“If the infrastructure is not built, I think that could become a serious impediment to customer adoption (of EVs),” said Digaunto Chatterjee, vice president of system planning at regional utility giant Eversource.
Eversource needs to build 14 new substations — at a cost of $100 million to $150 million each — to reliably serve the additional 4 GW of electricity needed to power EVs by 2040, Chatterjee said. Eight existing substations need to be upgraded, at a cost of $10 million to $25 million each, he added.
That’s an overall estimated investment of up to $2.3 billion to prepare for larger-scale EV adoption — costs likely to be borne, wholly or partially, by ratepayers.
