Electric vehicles will help reduce emissions from the power sector, even if their growth is stunted by policymakers in Washington, according to a new report.
EV critics have argued the vehicles are only as clean as the power plants they rely on, but the paper — published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — expects EVs will help compel a change to the mix of energy sources in the electric grid.
As more EVs plug into the grid, power companies will turn to the cheapest forms of generation to meet the demand, which include wind, solar, storage and new natural gas. Those sources will wind up replacing older coal- and gas-fired generation.
“Those are cheaper to operate, so once you build them, they’re the first ones that get dispatched,” said Jeremy Michalek, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and co-director of the school’s Vehicle Electrification Group. “So that means they’re going to displace fossil fuel even at times when EVs are not charging.”
