Race to Carbon Neutrality: Electric Vehicles in China and the United States
The year of the Ox came riding in on an electric vehicle (EV) with news that both the United States and Chinese governments were accelerating efforts to expand EV markets. In 2020, China sold 41 percent of the world’s EVs and now, the United States wants to be in the race too. On January 1 of this year, China’s Ministry of Finance slashed subsidies on electric, plug-in hybrids, and fuel cell automobiles by 20 percent, which is around 9 percent of the average retail price. By the end of 2022, it will halt subsidies in an EV Darwinism move as it did with solar PV panel companies to give a boost to the strongest players. Also in January, the Biden Administration announced a plan to electrify 645,000 federally procured vehicles.
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2020 was a terrible year. Toward the end, a small light began to show us the way forward.
Not all was dark.
One of the few bright lights of 2020 was the Electric Vehicle and its battery. Who knew we would get so much done relative to vehicle-grid integration (VGI), vehicle-to-grid (V2G), and market trading?
Vehicle-Grid Integration – VGI
EV smart charging has been around for over a decade. The idea is to charge the EV when the grid can most afford to expend its valuable electrons. In the early days, many feared EV charging would overwhelm the grid, which would require building new coal and nuclear power plants just to keep the lights on. Now that wind, solar, hydro, and other renewables increasingly power the grid, the batteries of EVs serve as a massive sink for all that power.
Electric Vehicles and the Power Grid: Roadmaps From California and New York
How utilities and states with the biggest EV ambitions plan to make them a part of a cost-effective, reliable and clean energy-powered grid.
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December 14, 2020
This is the last Dispatch from the Grid Edge for 2020, as GTM Squared takes its holiday break. We will be returning in January with a look forward at the key trends that will shape the grid edge in 2021.
Electric vehicle charging will play a major role in how U.S. utilities operate their power grids particularly in the states that are pushing the hardest to electrify their transportation sectors.