Southern California Edison – one of the world’s most progressive utilities – is leading the charge in developing and supporting energy-conserving, cost-effective electric-drive technology solutions that reflect our more than century-long commitment to environmental stewardship and customer and community service.
How?
Through our renowned electric transportation work, we’re helping ensure a safe, reliable, efficient electric supply for use by clean, quiet on-road and non-road “grid-connecting” technologies – from vehicles like cars and trucks; to forklifts, golf carts, and industrial burden and personnel carriers; to airport ground support equipment, truck stop electrification and port electrification; and more.
The benefits to customers – and to all of us – are many:
- Use of electricity for transportation dramatically lowers greenhouse gas and air pollution emissions, supporting vital efforts to address climate change and smog-related health impacts.
- Electric-drive technologies help reduce dependence on unstable sources of foreign oil. Our existing electricity towers and wires (infrastructure) serve as a national energy security asset available to every home and business.
- Electricity as a fuel is domestically produced and about 25% to 50% of the equivalent cost of gasoline. SCE already leads the nation in purchases of renewable energy, making a good percentage of this electricity the cleanest available.
Now, we’re taking our electric transportation programs one step further with our pioneering work on the energy systems of the future, in partnership with automakers and other public and private organizations.
What does this mean in the long run?
It means considering transportation as part of the broader energy system.
It means charging electric-drive vehicles during off-peak (nighttime) hours – when demand and costs are lowest – and using the stored energy for occasional emergency backup or “peak shaving” that helps customers avoid higher electricity costs during daytime critical energy-use periods.
It means potentially using vehicles and other stationary energy storage technology to capture and use energy from rooftop solar photovoltaic (solar energy) systems and other renewable resources more efficiently.
It means using technology in homes and vehicles to better manage electricity use, and ultimately to improve the cost-effectiveness of our electricity grid.
It means – as regulations and volatile fuel costs spur ever-increasing growth of grid-connected transportation – remaining dedicated to serving as Southern California’s premier 21st-century alternative-fuel provider, and carrying on a long tradition of innovation we consider essential today to making progress on the critical issues of climate change and energy security.
To learn more about electric-drive energy management, technologies, environmental benefits, SCE programs and services, and more, take a spin through our electric-drive vision.
Electricity...Sustaining our transportation future.