How States Can Use EVs to Support Affordability and Reliability
New electric vehicles (EVs) are hitting the road every day, with households, businesses, schools, and public agencies driving nearly 1.3 million EV sales in the U.S. in 2025 alone. At the same time, a growing used-EV market is helping more drivers switch to electric, and keeping those vehicles, and their batteries, on the road for years to come.
For the electric grid, that means two things: more electricity demand and a growing source of flexible demand and mobile battery capacity.
This creates an opportunity for states. Prepare poorly, and growing EV charging demand can add unnecessary pressure to the grid and drive costly new infrastructure needs. But prepare well, and states can get chargers built faster, make better use of existing grid infrastructure, lower costs for drivers and fleets, and use EV flexibility to help keep electricity affordable and reliable for all ratepayers.
To help state decision-makers best prepare, Advanced Energy United developed new EV Policy Memos, which lay out practical, state-specific steps to accelerate EV deployment while putting EVs to work for affordability and reliability. The memos provide recommendations for 17 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
EVs are Grid Resources
Electricity demand is growing from transportation and building electrification, data centers, manufacturing, and broader economic development. Utilities need to know where and when that demand is likely to show up, so they can plan for it before projects begin piling up in interconnection queues. It can sometimes take years for utilities to complete upgrades to accommodate new EV loads, creating a mismatch between the needs of the customer and what is possible under business-as-usual utility grid connection and planning processes.
For EVs, that means more granular load forecasting, providing more useful hosting-capacity data, and proactive planning and investment for places where demand is likely to concentrate, including freight corridors, fleet and school bus depots, and highway charging sites.
It also means getting charging projects built faster through clearer grid interconnection and energization timelines, simpler permitting, make-ready investment, and better coordination among utilities, state agencies, local governments, fleets, and charging providers. Where appropriate, flexible interconnection options can also allow charging projects to connect sooner by managing when or how much power they draw during constrained periods, rather than waiting for costly grid upgrades.
Making these changes would help households, businesses, and government entities switch to electric vehicles, which provide lower operation costs, among other benefits. But preparing the grid for EVs is only part of the opportunity.
Unlike many other large new loads, EV owners often have flexibility as to when they need to charge their vehicles. A vehicle might sit plugged in for eight hours while needing only a few hours to charge. Time-varying rates and managed charging programs can incentivize EV owners to shift that demand to lower-cost, lower-stress periods, reducing system peaks and helping utilities get more out of infrastructure that already exists. EV owners save on their charging costs while everyone benefits from a lower-cost, more efficient system.
That flexibility can go even further with bidirectional charging. Some EVs are already equipped to send power back to a home, building, or the grid. The potential is significant: a recent analysis found that enrolling just 10% of California’s projected EVs in vehicle-to-grid programs by 2036 could provide about 9 GW of power for 12 hours, or 108 GWh of storage. Electric school buses are an especially clear example of how that potential could be put to use because their large batteries, predictable schedules, and long periods parked make them well suited to vehicle-to-grid programs, especially during the summer when overall electricity demand is typically the highest.
Unlocking that value takes more than hardware. States need clear interconnection and export rules, fair compensation, workable enrollment pathways, and opportunities for EVs to participate in virtual power plants, demand response, and other grid-service programs.
Done right, this is an affordability strategy too. Better information can help projects connect to where the grid already has room. Better planning can help utilities target investments where they are most needed. And planning ahead for predictable demand can reduce delays and make better use of the infrastructure customers are already paying for.
A State-Specific Path Forward
The states we examined as part of our EV Policy Memo development are all starting from very different places.
Some already have strong transportation electrification planning requirements, make-ready programs, hosting-capacity maps, managed charging offerings, and early bidirectional charging programs. Their challenge is turning policies and pilots into consistent implementation at scale.
Others still need more of the basic framework, including EV-specific forecasting, consistent permitting and interconnection rules across utilities and municipalities, and proactive infrastructure planning. They also need to expand access to charging infrastructure and utility programs, particularly multi-unit housing, rural communities, fleets, and drivers without reliable access to home charging.
This is why United developed individualized state memos that meet states where they are.
Each memo looks at what is already working, where gaps remain, and what legislators, regulators, governors, utilities, and other decision-makers can do next. Together, the memos cover the full EV-grid picture: planning for new load, investing in the grid where needed, building and connecting charging infrastructure, making charging more affordable and flexible, expanding access to charging, and creating opportunities for EVs to support the grid.
United’s EV Policy Memos build on our previously released EV-Ready Grid Guidebook by translating national model policies into practical next steps for individual states.
As more EVs hit the road, states have an opportunity to do more than simply keep up with new electricity demand. They can prepare the grid for that growth in ways that control costs, support reliable charging, and put EV flexibility and battery capacity to work for a more affordable and reliable electric system.
Explore United’s EV Policy Memos to see where these states stand and what state leaders can do next.