Changes to California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard Impact the Plug-in Electric Vehicle Market Including Electric Utilities, Charging Station Operators, Workplaces and Fleets

摘要

The California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) launched in 2007 aims to encourage the development of low-carbon fuels to replace gasoline and diesel. The LCFS program regulates oil companies which must reduce the carbon intensity of gasoline and diesel by 10% by 2020 through either their own actions or by purchasing LCFS credits generated by entities including electric utilities. This paper explains the LCFS, the recent court actions, the recent LCFS changes and debates in detail, and makes conclusions. In December 2011, the California Air Resource Board (CARB) made substantial changes to the LCFS so that instead of third party charging station operators receiving the LCFS credit for electricity in most plug-in EV (includes BEV and PHEV) charging scenarios instead the revised LCFS provides the value of the LCFS credit to the utilities in the case of residential charging (80% of the market) and to public-access charging station operators in most public-access scenarios. Further, the revised LCFS gives the value of the LCFS credit to the fleet or workplace owner in the case of fleet and workplace charging. This paper details the conditions placed by CARB on utilities, fleets, workplace owners and charging station operators and how this impacts their role in the market. But generating LCFS credits is optional. Though it is known that LCFS credits will be monetized by selling them to oil companies, their value is unknown and could be in the $25-100 per metric ton of CO_2e range (or more) over the next decade. In the case of a battery EV the LCFS credit value over a 150,000 vehicle life (credits are earned quarterly) could be between $1500 and $6000 for an electric van or between $750 and $3000 for an electric sports car, and less for PHEVs. This value is significant and potentially a long-term replacement for tax credits and grants.