Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Popham: Utilities must lead publicly on EV strategy or lose regulatory influence

Carl Popham · Introducing: With Great Power, a show about the people building the future grid · Jan 18, 2023 · at 13:00

Carl Popham of Austin Energy advises other electric utilities on establishing internal EV and emerging technology teams and shaping regional policy.

0:00 / 0:34exact quote · 34.5s
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“The first thing you should kind of do as utility is decide what your strategy and your outcomes are and then make that public. Have a public vision to your strategy you know, be a speaker and be seen as a leader, because what's going to happen is there's a lot of decisions being made about EVs and that can have a big impact in the utility. And if you're not seen as an innovator or a leader in the space, you know, the old adage, you're either at the table or on the table, you're going to be on the table and then you're going to react to what other people think without really getting that weight in.”

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Assertion Not checkable as stated
Popham: Most dealership salespeople earn lower commissions selling EVs
“And then for various reasons based on how commissions work, typically the salesperson on most dealerships, not all, would then get paid less.”
Carl Popham Jan 18, 2023 ▶ 2:48 Introducing: With Great Power, a show about the people building the future grid
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Popham: Utilities must align with dealership profitability to drive EV sales
“Ultimately, you're not engaging the dealerships because they're going to help you with your Austin Climate and Equity Plan or utility financial health goals or anything like that. It is, the mindset is, how can we get EVs through you to your customers? As quic…”
Carl Popham Jan 18, 2023 ▶ 4:48 Introducing: With Great Power, a show about the people building the future grid
Insight
Popham: Treating EV charging as standard load growth misses unique opportunities.
“And I think a lot of utilities mistakenly call EV growth as load growth. I think that simplifies it, because the load curves, both 24 hours and seasonally, look completely different. It's not more buildings. It's not more air conditioning. EVs charge different…”
Carl Popham Jan 18, 2023 ▶ 15:47 Introducing: With Great Power, a show about the people building the future grid
Insight
Popham: Off-peak EV charging soaks up excess grid capacity profitably.
“EVs charge a lot at night, they charge in the morning, so they're charged off-peak. So it's very profitable in that You don't have to build all this new infrastructure like there's new buildings. It's soaking up excess capacity of your transmission and distrib…”
Carl Popham Jan 18, 2023 ▶ 18:15 Introducing: With Great Power, a show about the people building the future grid
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Popham: Selling an EV takes two hours versus 40 minutes for gas.
“Historically, to sell an EV could take up to two hours, and to sell a gas car takes 40 minutes.”
Carl Popham Jan 18, 2023 ▶ 2:39 Introducing: With Great Power, a show about the people building the future grid
Disclosure
Popham: Austin Energy saw zero opt-outs for EV demand response.
“In our pilots, we had zero opt-outs in shifting EV load, and we had the expected number of opt-outs in air conditioning load.”
Carl Popham Jan 18, 2023 ▶ 19:04 Introducing: With Great Power, a show about the people building the future grid
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