NOVI, Mich. (WXYZ) — Power outages have meant a range of headaches for people across metro Detroit. In an increasingly electrified economy, ownership of an electric vehicle (EV) adds new challenges to the mix.
Multiple EV owners were at the Novi Town Center Wednesday using the chargers because the power in their own homes was unavailable.
Bruce Turner lives in Novi. Ever since he bought an electric vehicle, he’s been paying attention to how many charging stations are available.
“What we’ve noticed is that they are, I wouldn’t call them sparse, but they are, maybe not as available as I thought they may be,” explained Turner.
He said the power being out has made him think electric infrastructure could be a voting issue for him going forward.
“I probably wasn’t really thinking about the grid or things like that as much as I should have been. And now that it’s going to become more of an issue for me, yes, I’ll definitely take a look at that,” Turner admitted.
Tremaine Phillips is a commissioner at the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) which oversees public utility companies in the state. He explained they are working on exactly such issues.
“We have an intense focus here at the commission as well as with our investor owned utilities on investing in grid reliability,” said Phillips.
Phillips acknowledged Michigan is at an inflection point. It’s in a period of growing and adapting to the electric vehicle future.
“There is a whole infrastructure, technological, regulatory as well as work force that we need to build up kind of from scratch in order to support this industry,” said Phillips.
He explained the state has applied and should soon be receiving $110 million dollars from the federal government to build out public charging EV stations.
“I do have every hope and expectation that just given the commitments made by the automobile sector, as well as the commitments made at the federal government, as well as within the state of Michigan, that we’re going to be able to get to that future,” said Phillips.
Ken Widmayer lives in Plymouth. He owns an EV but hasn’t had power since storms knocked it out.
“I have a charging station in my garage. Obviously, it’s not working right now. And so I came over here to Walmart to get a charge,” Widmayer explained.
He knows he’s dealing with EV growing pains, but he’s not letting that bother him.
“Oh, it’s a very acceptable tradeoff. No problem. I’d prefer an electric car to a gas car. And I’ll never get another gas car,” said Widmayer.
Dr. Ian Hiskens is a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan.
“At the moment, the model is to drive home. They plug in at home. They charge during the night. And then, of course, if there’s an outage at home, they can’t charge,” explained Hiskens.
He thinks the model of the future will shift toward charging from home to a power station or at the office during the day, when the sun is shining and energy is abundant. He said this will actually shift responsibility away from the power companies during outages.
“So it becomes less reliant on what my home energy situation is and more reliant on what’s the availability of electricity to the parking station or to the office,” explained Hiskens.
