Electrifying the Transportation Sector in the Intermountain West

Through a mix of federal funding and regional partnerships, the state of Nevada stands to benefit from the electrification of the transportation sector. That’s particularly true in critical mineral mining and manufacturing of electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

But, the state is behind when it comes to building out an EV charging infrastructure. That is according to the results of the 2023 State Transportation Electrification Scorecard, recently released by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

However, through state-sponsored initiatives like the Nevada Electric Highway and Greenlink Nevada, as well as leveraging regional partnerships, Nevada is looking to close the gap in transportation electrification. 

Nevada ranked 13th in the ACEEE study, one step above its previous rank of 14 when the last scorecard was released in 2021. While better compared to the rest of the United States and neighboring Utah (No. 24), Nevada’s West Coast neighbors of California, Oregon and Washington each ranked in the top ten.

“[The Scorecard] looks specifically at state efforts to electrify transportation across the entire sector, but primarily focused on vehicle electrification,” said Peter Huether, senior research associate and lead author of the study. “The West Coast, in general, does fairly well in our rankings. [But] we’re starting to see states take more and more action to electrify transportation.”

The Environmental Protection Agency states that the transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the U.S., accounting for 28% of total emissions. Yet, only seven percent of new vehicle sales in the U.S. are EVs.

Yet, cost remains a significant barrier to the wider adoption of EVs. In response, federal legislation such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), offer incentives for developing EV charging infrastructure. One specific example is the IIJA’s National EV Infrastructure Formula (NEVI) program that provides $5 billion to the State Department’s of Transportation (DOTs) to facilitate construction of a nationally-connected network of DC fast-charging stations.

While the NEVI program is the latest example of financial incentives for states to kick-start an EV charging infrastructure, the responsibility to take advantage of the funding relies on individual states. In this respect, states like Nevada can learn from the way West Coast states utilized funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to initiate its West Coast Electric Highway in 2009.

Nevada and its regional partners in the Intermountain West are starting to catch up. In 2017, Nevada joined the REV West Plan, partnering with Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. 

“The goal of REV West was to support EV travel, tourism and economic development across the Intermountain West,” said Cassie Powers, chief of staff of the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO). “The state energy offices started to coordinate with their State Department’s of Transportation to share best practices, develop voluntary minimum standards for charging stations and identify where [charging] stations may be appropriate.”

But before the stated goals of the partnership can be fully realized, each individual state must also take appropriate steps internally to develop an EV infrastructure within their respective borders. This means state-sponsored utilities making necessary upgrades to meet the projected demand increases on the grid.

“[EV infrastructure development] is largely a state issue, not a federal or local issue,” said Huether. “States are the primary regulators of utilities. There’s a lot states can do to make sure that utilities are ready and making the investments they need so that the grid is ready.”

With respect to utilities, the ACEEE study found that Nevada is a “pacesetter” in the Southwest, as utility-related factors were a point of strength for Nevada’s ranking in the Scorecard. 

“We are seeing that the utility sector in Nevada is fairly along in terms of how it’s thinking about promoting transportation electrification,” Huether said. “We need to have the charging infrastructure in place to allow for people to use EVs, and so utilities are a clear stakeholder in EV charging. They are going to need to provide electricity and update their grids to handle [increased demand].”

A key driver of Nevada’s momentum in this regard is Senate Bill 448, passed during the 2021 legislative session, which required utilities to develop a transportation electrification plan (TEP), while also approving construction for two new transmission lines proposed for NV Energy’s Greenlink Nevada project. The bill also came on the heels of NV Energy’s Nevada Electric Highway project that began in 2015 and provided funding for 30 EV charging stations across the state.

However, that momentum may be stalling. Earlier this year, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo ordered the state’s Climate Strategy to be reviewed and revised, with no other plan in place. Then in July, he withdrew the state from the U.S. Climate Alliance. Now, it remains to be seen how this decision might affect the state’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard’s (REPS) stated goal of 50% renewable energy by 2030.

In a statement to the Sierra Nevada Ally, NV Energy said Nevada’s withdrawal from the U.S. Climate Alliance will not affect the REPS goals. Not only that, NV Energy says it has been exceeding REPS requirements year-over-year.

“The RPS standards are outlined in Nevada law [when] the first renewable portfolio standard was adopted during the 1997 legislative session,” an NV Energy spokesperson said. “NV Energy has exceeded the renewable energy requirement in 2022 by nearly eight percent, subject to review by the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (PUCN). This is the 13th consecutive year that NV Energy has exceeded the state’s renewable energy requirement, currently at 29 percent.”

Furthermore, the TEP that NV Energy filed with the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (PUCN), known as the Economic Recovery Transportation Electrification Plan (ERTEP), was only partially approved. With an estimated cost of over $348 million, the original ERTEP introduced several charging infrastructure programs for urban areas, public agencies like schools and universities, tourism hotspots and recreational destinations. But critics of the plan say it was “too broad” and “poorly constructed,” resulting in only $70 million of funding being approved for the construction of school bus and highway charging stations.

These complications are just some of the many factors state-sponsored utilities face as they consider how they will meet the increasing demand EVs will place on the grid.

Moreover, the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) has identified 17 charging stations along highways that meet the established criteria for federal NEVI funding. Their plan also proposed upgrades to three existing charging stations, as well as the construction of two new ones. NDOT’s proposal demonstrates how the agency wants to use NEVI funding to support state efforts already underway for EV infrastructure.

Challenges in developing Nevada’s EV infrastructure remain, however. NDOT’s plan identifies supply chain issues for transformers, workforce shortages for technicians, unreliable network connectivity in rural locations and complex permitting procedures, among other barriers to broader adoption.

Nevada is working to solve that through regional partnerships. While comparatively behind in respect to the West Coast Electric Highway, REV West is setting a similar standard for other regions of the country to follow.

“The Southeast states, who use REV West as a model, launched the Southeast Regional Electric Vehicle Initiative, where their energy offices and DOTs coordinate on EV infrastructure planning investments,” Powers said. “There was a similar collaboration for the Midwest states, called REV Midwest, where state offices are working together on EV infrastructure investment with a nod towards medium and heavy-duty infrastructure, as well.”

Consequently, the state of Nevada finds itself in a unique position to bridge the gap between leading West Coast states and other regions of the country seeking to develop similar EV charging infrastructure. As Nevada’s progress has demonstrated, state-sponsored initiatives and regional partnerships, along with capitalizing on federal funding opportunities, will continue to serve an integral role in electrifying the transportation sector.

“We’ve seen a ton of federal action there,” Huether said. “State efforts are complementary to federal efforts, and so we hope that state action across the nation is matching that ambition and that we have a clear roadmap to getting to a fully electrified fleet.”