Utilities announce collaborative electric vehicle charging network

A coalition of dozens of U.S. electrical utilities on Tuesday announced plans to collaborate on a charging network for electric vehicles (EVs) with a goal of charging ports along all major U.S. travel corridors by 2023.

The project, the National Electric Highway Coalition, comprises 51 members of the Edison Electric Coalition (EEI), as well as cooperative Midwest Energy Inc, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, according to an announcement Tuesday. Other participants include the Midwest Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Collaboration and the Electric Highway Coalition.

“EEI and our member companies are leading the clean energy transformation, and electric transportation is key to reducing carbon emissions across our economy,” EEI President Tom Kuhn said in a statement. “With the formation of the National Electric Highway Coalition, we are committed to investing in and providing the charging infrastructure necessary to facilitate electric vehicle growth and to helping alleviate any remaining customer range anxiety.”

The coalition has not set a specific target for number of charging ports, but said its goal is to back the construction of enough for EV owners to travel major corridors “with confidence” by the end of 2023.

The announcement comes as EEI has projected that up to 100,000 new charging ports will be necessary to support an estimated 22 million EVs on the road by the end of the decade. This would represent a more than tenfold increase from the about 2 million currently on the road.

As the Biden administration seeks to slash greenhouse gas emissions, it has targeted major infusions of funds into electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The $1.2 trillion bill President Biden signed into law in November includes $7.5 billion in funds for charging stations. The Department of Energy has announced a target of 50,000 stations worldwide. An Energy Department analysis projected that the U.S. must install about 11,000 public ports every fiscal quarter for the remainder of the decade to meet the goal.