Credits for Investments: Annual Reporting Webinar

This is a text version of the Credits for Investments: Annual Reporting Webinar video.

ERIN ANDREWS-SHARER: All right. So now that we have the recording going, we'll go ahead and introduce the program team and then get started with the content of this webinar. So again, my name is Erin Andrew-Sharer, and I am the lead at the National Laboratory of the Rockies for the State and Alternative Fuel Provider Fleet Program. I have several other colleagues here with me, Ted and Darlene. Ted, I'll let you introduce yourself next.

TED SEARS: Ted Sears with the National Laboratory of the Rockies.

And, glad to be here.

ERIN ANDREWS-SHARER: Thanks, and then Darlene?

Oh, we have you on mute.

DARLENE STEWARD: Sorry about that. There we go. Perfect. I'm Darlene Stewart, also with the National Laboratory of the Rockies, been supporting this program for a number of years.

ERIN ANDREWS-SHARER: Awesome. Thanks so much. So the NLR team does a lot of work kind of directly with the Department of Energy to support this program. We also have a subcontractor team that works directly with you all as well. These are folks that you may reach out to when you have questions about the program, that sort of thing, probably familiar names, and if not, hopefully they will become familiar names for you.

If you have questions related to compliance. So on the ICFteam, we have Sophia and Matt.

And then on the — with CACI, we have Deborah Gross. So if you guys just want to wave, we'll make sure that folks know who you are.

Awesome. Okay, well, thanks so much. I'm gonna turn it over now to Matt and get us started with our content.

MATT BRADLEY: Thanks, Erin.

Hi, everybody! Thanks for joining us today. Since you're here, we're assuming that you're already relatively familiar with state and alternative fuel provider fleet program. But for anyone who may be new, we'll start with some brief background. The program was authorized by the Energy Policy Act of 1992 and required some state and alternative fuel provided fleets to meet certain statutory requirements focused on acquiring light duty vehicles capable of operating on one or more alternative fuel.

Those could include E85 flex fuel, propane, CNG, electricity, and some additional fuels as well. State agency and alternative fuel provider fleets are considered covered fleets that they own, operate, lease, or otherwise control 50 or more non-excluded light duty vehicles. Light duty vehicles is defined by to 8,500 pounds of GVWR, gross vehicle weight rating.

And if at least 20 of those vehicles are used primarily within a metropolitan statistical area or consolidated metropolitan statistical area, and those vehicles must also be either centrally fueled or capable of being centrally fueled. So if the fleet does meet those criteria, they would be considered a covered fleet under the program.

There are two different ways to comply with the program. So the majority of the 300 plus fleets that we have reporting through the program today comply via standard compliance, which we're going to talk a little bit more on our next slide. We do have a small percentage of fleets that do comply via the alternative compliance method, which can be a good option for fleets who utilize a lot of alternative fuels like biodiesel.

So we can go ahead to the next slide, please.

Great thanks.

Since we're talking about infrastructure investments today, our focus is going to be on the standard compliance method. So for a brief reminder covered fleets complying with the program through standard compliance must acquire a specified percentage of their non-excluded light duty vehicle acquisitions as alternative fuel vehicles each year.

For state fleets, that number is 75%, and for alternative fuel providers, that number is 90%.

Quick note here, when we do mention non-excluded vehicles, fleets are eligible to exclude certain types of vehicles from their yearly acquisition requirement. Some typical examples we tend to see of excluded vehicles could include law enforcement vehicles, vehicles used for emergency response.

Non-road vehicles and vehicles that park at private residences when not in use. Commonly we'll refer to those as take-home vehicles.

And you can see we have the fuels listed here that are considered alternative fuels under the program. They include biofuels like E. 85. They also include compressed natural gas or CNG, and propane, which is typically you'll see referred to as either LPG. Liquefied petroleum gas or propane auto gas when it's used in vehicles as well as electricity for electric vehicles.

Fleets may meet their requirement by earning alternative fuel vehicle credits for the program. There are several ways fleet can earn these Credits. The main way would be acquiring light duty, alternative fuel vehicles which every fleet has their acquisition requirement to meet each year. Fleets may also earn credit for hybrid electric vehicle purchases. You can earn up to half of a credit for a hybrid electric vehicle purchase.

They can also use…earn credit by acquiring meeting heavy duty afbs after their other credit needs have been met. And as well as by purchasing biodiesel and concentrations of 20% otherwise known as B, 20 or higher for use in their medium and heavy duty vehicles. Fleets can meet up to 50% of the yellow requirement through the biodiesel purchasing.

Lastly, fleets can also make qualifying investments in alternative fuel, non-road equipment, emerging technology and alternative fuel infrastructure, which is what we're going to focus on in the webinar today.

Go on to the next slide, please. Thank you.

Alternative fuel infrastructure investments include qualifying investments in fueling stations that support vehicles that operate on either liquid or gaseous alternative fuels. They also include charging stations for electric vehicles. It could include both battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

It's important to note that Credits are compiled based on the amount of the investments, not necessarily the number of stations installed. We have one Afb credit or alternative fuel vehicle credit allocated for each $25,000 that a fleet invests in alternative fuel infrastructure.

Covered fleets can earn up to a maximum of 10 alternative fuel vehicle Credits for investments in publicly accessible alternative fuel infrastructure, or they can earn 5 Credits maximum for investments in private fleet or vehicles. Private fleet

Sorry private fleet, alternative fuel infrastructure fleets can combine public and private investments. There is a maximum annual aggregate of 10 Credits total for fleets.

So another important item to note here is that fleets should claim the entire investment of for their stations, and then sorry for their alternative fuel infrastructure in the year in which the infrastructure becomes operational.

For example, if a fleet is installing a new Cng station and construction is expected to start during model year 2620, 26. But the station is not planned to go online until model year 2027. Then the fleet should claim the entire investment on their model 2027 year report.

Next slide, please.

This slide. We're covering a more in-depth breakdown here of what public versus private infrastructure means. Again, fleets can earn up to 10 credits per year for investments in one or more public infrastructure stations, with each credit accounting for $25,000 in investments that equates to a total investment of $250,000.

It is also important to note that any rebates or other financial incentives for public infrastructure that a fleet provides to its customers do qualify as investments and alternative fuel infrastructure.

Private infrastructure, on the other hand, is capped at 5 Credits. In that case a fleet would have to invest $125,000 total in one or more fleet alternative fuel infrastructure station to reach the maximum annual credit limit.

Fleets may not earn credit for rebates or any other financial incentives provided directly to customers for the installation of residential or otherwise private alternative fuel infrastructure.

You see we have an example here. A covered fleet that's invested $100,000 in publicly accessible ev charging stations and an additional $50,000 in private

fleet EV charging stations that fleet would be eligible for 4 credits for public stations and 2 credits for the private stations, so allowing for a total of 6 alternative fuel vehicle Credits.

And with that I'm going to pass off to my colleague, Sophia who's going to speak a little bit more about the different types of alternative fuel infrastructure investments that we tend to see.

SOPHIA NAPOLETANO: Thank you, Matt. Like Matt said, we're just going to give a quick overview of the most common alternative fueling infrastructures we see, with the program, and the first is E85 fueling infrastructure.

So E85 is an ethanol fuel blend, and ethanol is a renewable, domestically produced transportation fuel that's generally derived from corn, or other plant materials. And ethanol is actually used in nearly all gasoline in the United States, but at a blend of E10, which is 10% ethanol. However, it's also available in higher level ethanol blends like E85, which contains 51 to 83% ethanol.

E85 is used in flex fuel vehicles, which have an internal combustion engine, but are also capable of operating, on, either gasoline or E85.

Acquiring FFVs has historically been a pretty common way to comply with the program, because FFVs are available as standard equipment with no incremental cost, which makes them an affordable AFE option.

Next, we have CNG fueling infrastructure, so CNG, or compressed natural gas. Natural gas is a domestically produced fuel that can be produced through both conventional or renewable methods, so it can also be available as renewable natural gas or RNG.

For its use as fuel, it can either be compressed or liquefied, but compressed natural gas is much more common for transportation applications.

So compressed natural gas or CNG can be a good option for high mileage fleets or fleets that are essentially fueled especially because CNG provides some performance to conventional vehicles with regard to power, acceleration, and cruising speed.

And while CNG can be used in light duty vehicle acquisition applications, it's mostly used in medium and heavy duty vehicle applications.

And just as a reminder, fleets can report alternative fuel, medium, and heavy-duty vehicle acquisitions for credit, but because the program is primarily a light-duty vehicle program.

Acquiring these vehicles doesn't raise your initial LDV count which determines your Afe acquisition credit requirement. So you can basically, once you complete your LDV requirement, you can basically earn extra, like, banked credits for acquiring alternative fuel medium and heavy-duty vehicles. So that's generally what we see with CNG vehicles that are reported to the program.

The cost of CNG fueling infrastructure itself does vary a lot, depending on the characteristics of the station, like storage capacity, station design, and the services it needs to build, the services needed to build it. So it's difficult to give an exact estimate of what the cost would be.

Next, we have propane, or like Matt said, this can also be called liquefied propane gas, or LPG, or propane autogas for its use in transportation applications. Propane is a domestically available, high energy density, and relatively low-cost alternative fuel.

LPG vehicles have been used for a long time in light, medium, and heavy duty applications, because it performs similarly to internal combustion engine vehicles and can also be associated with lower maintenance costs for fleets.

It's actually the most common transportation fuel behind gasoline and diesel.

Again, it's been around for a very long time. Propane infrastructure itself is very similar to conventional fueling infrastructure, except the LPG fuel tank is installed above ground, so you can see that in the photo on this slide. It's kind of in the background there.

But because LPG has been popular for so long, LPG production, storage, and distribution capabilities have already been in place in most of the country, so installing infrastructure generally just requires building out the actual dispensing equipment itself.

A lot of LPG suppliers also offer the option to lease tanks, pumps, and dispensing equipment in return for a fuel supply contract.

Next, we have electricity. So just for some background, electric vehicle charging infrastructure is kind of classified by the rate at which it charges the EV's battery, so… The two main kinds we're getting into today are Level 2 EV charging and then DC fast EV charging.

Level 2 charging infrastructure typically ranges from 2.9 kilowatts to 19.2 kilowatts of power output. So these are, usually used for, like, overnight or workplace charging applications, anything for vehicles with longer dwell times.

These, can provide 20 to 25 miles of driving range per 1 hour of charging.

And like I mentioned, there are different considerations for EV charging needs, so the Department of Energy has developed some tools to help fleets determine what their needs would be, like the EVI, Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Toolbox.

Next, we have DC fast, or direct current fast charging equipment, which allows for much faster high-power charging.

Depending on factors like the vehicle type, model, and power output of the charger, DC fast charging can deliver 100 to over 200 miles of driving range for just 30 minutes of charging.Power outputs for DC fast chargers can vary widely from 25kW of power output, typically to 100, but they can go all the way up to 500kW of power output.

But again, charging power depends not just on the charger itself, but also on the vehicle model and the battery state of the charge. The battery state of charge. Sorry.

While level 2 charging is probably more common for fleets with longer dwell times for their vehicles, like workplace or overnight charging. For light-duty vehicle applications, a DC fast charger can add more flexibility for charging, so if vehicles have a faster turnaround, a DC fast charger can be really helpful.

DC fast chargers can also be used to charge larger EVs, like medium and heavy duty trucks as well.

So just to recap, these are the main alternative fueling infrastructure investments we see with the program. The most common ones are E85, CNG, propane, and then electricity. So…

Starting with E85, in addition to being a renewable, domestically produced fuel, a big benefit to E85 is that FFVs, or flexible vehicles, are available at basically no incremental cost to a regular internal combustion engine vehicle. However, model availability has been limited recently.

The E85 can be a great low cost entry point for fleets, because FFV models are cheaper and can be, if they are, if you can acquire them, they can be cheaper.

CNG is a readily available, domestically produced fuel with the potential to lower fuel costs for fleets. It can be great for high mileage fleets, or essentially fueled fleets, because it operates similarly to regular gasoline. And because most CNG vehicles are medium and heavy-duty vehicles, fleets can earn banked credits for acquiring these alternative fuel versions of those vehicles.

Next, propane is a popular fuel that has been widely used for decades, so building infrastructure only requires the installation of the actual dispensing equipment itself.

And equipment is also widely available to lease, so this can be a lower-cost option. And because of this, propane is good for fleets that are looking for options with fewer infrastructure installation requirements.

Next, for EV charging, we have Level 2 charging, which provides slower power outputs than DC fast, so 2.9 kilowatts of power output to 19.2 kilowatts, which can deliver 20 to 25 miles of range per 1 hour of charging.

This is great for fleets, with vehicles that charge overnight or at the workplace, and it does also come at a lower cost, of installation than DC fast charging.DC fast charging can be much faster than level 2 charging, providing 100 to 200 plus miles of range per 30 minutes of charging.

And it can also be used to charge medium and heavy duty trucks or add flexibility for charging for fleets of any size, especially if they need rapid turnaround.

MATT BRADLEY: Great. Thanks, Sophia.

SOPHIA NAPOLETANO: Sorry.

MATT BRADLEY: No worries.

So while our main focus today is infrastructure investments, fleets can also earn afp Credits for other types of investments. On this slide we're covering investments that fleets can make in non-road alternative fuel, non-road equipment.

So…This type of equipment can include cargo and handling equipment, farm landscaping and construction equipment. Typical examples we'll see would be something like a propane forklift or an electric utility train vehicle, UTV or electric ride on mower fleets can earn one AFV credit for each $25,000 invested in alternative fuel non-road equipment with an annual maximum of 5 credits per model year.

As important to note here that since non road vehicles are considered to be excluded vehicles under the program, as we touched on earlier fleets, do not use them when determining whether a fleet is covered by the program for the purpose of calculating a fleet's yearly afb acquisition requirements. So while you wouldn't count these as a light duty vehicle acquisition, you can get credit for them.

One thing we did want to bring up here because we see some confusion around it each year with reporting is the distinction between electric golf carts and electric alternative fuel non-road equipment like electric UTVs or ATVs under the program. Electric golf carts are considered neighborhood electric vehicles or nebs. They also do not count towards the fleet's LDV count in determining your ap acquisition requirement, but they are eligible for one quarter credit under the program, and should be reported as an acquisition on the fleet's annual report as opposed to on the Investments tab.

On the other hand, an electric UTV or ATV does count as a qualified alternative non-road vehicle investment in a fleet would report the UTV or ATV on the Investments tab on their annual report.

Go to the next slide, please.

We're also going to touch on emerging technology.

I want to start this off by saying we don't see these reported too often, but under the program investing in emergent technology is a credit earning activity. Emerging technology refers to pre-production or pre-commercially available versions of certain light, medium, and heavy duty fuel cell electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles or plug-in electric drive vehicles.

To qualify as investment and for entry into the online reporting tool. Any any emerging technology vehicles reported would never be required to have their own unique vehicle identification number or VIN, and the fleet must also demonstrate that the pre-production vehicle was not otherwise treated as an alternative fuel vehicle acquisition or otherwise allocated alternative fuel vehicle credit under the program.

Emerging technology is eligible to earn up to 2 AFV Credits when the expenditure amounts to $50,000 with one AFV credit allocated for each additional $25,000 invested on top of that initial $50,000 with an annual maximum of 5 AFV Credits.

Go to the next slide, please. Thank you.

So this cable table kind of neatly wraps everything we just covered up on investment Credits. So just to review quickly, AFV infrastructure is a creditable investment with one AFV credit available for each $25,000 invested.

Infrastructure investments do have annual maximums with a max of 10 credits for public stations, 5 credits for private stations and 10 aggregate credits. Since you can't combine public and private stations.

Alternative fuel non-road equipment is another way. Fleets can earn investment Credits again. Here fleets are able to earn one credit for every $25,000 invested with an annual maximum of 5 credits.

And lastly, we have alternative fuel emerging technology. Again, this one we don't see very often, but fleets can earn 2 credits for the 1st $50,000 invested in alternative fuel emerging technology and one additional credit for each additional $25,000 invested with an annual maximum of 5 credits.

For more details, feel free to explore the program's guidance document on Credits for Investments in Alternative Fuel Infrastructure, Non-road Equipment, and Emerging Technologies, which we have linked here.

And I'll pass it back to you, Sophia.

SOPHIA NAPOLETANO: Thanks, Matt. So when you go to actually report infrastructure investments or any kind of investment in the reporting tool, this is what it's going to look like in the online tool. So it's Section 5 Investments, and basically to add an investment to your annual report.

You're going to click the add investment button for the corresponding category like Matt mentioned. This could be alternative fuel infrastructure or non-road equipment or investments in emerging technology vehicles.

This is a screenshot of the information that's required to report infrastructure investments. So first, you're going to need a brief description of what the infrastructure is, so you're going to want to specify the fuel type, maybe, like, the number of fuel ports or dispensers.

You're also going to need to provide the address information, note whether or not it's public infrastructure, add an in-service date, the fuel type, the investment amount.

And if there was a third party whom the investment was paid to.

As well as the contact information for the person providing, managing the infrastructure. I will also say if you have questions about any of this, it's great to reach out to the program. Deb Gross, especially, is really well-versed and can help you with filling out this form.

For non-road equipment, this is the information that you're going to need to provide, so you're going to need a brief description of the equipment, including the make, model, type of equipment, as well as how many, so…

You can see in the screenshot, it says 5 example forklifts. You're also going to need the manufacturer that the equipment was purchased from, as well as the purchase date, and the in-service date.

You're also going to need to provide the alternative fuel type and the investment amount.

Next to fill out, to report emerging technology investments. Again, like Matt said, we don't really see these that often, so if you are going to report an emerging technology investment, it might also be good to reach out to the program just to check that this is the proper category to report it under.

But you're going to need to provide the model year of the technology, as well as the manufacturer or the make of the technology, a brief description of it, vehicle identification number, manufacturer's address.

Acquisition and service dates, some information about the, weight class and vehicle itself, as well as the fuel type and engine configuration, the zip code where the technology is located, the investment amount, and the third party whom the investment was paid to.

All right, back to you, Matt.

MATT BRADLEY: Thanks, Sophia. So lastly, before we get into the Q&A portion we just wanted to highlight some program resources.

So we'll look to wrap up here again and get to the Q&A portion. We have a great website available at epact.energy.gov where we have some really helpful information and guidance documents available for any covered fleets. Specifically pertaining to what we discussed here today, we have the Credits for Investment in Alternative Fuel Infrastructure, Alternative Fuel Non-Road Equipment and emerging technologies. Guidance document. We also have guidance documents just covering standard compliance and a plethora of other topics that come up under the program like biodiesel.

And some others as well. We also have a super helpful FAQ page, a series of recorded webinars detailing annual reporting guidelines. We also have a webinar that we recorded that's geared specifically for folks who may be new to the program.

We did last year. So if you're new here today, and and you kind of find yourself with a lot of questions. That's a great webinar to check out.

And lastly, we have our regulatory information line, which is staffed by the team you see here today. We have a new contact form that fleets can use to send us in any questions or concerns you may have about the program, and we also have a hotline there that you can see as well, that any fleet can call and receive a timely response. Usually we'll get back to you within 24 hours.

If you reach out to either the… through the form or the… The… the phone line.

Next slide, please.

And we also just wanted to highlight some other helpful resources that fleets can use to assist with program reporting and compliance. Here you see the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Vin decoder. It's a helpful resource that you can use to help decode your Vins and help identify vehicle fuel types.

Gross vehicle, weight ratings, Gbwr ratings. Another helpful info that you can use to to help with your reporting. We find we use that a lot when we're verifying

Vehicles that have been entered into the online reports, so feel free to use that as well.

Just to help you with your initial reporting. Fueleconomy.gov publishes a fuel economy guide every model year that features fuel types, fuel efficiency, info, and more for all available light duty vehicles. It also notes in there which vehicles are available as Afvs, so that can be helpful for reporting purchasing means. So yeah, feel free to look at that as well.

And lastly, the DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center website features a fuels and vehicle section that provides overviews of the various alternative fuels as well as alternative fuel vehicles.

There are tools there, like the alternative fuel and advanced vehicle search, which are helpful for purchase planning, and there are also lists of available medium and heavy duty vehicles by fuel tech, by fuel and technology types.

Go to the last slide, please.

Thanks.

So thanks for attending. Thanks for listening. We've got about half an hour for questions here, which is great. We want to make sure we left plenty of time for that.

So feel free. However, you feel comfortable, feel free to put questions in the chat. You can raise your hand, come off mute so feel free to to kind of use this while you got us, and then ask whatever questions you might have.

ERIN ANDREWS-SHARER: Thanks so much, Matt. I am going to jump in as well. Grace McGinnis, who's our client at Department of Energy, is on the webinar, and I just wanted to give her a chance to introduce herself to this group as well. So, Grace, if you have a minute and want to hop on video and say hi, that'd be great, and that gives everyone a chance to

Think about their questions, and type them into the chat, or get ready to to ask them.

GRACE MCGINNIS: Hi, everyone. My name is Grace McGinnis. I am a transportation. I work for the transportation technologies office at DOE.

I'm a technology manager there, and I'm also the manager for the alternative fuel, the state and alternative fuel provider program. So really excited to be a part of this group and attend the webinar.

ERIN ANDREWS-SHARER: Awesome. Thanks for joining, Grace. We appreciate it.