No one knows better than I do the struggle to sell the Smart Grid to ordinary folks. My mother-in-law won’t let me come to Thanksgiving dinner next week unless I promise I won’t talk about substations.   But something happened this week that I believe will help sell the Smart Grid to ordinary folks. At the same time, it will also increase the pressure on utilities. . I’m talking about the Electrification Roadmap announced Monday by a new coalition that includes such heavyweights as Nissan President and CEO Carlos Ghosn and Frederick W. Smith, Chairman, President and CEO of FedEx Corp.

Their roadmap outlines a vision for a fully integrated electric transportation system in the U.S. It documents the challenges, but also offers policymakers and business leaders a framework for overcoming them.

This could be a true inflection point for the Smart Grid. Electric transportation is something the public wants; it will take a significant infrastructure upgrade to make it happen; and it can only happen if everyone gets really good at standards.

Why This Matters

Tell the average consumer that you want to raise rates to put in a Smart Grid to improve system reliability and you'll get at best a blank stare (if not a glare of protest). Even the promise of more renewables is not enough to get many Americans excited, especially if it means rates will go up. But tell them "freedom from foreign oil" and they get it right away. No blank stares.

So we need to position electric transportation as one more converging mega-trend (along with renewable integration, demand response, etc.) that makes the Smart Grid indispensible because you simply cannot get from here to there without it.

But there is a hitch. If we do manage to sell that concept, then the onus is on utilities to deliver. Unfortunately, most utilities haven’t even thought about an EV strategy, much less the tools and technologies required to implement one. My friend Joe Miller of Horizon Energy Group had it right when he compared the task to upgrading a moving train. Utilities have to incorporate new approaches and new technologies and still keep the lights on 24x7.

SGN ET Channel and Primer

To help you ramp up quickly on electric transportation trends and technologies, we have loaded up our  Electric Transportation channel with expert analysis, white papers, studies, videos, product announcements and press releases. And we’ll keep adding new material as it becomes available.

We also asked Alex Zheng of Horizon Energy Group (and an SGN contributor) to recommend essential Web resources related to EVs. His primer follows:

Consulting Resources

·         The Brattle Group

·         Pike Research

·         GreenOrder

·         Boston Consulting Group

Government and Non-Profit

·         Pew Center on Global Climate Change

·         Pacific Northwest National Lab

·         Oak Ridge National Lab

·         National Renewable Energy Lab

·         DOE Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

·         Fuel Economy on EVs

·         Argonne National Lab / Idaho National Lab

·         UC Davis

·         University of Delaware

·         Rocky Mountain Institute

·         EPRI Electric Transportation

Websites / Blogs

·         EV World

·         Auto Blog Green

·         Wired Autopia

·         GM-Volt Blog

·         Calcars

·         Electric Auto Association

Utility Resources

·         Plug-In Austin.  Building a Market for Gas-Optional Hybrids

·         SoCal Edison Joins Plug-In Hybrid Development Consortium

·         Plug-in Hybrid Development Consortium

I urge you to use these resources to get up to speed and to make electrification a priority. It’s not just a trend somewhere on the horizon – it may show up in your region sooner than you think.

And be sure to check out our Electric Transportation channel. Here’s a sample of the kinds of things you’ll find posted there:

·         News: Heavy Hitters Form Coalition and Roadmap to Promote EVs

·         Video: The Race for the Electric Car

·         Special Report: Bottling Electricity: Storage as a Strategic Tool

·         Blog: V2G a Smart Grid Blessing or Curse?

·         Press Release: Mercedes-Benz Debuts ML450 Hybrid