Brattle Whitepaper on Benefits of Transportation and Heating Electrification Featured in Vox Article

A whitepaper recently released by Brattle economists on the role transportation and heating electrification could play in increasing utility sales and reducing carbon emissions has been featured in a February 22, 2017 Vox article.

The article, “How electric utilities could revive their sagging fortunes and decarbonize the country,” discusses how U.S. utilities could break out of the oft-cited “utility death spiral” by taking the lead in decarbonizing the country. The article provides an in-depth review of the Brattle analysis, which found that full electrification of land-based transportation could increase total electricity demand by 2,100 terawatt hours (TWh), or 56 percent of 2015 electricity sales, if battery electric vehicles (BEV) were to become the exclusive mode of transportation. Additionally, full electrification of heating would involve an increase in electricity demand by 2050 of about 1,500 TWh, or 40 percent of 2015 electricity sales.

The whitepaper also found that coupling electrification of heating and transportation with significant decarbonization of the power sector could lead to more than a 70 percent reduction in U.S. energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to 2015 levels.

The Brattle whitepaper can be downloaded using the link below. To read the Vox article in its entirely, please visit their website.