Data regarding where electric vehicle drivers live — and even where they will live in the future — helps both the private and public sectors plan the locations for charging infrastructure.
PredictEV, technology developed by Volta Charging, helps utilities, cities and other organizations plan the locations of new charging infrastructure and provides insight into charging needs in underserved communities. Broad deployment of charging infrastructure is an important part of the federal infrastructure investment and employment law.
“PredictEV is a turnkey solution for planning EV infrastructure that leverages mobility patterns, population distribution and visitor data,” said Kevin Samy, Volta’s head of climate policy and communications, in an email. “In its simplest form, a user can enter a future year to understand EV adoption, network, and socioeconomic impact, then continue to tweak infinitely to narrow it down to a desired scenario.”
The technology is used by utilities such as Edison in Southern California, one of the largest utilities in the nation serving 15 million residents in an area of 50,000 square miles. The utility has plans to install some 30,000 to 40,000 public chargers over the next three years, said Naveed Ahmad, senior advisor in e-mobility partnerships at Edison in Southern California.
The legislation provides for “mapping and analysis activities” to determine the “locations of current and future electric vehicle owners”.
“That’s exactly what PredictEV was built for,” says Samy. “We combine federal and state government data sets on mobility, health, and many other socioeconomic factors… to enable fast, efficient analyzes and create the outputs needed for applications.”
In a state like California, the largest EV market in the nation, state officials are sharply focused on equality as the state embarks on a charging expansion.
The state energy commission aims to have 50 percent of funding for charging go to low-income and underserved communities, said Hannon Rasool, deputy director of fuels and transportation at the California Energy Commission.
“Across the board, we’re looking very strongly at equity capital,” Rasool said, speaking on a recent panel to address the issue of multi-family home charging. The panel is hosted by Veloz, an EV advocacy and policy group based in Sacramento. “We definitely think the role of the public sector will not fully accelerate the market in general, but also address what the private market might not otherwise tackle.”
Volta is also a charging infrastructure provider and plans to have more than 4,000 chargers up and running by the end of the year. These will largely be Level 2 chargers located in destinations such as retail areas, workplaces or schools. Most of the federal government’s efforts to expand charging will focus on busy corridors. Charging at home and charging at the workplace or in the shopping center will also have to be part of the mix to give consumers the confidence to switch to electric driving.
“I don’t think there’s a panacea here,” Rasool said. “One solution won’t work for everything.”