Electric transportation is far from a new research topic at EPRI. Starting with the formation of the Electric Transportation Infrastructure Working Council in 1991, EPRI’s wide-ranging and collaborative research efforts have included everything from demonstrations of electric vehicles (EVs) to economic and environmental impact studies to initiatives to advance charging and vehicle-to-grid technologies.
More recently, EPRI’s engagement with auto and truck makers, fleet operators, utilities, regulators, and others in the broad EV ecosystem has evolved, driven largely by growing alignment across different stakeholder groups. For instance, last year, Atlas EV Hub reported that $312 billion was expected to be invested in domestic EV manufacturing, with $223 billion already allocated. Demand for EVs by drivers has also been strong, with EVs making up over 10 percent of new light-duty vehicle sales in 2024. In Colorado, California, Washington, and the District of Columbia, EV registrations account for more than 20 percent of all new vehicles sold—both California and Colorado are above 26 percent. EV sales are not limited to light-duty passenger vehicles. Large companies like Amazon, FedEx, and PepsiCo are also purchasing large numbers of light commercial, medium- and heavy-duty EVs.
A Lack of Granular Data Poses Planning Challenges
As improved economics and a growing selection of vehicles to choose from continue to drive sales, EPRI’s research has increasingly focused on how to solve the challenges of integrating EV loads seamlessly onto the grid. “What are the barriers when we think about all these new EVs on the grid?” said Jamie Dunckley, an EPRI program manager focusing on electric transportation. “One of the greatest challenges utilities face is the uncertainty around where EV charging demand will arise. Understanding when, where, and how much EVs will charge is essential for effective grid infrastructure planning.”
This presents a challenge because detailed data on where EVs are charging and how they’re being driven has not been available. While information on EV purchases and registrations exists at the national, state, and county levels, it lacks the granularity needed for utilities to make informed grid infrastructure investments or to support fleet customers in identifying locations with adequate existing capacity. This lack of actionable data is far from ideal and creates inefficiencies for utilities, their customers, and vehicle manufacturers alike.
For example, consider a scenario where a large fleet customer plans to electrify many medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, or maybe has gone so far as to purchase them. Without advance notice, a utility would be caught off guard when a request for the 10 to 20 megawatts needed to charge the EVs arrives. “The utility may not be able to bring that power to a site for several years,” Dunckley said. EV loads are fundamentally different from other large loads, such as building loads, which often include an extended permitting process, new construction, and long lead times. By contrast, large EV loads can materialize extremely fast. For example, a fleet operator may order a dozen Class 8 heavy-duty trucks that can be delivered in just a few months.
eRoadMap™ Provides the Granular Data Utility Planners Need
Granular, forward-looking, location-specific data can help overcome these challenges, especially for utilities seeking to serve large new customers. EPRI understood that to solve this challenge, a new approach was needed—one that was transparent, collaborative, and, most importantly, data-driven.
“We did not want to create a black box model,” Dunckley said. “That wouldn’t provide the transparency that utilities and others need to feel confident in using the data. The result is eRoadMAP, an online interactive map designed to estimate the power and energy needs for electrifying transportation at the local level—all the way down to a quarter square mile resolution—covering light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles. What makes eRoadMAP unique is that it is informed by a comprehensive collection of data sets rather than a single source of information.
For example, vehicle registration may seem like an ideal data source for understanding where charging needs will emerge for EVs. After all, nationwide vehicle registration data is reasonably available and accessible. And while vehicle registration data can highlight broad trends for light-duty EVs, they are less useful in understanding where medium- and heavy-duty vehicles will charge. The reason is that commercial fleets frequently register their EVs at headquarters or states that offer favorable policies or lower costs, not where the vans, trucks, and buses operate.
To overcome the inherent limitations of relying on a single data source, eRoadMAP combines a unique blend of proprietary and publicly available data.
Practical Uses of eRoadMAP
The data within eRoadMAP is being continuously updated as EPRI collects more data, fleet electrification and charging infrastructure plans are announced, and as technology matures. Comprehensive, up-to-date, and localized information will provide utility planners with the information they need to make confident investments to accommodate new charging loads. Three primary eRoadMAP use cases are:
- Local grid planning: eRoadMAP enables utilities to identify and prioritize areas with high anticipated EV loads and to integrate these early load projections into multi-year capital and project planning processes. For example, Minnesota-based Great River Energy plans to use eRoadMAP to guide construction work plans and integrated resource planning efforts. It also sees the map as an important tool for efficiently sizing new equipment, like transformers. “If an engineer has to size a transformer today, eRoadMAP provides an additional input that might lead to installing a larger, more future-proof transformer that helps avoid costly replacements five or ten years down the line,” said Rodney De Fouw, a member electrification specialist at Great River Energy, a generation and transmission utility serving 26 cooperatives.
- Customer engagement: eRoadMAP helps utility account representatives and fleet advisors identify and prioritize customer outreach, enabling strategic conversations about their electrification plans. It empowers utilities to take a proactive approach, rather than reacting after large commercial customers announce significant EV fleet deployments.
Stakeholder outreach: By making critical data publicly accessible, eRoadMAP empowers regulators, state legislators, city planners, and government agencies to better understand the scope and location of future EV loads. This transparency builds common understanding and facilitates informed policy discussions, avoiding situations where utilities present data from “black box” models that are difficult for external stakeholders to scrutinize. - Stakeholder outreach: By making critical data publicly accessible, eRoadMAP empowers regulators, state legislators, city planners, and government agencies to better understand the scope and location of future EV loads. This transparency builds common understanding and facilitates informed policy discussions, avoiding situations where utilities present data from “black box” models that are difficult for external stakeholders to scrutinize.
Great River Energy’s use of eRoadMAP illustrates how utilities can adapt and enhance the tool to achieve their own unique objectives. Great River Energy is actively integrating eRoadMAP data into its grid planning processes, including transmission-level analysis. At the same time, its member-owner cooperatives plan to use it for distribution-level circuit analysis. De Fouw also notes that Great River Energy is augmenting eRoadMAP with internal data to improve load forecasting. Not only will eRoadMAP be utilized to identify potential areas that could see high levels of EV penetration, but also to understand where grid capacity is already available for EV charging.
Alabama Power has also used eRoadMAP to ensure that it is fully prepared for future EV charging load growth. The utility had already incorporated a two percent annual reserve margin into its distribution planning process to allow headroom for incremental new load additions. However, without tools to project future electric transportation demand, Alabama Power sought to validate whether that reserve margin would be sufficient.
“Our management wanted to see if our system is prepared for what’s coming to make sure we are ready,” said Philip Waters, who works in distribution planning for Alabama Power. “In our distribution planning department, we wanted to double-check that our substations and conductors were ready for any added load coming.” Alabama Power especially wanted clarity about the potential impacts of EV charging on peak demand.
eRoadMAP enabled Alabama Power to apportion expected EV energy demands at the individual feeder and substation level. The utility was also able to estimate changes in peak demand by approximating the load curve impact on home EV charging. The ultimate result was that eRoadMAP validated the utility’s existing approach to planning for EV-related load growth. The tool was especially helpful for understanding unmanaged charging of light-duty EVs. “This showed us that our planning process is in good shape and gave us data points we could take back to management to demonstrate there were no major red flags even at the most impacted feeders and substations,” Waters said.
A Broader Ecosystem: eRoadMAP and EPRI’s EV Initiatives
eRoadMAP is not a standalone solution, but rather an essential component of EPRI’s broader efforts to prepare the grid for transportation electrification. It is one of several first-of-its-kind products developed as part of the EVs2Scale2030™ initiative—a three-year program focused on putting in place new tools and streamlined processes that help utilities across the U.S. prepare the electric grid for growing EV adoption in ways that minimize impacts and maximize benefits.
Besides eRoadMAP™, EPRI’s electric transportation EVs2Scale2030 initiative includes:
- GridFAST: This centralized online portal modernizes the way customers and utilities interact to encourage early and higher-quality electrification plans to be shared with utilities, allowing them to plan ahead for the aggregate impact of customer loads on their system. GridFAST streamlines the customer pre-service request intake process to simplify the process of working with 3,200 utilities nationwide, with the aim of accelerating customer interconnection timelines.
- GridReady: A state-specific assessment for each of the 50 states, GridReady outlines the impacts of transportation electrification across various facets, including the economic investment benefits to the state, providing state legislators and other policymakers with a high-level understanding of the local impacts and opportunities of transportation electrification.
- Vetted Product List (VPL): A comprehensive database of available charging hardware and network systems, vetted against industry standards and practices, to support infrastructure programs offered by utilities, states, and others. To date, 700+ EVSE products and 50 networks from over 100 vendors are listed, providing these vendors with access to over $1.8 Bil in program funding incentives.
The Road Ahead: Evolution of eRoadMAP
EPRI’s commitment to eRoadMAP extends far beyond its current iteration. Recognizing that the industry needed this tool years ago, EPRI adopted an agile, iterative development process.
The next release, for instance, will incorporate school buses, a significant load that was previously not included. Future additions are planned for other vehicle sectors like transit buses, federal, state, and municipal fleets, and vehicles operating at ports and airports. The tool will also continue to integrate additional fleet and OEM data over time, ensuring its accuracy and relevance.
For his part, Great River Energy’s Rodney De Fouw views eRoadMAP as a continuously evolving dataset that provides unparalleled foresight. “As long as EPRI continues to iterate on it, then it should be about the best crystal ball that I have,” he said.
EPRI Technical Experts:
Jamie Dunckley
For more information, contact techexpert@eprijournal.com.
