What One University Learned About Electrification

The Michigan State University (MSU) Spartans may bleed green and white on game day but these days, the East Lansing-based university embodies its iconic color palette in more ways than one. In 2021, university leaders unveiled their 2030 Strategic Plan, which included a goal to reduce carbon emissions.¹¹¹¹ Specifically, leaders pledged to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 and slash greenhouse gas emissions in half from MSU’s 2010 baseline.¹¹¹¹

 

To that end, MSU worked closely with a Michigan energy-services provider to define how many of its 1,200+ on-campus vehicles to convert to electric—and how much energy was needed to keep operations intact. Ultimately, MSU added 40+ electric vehicles (EVs) to its fleet in 2022 and announced plans to replace another 369 conventional vehicles with EVs over the next decade.¹¹¹²

 

“At 5,200 acres, MSU’s campus is one of the largest in the nation,” said Adam Lawver, director of campus services with MSU’s Infrastructure Planning and Facilities (IPF). “We have a diverse fleet of vehicles—which are used in a variety of ways to help keep MSU running 24/7/365.” Part of that diverse fleet includes 18 Ford E-Transit^TM vans (with two more on the way), five F-150® Lightning® trucks and six Mustang® Mach-E® SUVs.

 

Infrastructure + Charging = Strategy

 

Vehicle selection is only one stop in MSU’s fleet electrification journey. MSU also needed an EV charging solution to support the vehicles’ electricity needs without requiring costly electrical upgrades or putting undue stress on the campus’s high-demand power grid. Step one was to consult fleet vehicles’ telematics data—think route schedules, mileage and vehicle idling—to determine the effect of EVs on the power grid and EV charging infrastructure needs.

 

According to Lawver, beyond a subset of EVs that MSU deploys for cross-regional or statewide travel, MSU’s on-campus IPF vehicles drive, on average, between 10 and 20 miles per day—mainly carrying employees, supplies and parts to various campus facilities to perform maintenance.

 

“In our scenario, the vehicle utilization was highly predictable with low mileage tracked day to day,” Lawver said. In a Ford Pro^TM survey of 750 U.S.-based commercial fleet decision-makers, 5% of respondents said that their fleets also accrue lower daily mileage (defined as traveling less than 49 miles per day).¹⁰⁴⁶ Next, Lawver tapped MSU’s electrical engineers to evaluate electrical demands and peak usage times to ensure that cross-campus competing power supply wouldn’t interfere with the EV charging stations. They found that MSU EVs only used about 10%–30% of their available battery capacity daily.

 

The legwork paid off. MSU landed on an EV charging solution that would suit the campus environment. “We needed a solution that provided electrical load-balancing functionality,” Lawver said. “With our building electrical panels at or near capacity, we avoided costly upgrade expenses by activating chargers to distribute available building power to meet the demand of the vehicles without overloading circuits.”