But grid operators, utilities and clean energy advocates say it doesn’t make sense to blame electric vehicles for the soaring electricity demand during the recent heat wave. And in the future, as utilities make needed adjustments for widespread EV uptake, there’s no reason why transportation electrification should overburden the country’s grid, they said.

In fact, experts see EV batteries as part of the solution.

They help to reduce planet-warming emissions and can add needed flexibility to electric utilities that are sure to come under more strain as global temperatures continue to rise.

Garrett Fitzgerald, senior director for electrification at the Smart Electric Power Alliance, called the backlash over California’s charging delays “undue criticism or panic.”

“The grid can handle it, we’re taking the necessary steps, but we’re just at the very beginning of putting those processes and programs in place,” he said. “A future grid will absolutely be able to handle a future demand of transportation electrification.”

That success will hinge on utilities being proactive in planning for millions of additional EVs on the roads in the coming decades. It will also take some adjustments, experts said. EV owners and utilities must take advantage of up-and-coming charging technologies that will save the grid from unnecessary stress. //

Adding capacity to the grid would be necessary with or without transportation electrification. Perhaps a more important consideration, experts and utilities said, is load management—utilities’ ability to accommodate fluctuations in energy supply and demand in real time to avoid outages.

“It’s less about being able to meet the energy consumption required for EV charging, and it’s much more about meeting the demand for that electricity, and specifically when, where and at what power we’re providing that demand,” said Fitzgerald of the Smart Electric Power Alliance. //

Managed charging, for example, allows utilities to remotely start or stop vehicle charging to accommodate grid conditions, with the vehicle owner’s consent. It can be particularly useful for companies that operate many electric vehicles that need to be charged but not necessarily all at once.

Time-of-use pricing encourages EV owners to charge their vehicles during off-peak hours, rewarding them with lower rates for doing so. And vehicle-to-grid or vehicle-to-home technology can allow certain EVs to sell electricity from their battery back to the grid during times of need, or to power a home during an outage. //

Improvements to the grid are seen by experts as necessary not only to prevent power outages from high demand, but also to help the U.S. meet its climate goals by facilitating the transition away from gas-guzzling vehicles. The stakes are high.

“If we don’t get this right, we are not going to be able to reduce our climate emissions, we are not going to be able to mitigate transportation pollution, and we are not going to be able to actually serve this increased demand from people around the country who want to play their part in being part of the solution,” said Baldwin.