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The Promise and Detriment of Increased Charging Stations
The publication, government technology, released an interesting editorial about how states could assist in reducing emissions by using federal funds to create more electric vehicle charging stations. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (ILJA) provided over $7.5 billion for states to create infrastructure for electric vehicles. The legislation’s goal is that by 2030 there will be 500,000 charging stations in the US. While this is promising, it does raise the question of how it could impact load management in the US.
The piece goes into detail of how the US Department of Transportation provides general guidelines for what kind of charging stations should be created, but that states should do more. In particular, states should seek to create more support for electric trucks because trucks make up a disproportionate amount of emissions. Additionally, the roads that trucks travel on are near low-income and minority areas, so that results in harms from pollution magnifying in these communities.
The post stresses that if states just simply go by the federal guidelines they will not have the infrastructure to support electric trucks. But with the funding provided by the federal government, the states can create support for electric trucks. Additionally, these programs need to provide more accessibility in general in rural areas, and low-income communities in general.
The article praises that many cities have already conducted similar programs for private transportation vehicles such as taxis. The ILJA encourages this kind of development by allowing states to partner with private companies that could help foot the bill for infrastructure. This allows for the federal money to go further. So a state could partner with a trucking company to create further development of charging stations. This would be in the interest of trucking companies because long-term, reducing the reliance on diesel can save the companies and individual truckers a lot of money. Currently, the infrastructure does not exist to make this transition.
In addition to reducing pollution and saving money, a significant development in electric infrastructure support could go a long way in conserving energy long-term. But in the meantime, this development could negatively impact load management. There is not a lot of infrastructure for electric vehicles that are based on renewable energy. As a result, these projects could use significantly more energy. As a result, this could negatively impact load management. Fortunately, the development of this infrastructure will occur gradually, so hopefully as more charging stations emerge, additional renewable energy will too.
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