EV Fleet Management & Assessment Challenge

The fight against climate change is one of the biggest challenges humanity faces in the 21st century and it is essential that we decarbonize our economy.

AVANGRID, Iberdrola’s US subsidiary, is committed to leading the energy transition. Furthermore, the company targets are set around electrifying the economy, innovation, technological advances, and offering better consumer connectivity.

The states where AVANGRID Networks operates (NY, ME, and CT) have all established goals to make a significant impact on climate change by reducing emissions. Transportation makes up a significant portion of emissions in these states, and decarbonization of the transportation sector, mainly through electrification, is an absolute necessity in order to achieve the states' emissions goals.

Electric options for medium and heavy-duty vehicles are expected to reach parity with internal combustion engine equivalents on acquisition costs and provide savings from a total cost of ownership (TCO) perspective. The tipping point is approaching, and AVANGRID is looking to help facilitate this transition for customers by providing insight and information on electrical infrastructure capacity, potential upgrade costs, and future expected electricity costs.

AVANGRID, in collaboration with PERSEO, Iberdrola's risk capital vehicle, is launching this Challenge to find a tool, available for customer use on utility websites, that helps fleet operators to assess feasibility, costs, and benefits of converting their fleets to electric solutions.

The Iberdrola Group is no stranger to collaborating with startups. The group actively seeks to generate mutually beneficial partnerships and to facilitate the implementation of the best ideas.

Iberdrola is committed to the electrification of transport and to an ambitious Sustainable Mobility Plan which was launched in 2016 and aims, among other things, to install nearly 150.000 private electric vehicle charging points, more than 2.500 on public roads in Spain and Portugal, and more than 2.300 fast, super-fast and ultra-fast charge points by 2023.

AVANGRID is committed to the electrification of the transportation sector as a key strategy for achieving long-term climate goals and is actively supporting vehicle electrification through its “EV Charger Make-Ready” Programs which have a goal of supporting over 13.000 new chargers by 2025. Additionally, AVANGRID has a goal of converting 60% of its own fleet, including 100% of its light-duty fleet of vehicles to electric and other clean fuel alternatives by 2030.

Working with the renewables leader is the perfect test bed for your solution!

The main characteristics of the desired tool are as follows:

User-provided inputs may include:

• Location(s) (address & GIS coordinates)
• Identification of each existing vehicle: make/model/year, class, use and non-use schedules, annual mileage, and mileage range
• The option of uploading telematics data for each existing vehicle

Additionally, your tool should include some or all of the features below to be taken into consideration:

1. Identification of replacement electric vehicles:
The tool should allow for multiple vehicle option comparisons based on the user's provided inputs.

2. Fuel costs & rate analysis:
The tool should pull in rate class and usage data from the existing utility account and should automatically determine the recommended rate class for the fleet based on utility tariffs.

It must also calculate the estimated monthly utility bill and may adjust for seasonal changes to miles per kWh, considering factors such as:
• Planned charging activity (peak vs. off-peak charging)
• Variance in battery efficacy due to seasonal climate control.
• Other vehicle efficiency concepts that may be implemented, ie. route optimization, driver training, speed limits, etc.

3. Site feasibility analysis:
The tool should link to utility hosting capacity maps to assess the available system capacity at the location and also it should link to utility GIS data to assess the potential need for separate utility service with a new utility service transformer or tying into the existing service with replacement of existing transformer or keeping existing transformer.

4. Operations & maintenance cost analysis:
The tool should provide the ability for fleet operators to enter existing maintenance schedules and costs by vehicle and by service period, i.e. monthly, quarterly, and/ or annually. The tool should allow fleet operators to provide vehicle replacement schedules and estimated salvage values for each vehicle and/or vehicle class/ use case.

5. Charging infrastructure analysis:
The tool should provide fleet operators with the ability to identify required EVSE by type (i.e. Level 2 or DCFC) and also it should inform fleet operators of the estimated charging times associated with each vehicle and/or vehicle class based on previously entered fleet data.

Parallelly, the tool should ensure that identified EVSE is compatible with previously identified electric vehicle replacements and finally, it should provide overall infrastructure feasibility with estimated cost ranges for construction.

6. Incentives & tax credits:
The tool should identify and recommend any regional and local vehicle incentives (grants, rebates, and tax incentives), identifying and recommending applicable make-ready program incentives and Federal Tax Credits.

7. Greenhouse gas emissions analysis:
The tool should estimate CO2 savings/environmental benefits.

When you win the Challenge, the main prize will consist of you signing a collaboration and proof of concept agreement with AVANGRID and/or Iberdrola/PERSEO.

For the collaboration of the pilot project:
• the costs will be covered for the collaboration and the proof of concept
• AVANGRID and/or Iberdrola will provide you with the necessary technical support to test your proposed solution
• AVANGRID and/or Iberdrola will give you access to equipment, appliances, infrastructure, high technology sites, and joint work areas
• AVANGRID and/or Iberdrola will provide you with a real environment and real data to test your solution

Additional benefits include:
• scaling your solution by means of commercial agreements directly or indirectly through another Iberdrola group company
• a possibility for investment in your company through PERSEO
• adding your solution to Iberdrola's service territory if the PoC succeeds

The winner of the challenge will sign a partnership contract with AVANGRID and/or Iberdrola and be able to test their solution in a real environment.

For the collaboration of the pilot project, Iberdrola will:
• assume the costs of the collaboration and the proof of concept
• provide the necessary technical support to test the solution proposed
• give access to equipment, appliances, infrastructure, high technology sites, and joint work areas
• provide a real environment and real data to test the solution

The pilot project will be developed in collaboration with the technical specialists from AVANGRID and/or Iberdrola.

You are welcome to submit more than one proposal, just make sure to submit a separate application form for each.

The application period for this challenge ends on 14 October 2021.

All submissions will be evaluated by PERSEO and will be analyzed based on criteria of scalability, robustness, and ease of implementation & use.