SCE Files Plan for Expanding Electric Transportation
January 23 2017 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
Plan aims to reduce emissions from goods
movement industry, passenger vehicles
Southern California Edison, a leader in the transformation of
the energy sector, has filed with the California Public Utilities
Commission a wide-ranging plan for expanding electric
transportation in its service area.
Consistent with SCE’s longstanding role in supporting electric
transportation, the plan aims to increase electrification of cars,
buses, medium- and heavy-duty trucks and industrial vehicles and
equipment.
“This filing lays out a clear plan to accelerate the adoption of
electric transportation, which is critical to California achieving
its climate change and environmental goals,” said SCE President Ron
Nichols.
“The benefits of electric vehicles are growing, but barriers to
their adoption still exist — and utilities and other market
participants have a clear role to play in overcoming those
barriers.”
In addition to innovative programs for passenger vehicle
adoption, the plan is tailored to Southern California, where 40
percent of the goods entering the nation are moved through the
region’s ports and over its highways. This immense goods movement
industry is crucial to the state and local economy, but it is also
a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution from
heavy commercial and industrial vehicles at ports, warehouses and
along freeway corridors.
These projects will benefit all SCE customers, with a particular
focus on “disadvantaged communities” — areas that are
disproportionately affected by pollution and economic hardship,
often located along transportation corridors.
“Transitioning to zero- and near-zero emissions modes of
transportation is essential to achieving air quality goals in this
region,” said Wayne Nastri, executive officer of the South Coast
Air Quality Management District. “We are pleased and encouraged by
SCE’s plans that complement our efforts to accelerate this
transition, including a focus on disadvantaged communities that are
disproportionately impacted by air pollution.”
SCE also released a white paper, “Transportation
Electrification: Reducing Emissions, Driving Innovation,” showing
the central role transportation electrification must play if
California is to succeed in reducing air pollution and greenhouse
gases. Electric vehicles currently reduce greenhouse gases by more
than 70 percent and smog-producing air pollutants by 85 percent
compared to gas-powered cars. As more renewable resources are added
to the grid, electric vehicles will increasingly benefit the
environment.
The proposed projects in the commission filing complement and
expand on SCE’s Charge Ready pilot program, which focuses on
installation of EV charging stations in parking lots where
passenger vehicles are parked for extended periods of time.
The Charge Ready model, which involves SCE installing all of the
electrical infrastructure on a customer’s site to support charging
stations and providing a rebate toward the purchase of those
charging stations, would be applied to new vehicle segments,
including plug-in trucks, electric buses, cargo-handling port
equipment and forklifts.
If approved, the overall package in today’s filing would mean
more than $570 million in programs and infrastructure to help grow
the transportation electrification market over a five-year period
and stimulate greenhouse gas reductions to support moving
California closer to its 2030 climate change goal of 40 percent
below 1990 levels. Supporting the shift to electrification will
help reduce tailpipe emissions that contribute to violations of
federal health-based ozone standards in Southern California. Many
of these projects may have future applicability in other parts of
California, supporting progress toward the state’s emission
reduction targets.
Proposals include:
- Funding for medium- and heavy-duty
vehicle charging infrastructure. As in the Charge Ready program,
SCE would install infrastructure on a customer’s site and provide a
rebate toward the purchase of the charging station. In addition to
trucks, this program would support plug-in buses, forklifts and
other off-road equipment. While it is not part of the current
filing, SCE will be exploring options with the South Coast Air
Quality Management District and other stakeholders for a
zero-emission freight movement program for transporting freight
from the Port of Long Beach to inland distribution hubs.
- Rates designed to incentivize EV
adoption. This attractive rate option for EV owners would eliminate
demand charges during an introductory period and stimulate charging
during periods of the day that benefit both customers and the grid
(i.e., low-cost periods during the day to support integration of
renewable energy).
A number of short-term pilot programs are also part of the
package:
- Customer rebate for residential
charging station installation. SCE would provide a rebate to
residential customers living in single-family residences or smaller
multi-unit dwellings not covered in the Charge Ready program to
install a “make-ready,” which is the electrical infrastructure
required in a garage or at a parking space to support EV charging.
The rebates would alleviate the cost of installing a new circuit
and, for some customers, the cost of a new panel.
- Building vehicle charging
infrastructure for electric transit buses. Similar to the medium-
and heavy-duty vehicle program, SCE is proposing a one-year pilot
to install infrastructure and provide a rebate toward the purchase
of the charging stations for buses. This project will focus
specifically on progressive transit agencies that are already
preparing to receive electric buses and will provide charging
infrastructure to speed adoption of electric transit buses.
- Port electrification projects. At the
Port of Long Beach, SCE would install charging infrastructure for
the electrification of equipment used to unload and move goods
containers from ships to off-port transportation vehicles currently
powered by diesel engines.
- Building urban DC Fast Charger (DCFC)
clusters. SCE would install five DC fast-charge sites in urban
areas. Each site would have up to five dual-port charging stations
for a total of 50 DCFC ports. The sites would be located in
publicly accessible urban locations — for example, near a corridor,
downtown or in high-density apartments.
- Bonus reward to rideshare/taxi drivers
who use EVs. SCE proposes a monetary reward to rideshare and taxi
drivers who use an EV and exceed a specified number of rides during
a given time period. The pilot promotes the use of EVs in rideshare
services, increases EV miles traveled and introduces more
passengers to the experience of riding in an EV.
The filing’s proposed capital investments are subject to CPUC
review and approval and will not be included in SCE’s capital
spending and rate base forecasts currently provided through 2020 in
its SEC disclosures.
About Southern California Edison
An Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, Southern California
Edison is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, serving a
population of nearly 15 million via 5 million customer accounts in
a 50,000-square-mile service area within Central, Coastal and
Southern California.
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Southern California EdisonMedia Contact:Paul Griffo, (626)
302-2255orInvestor Relations Contact:Scott Cunningham, (626)
302-2540
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