Since electric vehicles (EVs) were first introduced to the market, one of the most significant hurdles to their adoption has been the high upfront cost. Even accounting for government support via rebates, subsidies, and tax breaks that are intended to bring those costs down, many models of EVs remain simply out of reach of many households.

Not long ago, executives at utilities and within the energy industry looked at the potential electric vehicle (EV) future with wide eyes. But these wide eyes were not of excitement and anticipation, they were the wide eyes of fear. From the perspective of these energy leaders, this perspective isn’t tough to understand. After all, studies have found that vehicle electrification will lead to the largest opportunity to increase energy demand since the introduction of air conditioning into buildings in the 1950s. Depending on the rate of EV purchases, though, this energy load growth could actually end up being larger and even more consequential in terms of how much energy will need to be generated and transported on a macro scale.