Green Economy Rising: EV Charging worth $200M by 2015

Published July 03, 2009 @ 05:25AM PT

Don't let anyone kid you that going green will wreck the economy. Take electric cars, where there's money to be made not just on the vehicles themselves, but in providing the infrastructure to power them up.

"Electric Vehicles and the Grid," a recent market research report foresees a rich return, only five years from now, for the EV charging market:

Utilities in the U.S. will slowly see revenue from vehicle charging increase from $3 million in 2010 to more than $200 million in 2015.

By 2015, access to vehicle charging will be available at more than one million charge points in the United States alone.

Early adopters will prefer the convenience of charging at home.

China, which has mandated the production of electric vehicles, will be the world leader in charging stations by 2015, selling nearly half of the global total of 1.5 million units that year.

In the US, charging equipment sales will initially be driven by government funding for public stations.

The greater demand isn't likely to diminish the reliability of the electricity grid, says the firm. But utilities will likely track vehicle sales to determine where EV charging demand will increase, in order to avoid diminished performance in early-adopter neighborhoods, and create special billing programs.

How much of that energy will be generated by clean sources? Some analyses of the Waxman-Markey bill, as it was passed by the House, suggest that the compromises made to get the votes severely weakened its national renewable energy standard. But many states have adopted renewable energy goals, such as New York, which is aiming for 25% of total energy demand from clean sources by 2013.

Useful resource: Department of Energy's national map of green power purchasing options

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