Clean Energy Finance Forum

Utilities are eyeing vehicle-to-grid technology as a way to help fortify the grid and reduce operating costs while meeting renewable-energy goals, making use of the batteries in vehicles that spend more than 90% of their lives off the road and unused.

Opportunity zones, part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, allow investors to place their capital gains in legally established funds for projects in economically distressed areas defined by the federal government. A secondary attribute, appealing to clean energy developers, is that opportunity zone funds can be used for solar, microgrids, electric vehicle charging stations and energy storage.

The oil industry faces an uncertain future. The world is rapidly waking up to the severity and immediacy of the threat from climate change. At the same time, electric vehicles are getting cheap enough to compete with internal-combustion engines.

While the bus market historically has been dominated by internal combustion engines, electric buses are increasingly popular in transportation headlines. More and more, transportation agencies are setting sunset timelines for the purchase of diesel buses and announcing goals to transition to zero-emission fleets — primarily through bus electrification.

The collaboration, which begins with installing public charging stations, aims to make electric transportation more accessible.

Colorado has become the 11th state to adopt California’s zero-emission-vehicle mandate forcing automakers to sell more electric cars in the state.

Several utilities are testing new programs and technology to encourage drivers to fill up batteries during off-peak hours.

"In this report, we explore Shenzhen’s experience in the deployment of electric urban delivery vehicles and take on one of the most important questions to accelerating adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in urban delivery: How to effectively provide them with charging infrastructure? To answer that question, this report uses a unique data set with complete driving records of over 10,000 electric delivery vehicles in the city of Shenzhen, supplemented by dozens of interviews with the companies that own and operate those vehicles."

The expanded alliance now will add two of the most significant, albeit costly, technologies expected to dramatically reshape the global auto industry over the coming decades.