REDWOOD CITY, CA — February 13, 2018: A report released today by the World Economic Forum—which cites a smart electric vehicle charging study run by AutoGrid and Southern California Edison—calls for new approaches to electric energy and transportation to handle economic and population growth without increasing congestion and pollution.
The report, Electric Vehicles for Smarter Cities: The Future of Energy and Mobility, says that cities must speed their adoption of decentralized, digitized and decarbonized energy systems while shifting to the use of shared and self-driving (autonomous) vehicles. The report analyzes practical examples and best practices and makes recommendations for action.
The fusion of mobility and energy offers an unprecedented opportunity to transform cities into smart, sustainable communities, said Jean-Pascal Tricoire, chairman and CEO, Schneider Electric, who served as co-chair of the report’s steering committee. “The convergence of energy and mobility is critical,” Tricoire said.
In one example of how to accelerate electric mobility, the report highlighted a pilot using AutoGrid technology for a smart charging demonstration in Southern California. The study proved the benefit of using unified, cloud-based applications and open-standards protocols to deal with a profusion of charging stations and electric vehicles from multiple vendors.
The WEF report calls for the urgent integration of urban design, energy and mobility planning to spur the ability of cities to meet climate goals, support energy efficiency and foster innovation of services and infrastructure. In the United States alone, the report concludes, achieving its recommendations would generate an additional $635 billion in value for society by 2030.
AutoGrid participated on the report’s working group along with energy, transportation and technology leaders in business and government from around the world. “This report shows that the energy sector must lead the way to a cleaner, digitized and distributed structure that is more centered on customers,” said Amit Narayan, AutoGrid CEO. “By planning for the convergence of mobility and energy systems, we can design a more comprehensive approach to meet our climate goals while generating economic growth.”
The full report is available here.
About AutoGrid:
AutoGrid builds software applications that enable a smarter distributed energy world. The company’s suite of flexibility management applications allows utilities, electricity retailers, renewable energy project developers and energy service providers to deliver clean, affordable and reliable energy by managing networked distributed energy resources (DERs) in real time and at scale. AutoGrid applications are built on the AutoGrid Energy Internet Platform™ (EIP™), with patented Predictive Controls™ technology to monitor, predict, optimize and control millions of distributed assets connected across global energy networks. AutoGrid has more than 2,500 megawatts of DERs under contract with more than 30 leading energy companies around the world, including National Grid, E.ON, Florida Power & Light, NextEra Energy, Portland General Electric and CPS Energy.
