May 4, 2020
MOEV Comments on Medium- and Heavy-Duty Zero-Emission Vehicles & Infrastructure to CEC
April 24, 2020 California Energy Commission Docket 19-ERDD-01 1516 Ninth Street Sacramento, CA 95814
Dear California Energy Commissioner and Staff,
MOEV is a Los Angles based start up company applying Artificial Intelligence to challenges of smart charging of electric vehicles, including medium and heavy duty fleet vehicles. We have several pilot installations, including combined workplace and fleet charging at La Kretz Innovation Campus in Los Angeles, where our technology has been piloted and tested.
Our system includes reduced CAPEX and OPEX benefits for site hosts providing fleet charging, as well as the potential for grid service via peak shaving, time shifting of load, and demand response.
We applaud the CEC for initiating infrastructure to enable the shifting of our medium and heavy duty fleets from internal combustion vehicles to electric. We hope that resulting funding opportunities will advance the technology available for such fleet electrification as well as supporting local companies with valuable technologies in the space to export such solutions, in keeping with California’s reputation as a leader in clean energy technologies.
We would like to see several points emphasized in such funding opportunities:
1) Permit smaller fleets to participate, as advanced technologies have more risk and it is a challenge to find fleet operators who will accept that risk for larger 100 heavy duty vehicle fleets. This change makes the program more likely to result in innovative solutions.
2) Add innovation as a scoring category, again with the goal of having California innovate in the space and establish commercial leadership.
3) Add ease of management and lowering of needs for grid capacity as well as efficient management of the site host charging facility through smart power management systems, thus addressing issues such as demand charge mitigation or DER integration – so that the total cost of ownership of a fleet is lowered, while also reducing the burden on the grid.
4) Require funded solutions to show grid support, either in peak load, renewable integration including load shifting, and power quality. This ensures that current investments and funded demonstrations are not simply short term fixes but establish a foundation of smart grid support and evolution as fleet electrification scales up in the state.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to contribute our thoughts.
Regards,
Michael Boehm
VP Business, MOEV, Inc.