A brief #energytwitter nerd thread. As usual, about things people aren't talking about but should be. Who should be allowed to own and profit from retail EV charging stations?
1/ That may seem a dumb question. We have a market economy, if people want this businesses will build it, right? Not so fast.
2/ Because for all the deregulation we've done of our electric markets over the past 3 decades, the "last mile" that connects to retail use is still a regulated monopoly in all 50 states.
3/ There's good reason for that - society isn't improved by having 10 wires into every home with consumers flipping between each to pick their favorite supply. But the build out of EV charging raises hard questions about that structure.
4/ Specifically, if you are not the regulated, last-mile utility, should you be allowed to sell electricity to retail customers, at a profit? In ~ a dozen states, the answer is no.
5/ That leads to stories like this one, where gasoline and convenience store operators can't find the economic logic to convert their gasoline pumps into electricity pumps. cbsnews.com/news/electric-…
6/ If that remains, then we aren't going to get the charging stations we need. Not because they don't make inherent economic sense, but because century-old, monopolistic utility regulations don't reward free market actors.
7/ That's fundamentally solvable; regulated utilities make money by investing capital that can be built into their rate base and gas stations make money by marking up gasoline & beef jerky. So fix the state-level rules and let both do what they know how to do.
8/ But that's not enough. Because that presumes that the only way to sell electricity to EVs is through existing fueling stations. What about parking garages? Government-owned rest areas? Shopping mall owners?
9/ All of those players (and more) have real estate that could be put to work, but attracting capital to build the infrastructure will require fixing out-dated utility laws. Our challenge is to figure out how to do that in a way that lets a thousand entrepreneurial flowers bloom.
10/ So why should you care? Because losers cry louder than winners cheer. Vested interests know how much they have to lose if they can't participate in these markets. They are (and should) be active in the policy convos we are having about this right now.
11/ But if we do this right, we will create opportunities for a whole lot of entrepreneurs who don't yet exist to bring their own capital and innovation to this space. We will all benefit from their innovation... but since they don't yet exist, they aren't at the table.
12/ My favorite part of this job is figuring out who isn't at that proverbial table and making sure they aren't forgotten. We haven't found the solution just yet, but let us know if you have good ideas! And watch this space. /fin
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