EVs ❤️ Clean Energy

Abundant, cheap, locally produced clean energy can help reduce transportation costs and increase utility utilization, if we choose to accelerate those programs

It’s Valentine’s Day, and I love both electrified transportation and low cost wind and solar energy. The connection between EVs and clean energy is new romance, and I’m confident they will continue to build an even more mutually beneficial relationship in the future. This is an entry level summary of some of my recent personal experience, and a highlight of opportunities available in the future.

I began driving an EV when I got a 2015 Nissan Leaf which I drove for 36,000 miles. When technology improved, I upgraded to a 2018 Leaf with a longer range. That vehicle has been my daily driver for the past 6+ years and 76,000 miles. Since the Leaf was quiet, zippy, and a hatchback, it has been the preferred vehicle at my home whenever my partner and I head out together. Technology has continued to improve, and at the beginning of this month I upgraded again to a Ford Mach E.

New EV selfie 😁

I chose the Extended Range version with the lager 91 kWh battery. This allows both longer driving range, but also significantly improved flexibility for when and where I charge the vehicle. I park outside at home and have a Level 2 charger (standard residential 240 volt, 40 amp circuit) in my driveway. There is also a publicly accessible L2 charger with 2 ports in the parking lot at my office. Like many (most?) vehicles, mine sits at home or work for a vast majority of the time, and my ~12,000 miles/year travel is approximately half commuting from one location to the other. I am aware that some people don’t have charging available at both ends of most of their daily trips and several uninterrupted hours at each location. However, across the country there are a significant number of people who do have this flexibility [citation needed, and I would love someone to share data about how many “single family home with daily office commute” drivers there are in the country].

Quick and dirty math: 1,000 miles per month, 3 miles/kwh, 6 kW charging = 56 hours of L2 charging time needed per month, or about 3 x 5 hour charging sessions per week. Since my vehicle usually sits at the office during the day, and at home over night for more than that amount of time, I have at least 12 charging opportunities (5 days, 7 nights) of which I only need to choose 3.

Level 2, clean-charging at my office

This flexibility means that I can look at energy load and generation projections to find out when clean energy (mostly wind in my area) will be abundant on the SPP (Southwest Power Pool) grid where I live. This generally correlates to lower energy purchase prices for OPPD (Omaha Public Power District). There aren’t currently any TOU (Time of Use) or other grid-price-sensitive rates for either residential or commercial customers, nor through any of the EV chargers in our area.

Screen capture of Forecast vs. Actual data from SPP

Knowing ahead of time that wind generation would be relatively high, and prices would be low, I decided not to charge my vehicle last night, and instead wait until I arrived at work this morning. From the graph, the difference between Short-Term Wind Forecast (red), and Actual Wind (orange) is cheap, clean energy that is being curtailed, literally directly wasted because either there isn’t demand for it, or the transmission grid can’t get the energy from where it is produced to where it is needed. From the captured example above, about 6,000 MW of wind energy was available but not being put to any beneficial use. By choosing to charge my EV this morning rather than yesterday, OPPD is seeing the same energy sales revenue but lower energy purchase prices, giving better cost recovery on the existing grid infrastructure. My car will charge the rest of today until I head home, about 6 hours and 36 kWh in total That will mean I’ve soaked up more otherwise-wasted clean energy while my car sits idle in the parking lot than an average home in our area uses in an entire day.

The team at Grid Status have excellent visualization of the Day Ahead, and Real Time pricing for various grids across the country, including SPP on February 14, 2025.

Market prices from SPP, below zero most of the first half of February 14th

I have significantly more interest, knowledge, and determination than most people to make sure my EV is charging with the cheapest, cleanest energy possible. There are approximately 900,000 residents in OPPD’s service territory, with around 5,200 EVs. Notably, that number is up ~10% since just the previous quarter. Even among early adopters and strong advocates, this level of dedication, monitoring, and manual decision making is not likely to be common. But good news… all of this data, and the ability to help drivers who have the flexibility to clean-charge their vehicles is a relatively simple planning and timing exercise. There are “managed charging” programs, rates, incentives, apps, and other tools and support currently available at utilities across the country. By facilitating a connection between electric vehicles and clean energy, many benefits can be achieved for both the people individually and utilities in aggregate. Including:

• managed charging increases utilization and cost effectiveness of utilities, helping to avoid increasing costs for customers in the future

• EVs are significantly cheaper to drive than ICE vehicles, and that cost advantage is even stronger when very inexpensive electricity is available

• curtailed clean energy is a straight economic loss, and can become new revenue for utilities and energy project developers

• “what if everyone plugs in their EV when the come home?” is an inaccurate, and overly-simplistic understanding of how charging works, and system overload can be easily avoided using timed charging available to set in the vehicle, through the charger, by smart meters, or thru a VPP (Virtual Power Plant) program

• charging can be turned down for participating vehicles during critical times on the grid, with financial compensation for having flexible demand

This work is already happening across the country, and is accelerating as companies like Weave Grid, Energy Hub, and a vast number of others develop platforms to take advantage of this incredible economic opportunity.

I will personally be prioritizing accelerating policy at OPPD to have managed EV charging opportunities available. This will help our customer owners save money by accessing clean energy for charging, while increasing efficiency and utilization of our system which helps keep rates affordable for both EV drivers and all customers. This is an example of a DER (Distributed Energy Resource) that has been tested across the country and around the world, and is ready for deployment if we choose to take advantage of the benefits available.

Much love ❤️ to all the EV drivers out there today. Tomorrow there’ll be more of us.