“As a distribution utility, energy efficiency utility, and integrated energy services provider, Vermont Gas is uniquely positioned to help its customers take advantage of the latest and most cost-effective technology,” said Dylan Giambatista, the company’s public affairs director.
Vermont’s climate mandates call for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 26% from 2005 levels by 2025, 40% from 1990 levels by 2030, and 80% by 2050.
“We are going to need a lot of different partners” to meet those goals, said Johanna Miller, energy and climate program director for the Vermont Natural Resources Council. “To the degree that our utilities like Vermont Gas will lean into and help their customers cut costs and cut carbon, I think that that is important.”
Gas heating customers switching to electric heat pumps won’t necessarily save money, at least for now. While the heat pumps are more efficient, gas is currently the cheaper source for heating, Donnelly said.
But the company is developing an online calculator that will allow customers to see how setting the system to swap over to the furnace at 20 degrees versus, say, 25 degrees will compare in terms of carbon reduction and heating costs. They will also be able to measure the carbon and cost impact of adding in renewable natural gas.
“A lot of our customers are motivated by carbon reduction, but they don’t know how much a heat pump would help in terms of their overall consumption,” Donnelly said. “We’re taking that role to educate.”
Giambatista said he installed a heat pump in his 1945 house last fall. He set the smart thermometer to swap over to his gas furnace when temperatures dropped to 25 degrees. Over the winter his gas usage dropped by about 60% compared to previous years, he said.
To date, about 45,000 ducted and ductless heat pumps have been installed in Vermont under the state’s rebate program, according to Phil Bickel, HVAC and refrigeration program manager at Efficiency Vermont.
They are primarily in homes that heat with fuel oil, the majority of homes in the state.
“We’ve seen the cost of all fossil fuels go up and down over the years,” Bickel said. “The main thing about making the switch to heat pumps is it provides a little bit more of a stable cost. They are three times more efficient than oil or propane, and they also provide the low carbon benefit, as well as the cooling benefit.”
Efficiency Vermont does recommend that homeowners maintain a backup source for heat. The heat pumps work well down to about -15 degrees, “but in Vermont, there are those times when we are going to have a long cold snap,” Bickel said.
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