Read The Full Article On: Latimes
To the editor: Of course the state’s power grid will be able to handle a surge in electric vehicles. In fact, the conversion from gas cars to electric cars represents the biggest ever opportunity for public utilities.
A public utility already has a near-perfect business model: Consumer prices are set to a projected fixed return on capital investments. They build new stuff, and revenue follows.
The problem has been with slow growth in electricity use driven mostly by improved efficiency and home solar systems. Profit growth has been hard to come by.
Since 2012, my wife and I have driven nothing but electric cars and monitored power use carefully. Pre-COVID-19, about 30% of our electricity usage was for transportation. If everyone drove electric cars, that would help drive up demand and therefore profits for utilities.
Sure, it will take great planning and require major capital improvements to adjust the infrastructure, but financing that should be easy. Future revenue increases are likely, given the rate-setting process based on return on investment.
The utility companies have decades to figure this out