New England EV growth predicted by electric grid operator

New England is poised for significant growth in electric vehicle (EV) use through 2030, according to a draft forecast by the region's electric grid operator. 

According to the draft ISO New England Inc. Load Forecast Committee 2023 CELT Transportation Electrification Adoption Forecast released in February 2023, various federal and state policies incentives promote EV adoption, as do economic and environmental concerns, though their impacts on EV adoption in New England remain uncertain. For example:

• The federal Inflation Reduction Act creates tiered incentives for consumers to buy new personal light-duty EVs, which must meet increasingly strict vehicle assembly and domestic-material sourcing requirements, as well as incentives to buy used EVs or commercial light, medium, and heavy-duty EVs.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean School Bus Program has $5 billion available over the next five years (FY 2022-2026) through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to replace existing school buses with zero-emission and low-emission models. This money is available to school entities through EPA and state programs like the Maine Department of Education's Maine Clean School Bus Program.

As part of its mission to forecast regional energy demands, ISO-NE prepares a transportation electrification forecast to forecast the energy and demand impacts associated with the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) within selected categories of vehicles: light-duty personal vehicles, light-duty fleet vehicles, medium-duty delivery vehicles, school buses, and transit buses.

ISO-NE's latest draft transportation electrification adoption forecast includes two adoption scenarios that reflect different assumptions about the pace and extent of transportation electrification within each state: a theoretical “Full Electrification” adoption scenario (intended to represent an upper bound based on state emissions goals and associated EV adoption targets) and a projected "Draft CELT 2023" adoption scenario (intended to reflect the likely pace and level of EV adoption over the next 10 years given the current understanding of individual state goals, policies, and programs, as well as uncertainty in the timing of goal achievement and extent to which electric vehicles will be utilized to accomplish goals).

For personal light-duty EV adoption, the draft forecast projects an increasing pace of EV adoption over the ten-year period through 2032. For example, it projects that 2023 will see 85,901 of these EVs added, while 2032 will see an incremental 468,679 EVs added to the stock, for a 10-year total of 2,724,923 personal light-duty EVs added from 2023 through 2032. This is a significant increase from ISO-NE's prior 10-year forecast, which projected that 1,521,796 of these EVs would be added between 2022 and 2031.

ISO-NE's latest forecast shows similar growth in other categories of EVs, including flight light-duty (projecting that a cumulative total of 240,713 will be added regionwide by 2032), medium duty-delivery (3,352), school bus (6,505), and transit bus (833). Within each category of EV, ISO-NE's model provides state-specific annual data. For example, ISO-NE's forecast projects that Massachusetts will hew close to the "Full Electrification" scenario, contributing more than half the total number of personal EVs, while New Hampshire will lag relative to "Full Electrification" in the forecast.

By 2032, ISO-NE now projects about 3,000 MW of winter transportation electrification demand, with nearly 1,600 gigawatt-hours of transportation electrification energy per month by 2033, and accounting for up to about 9% of monthly regional gross electric energy consumption from the grid.