Summarized from an article originally published as sponsored content in Utility Dive, June 2026. The full version, with charts and sources, is linked below.
A Level 2 home charger draws over six kilowatts, comparable to an entire household’s evening demand. It typically activates in the early evening, when the feeder is already working hardest.
However, vehicles sit parked most of the day. Unlike air conditioning or water heating, EV charging load can be shifted without affecting customer experience. Time-of-use (TOU) rates typically shift 60 to 70 percent of EV charging off-peak, while managed charging shifts over 90 percent.
So why isn't anyone capturing it?
Because very little flexible load is currently managed. A 2026 National Bureau of Economic Research study conducted a managed charging experiment at a Bay Area utility with high EV adoption. Even with a $40 monthly incentive, fewer than five percent of households enrolled. According to the Smart Electric Power Alliance, opt-in residential TOU rate adoption rarely exceeds 10 percent. As a result, most utilities manage only a small fraction of the EV load on their systems.
Voluntary sign-up is not a path to grid visibility.
Common alternatives are also insufficient. Vehicle registration data is aggregated by ZIP code or county and rarely matches specific service points, indicating only that a region has EVs, not which transformer serves them. Rebate and enrollment records are accurate only for participating customers. Unmanaged chargers that may overload shared transformers often belong to drivers who have not enrolled.
For public power utilities with limited staff and capital funded by local ratepayers, this is particularly frustrating because the answer is within reach. Every vehicle charges on the system leaves a unique signature in your AMI interval data, which has been recorded every 15 minutes for years.
The full article details the characteristics of this signature, the challenges of interpreting it at scale, and recent advancements that have addressed these issues.
Read it here: https://www.newgenstrategies.net/stories/ev-grid-visibility.html
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We're teaching in San Antonio. NewGen Partners Scott Burnham and Tony Georgis will present Ratemaking for Data Centers and Other Large Loads, a preconference seminar at APPA's Business & Financial Conference on Sunday, September 13, from 1:30 to 5:00 PM. While the scale differs from EV charging, the underlying issue remains: new load is arriving faster than existing frameworks can accommodate, and current customers bear the impact.
Original in Utility Dive: https://www.utilitydive.com/spons/evs-are-already-on-your-grid-visibility-is-the-missing-piece/822856/
GridLens™: https://www.newgenstrategies.net/gridlens.html
NewGen Strategies and Solutions, LLC is a management and economic consulting firm serving electric, water, wastewater, and solid waste utilities nationwide.
