New Online Courses Help Local Governments and Utilities Accelerate EV Charger Deployment
IREC announced the launch of three new online training courses that address one of the most urgent challenges in the clean transportation transition: the “energization” of electric vehicle (EV) chargers. The courses are designed for local government officials and utility staff—two groups with a critical role in getting EV chargers up and running. They are available for free nationwide on HeatSpring, a leading clean energy training platform.
The course series comes at a pivotal moment. As EV adoption continues to grow, utilities and local governments are seeing a rise in requests related to EV charging infrastructure. As deployment accelerates, it will be important to ensure that energization—the process of connecting EV chargers or other sources of electricity demand (i.e., load) to the electric grid—is managed efficiently to keep pace with demand.
“These courses provide local government officials and utility staff with insights to safely and efficiently manage the growing volume of EV charger projects,” said Chris Nichols, IREC Interim CEO. “By equipping these critical stakeholders with practical tools and knowledge, we can help speed the transition to clean transportation.”
Because EV charging infrastructure has unique characteristics, it often requires different processes than those used for typical load projects or transportation infrastructure, and some utilities and local governments are already seeing backlogs of these projects. The course series is based on a recent technical report led by IREC and EPRI, with input from additional project collaborators, outlining a roadmap for streamlining and improving EV charger energization.
The courses and the report are made possible by the Charging Infrastructure Interconnection Simplification Resource (CIISR) project. This U.S Department of Energy-funded initiative is led by EPRI; IREC is one of several CIISR project partners. The course for local government staff also draws from IREC’s Charging Smart program, which provides free technical assistance to communities working to expand EV charging infrastructure.
Courses in the series include:
- Introduction to EV Charger Energization – An introduction to the energization process and the subsequent courses in the series, covering key background information and learning objectives.
- EV Charger Energization Roadmap for Local Governments – Practical training on key challenges and barriers in the EV charger energization process, best practices for permitting and zoning, strategies for local governments to engage with utilities on EV programs and incentives, and key implementation steps.
- EV Charger Energization Roadmap for Utilities – Guidance for utility staff on why energization process efficiency matters, challenges that customers and utilities experience in the process, and solutions that utilities can implement.
The free, self-paced courses are now live on HeatSpring: https://www.heatspring.com/courses/accelerating-ev-charger-energization
