Battery storage is shoring up Texas and California grids.
Quote of the Week:
“Moving packages from point A to point B in a way that’s cleaner, more cost-effective, and accelerating toward an electric vehicle future stamped ‘Made in America,” said Ali Zaidi, the White House National Climate Advisor, commenting on the U.S. Postal Service’s plans to transition to an electric mail truck fleet. “This is the Biden climate strategy on wheels, and the U.S. Postal Service delivering for the American people.”
CLEAN ENERGY
Must Be Equitable
USDA commits millions for rural clean energy. The Agriculture Department is planning on spending $600 million to help farmers and rural residents install solar panels and adopt more energy-efficient farm equipment. The Biden administration says the effort is critical to shoring up the nation’s supply of clean energy while bringing the transition to a green economy to rural areas. The agency plans to distribute the funds as quickly as possible. (Reuters)
CLEAN ENERGY
Is Affordable
Electric school buses are practically free now. While electric school buses are more expensive than their diesel counterparts, federal and state incentives are making choosing an electric option a no-brainer. The EPA’s five-year $5 billion Clean School Bus Program is offering school districts $375,000 to replace a diesel bus with an electric one, alongside an additional $20,000 for charging infrastructure per each bus purchased, and states like California and New York are offering additional rebates as well. The federal Clean School Bus Program has already distributed $1 billion to fund 2,500 school bus replacements in nearly 400 districts, and electric school bus manufacturers are scaling up to meet rising demand. (Axios)
CLEAN ENERGY
Is Replacing Fossil Fuels
The Postal Service is going all-electric. In a major reversal of its original plan, USPS announced it will deploy at least 66,000 electric mail trucks by 2028 and by 2026 it will almost exclusively purchase zero-emissions vehicles. The $9.6 billion investment — supported by $3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — will make the Postal Service the largest electric fleet in the country. While the USPS had initially planned to replace its aging fleet with mostly fossil-fueled trucks, it shifted plans under pressure from the Biden administration, Congress, and EPA. The IRA funding ultimately gave the agency the certainty to revise its plans with more ambitious electrification targets. (CNN)
CLEAN ENERGY
Is A Good Investment
U.S. battery supply chain is booming. With state and federal targets and incentives pushing the auto industry toward an electric future, automakers and battery companies are investing billions to build supply chains that no longer rely on imports from countries with human rights and environmental concerns. On top of investments in production, Yale Environment 360 reports companies are also exploring battery chemistries that reduce reliance on imported minerals, drive down costs, and improve energy density. One key part of the growing battery economy will be the recycling industry, which can ensure that battery minerals are recovered from EVs that have worn out their useful life. The Verge reports that battery recycling companies like Redwood Materials are scaling up to meet growing demand as battery production facilities open across the South and Midwest. (Yale Environment 360, The Verge)
EV charging kicks into gear. As the U.S. electric vehicle market heats up, the EV charging sector is also accelerating. To date, the U.S. has installed nearly 140,000 public EV chargers — a number that is expected to quickly grow as billions of dollars of federal funding are distributed to expand the national charging network. Utility Dive writes that roughly $90 billion in infrastructure investments will be required to meet the Biden administration’s target of 500,000 chargers by 2030. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that global investment in EV charging is set to exceed $100 billion in 2023, which experts and analysts say could signal that the market is maturing and bringing in the capital it needs to overcome systemic industry challenges (Utility Dive, Bloomberg $)
Battery storage is addressing grid reliability concerns. Battery storage deployments are expected to boom over the next three years as developers in states like California and Texas look to shore up reliability for energy grids increasingly dominated by renewables. The Energy Department projects a two-and-a-half-fold increase in battery storage capacity nationwide by 2026, roughly 21 gigawatts. Since wind energy generated in Texas frequently exceeds what transmission lines can carry, battery storage helps ensure that the energy does not go to waste and can plug back into the market when demand is high. (Houston Chronicle $)
CLEAN ENERGY
Is Challenging
Transmission bottlenecks are holding back the energy transition. Nearly 930GW of clean energy capacity and 420GW of energy storage are stuck waiting to be connected to the grid. These interconnection queues have become some of the biggest roadblocks to the country’s energy transition, as current capacity cannot accommodate all the new clean energy resources looking to deliver electricity. At the end of 2021, 8,100 (mostly renewable energy) projects representing more than the combined power capacity of all U.S. electrical plants were stuck waiting for grid connections. While new rules and data-sharing can help alleviate some of this gridlock, experts say the U.S. will need to significantly expand transmission capacity to make the energy transition possible. (Washington Post $)
MULTIMEDIA
Video: Is solar power the future of electric vehicles?
