Electric Utilities Commit to Plug-In Hybrids

To take off, the emerging electric vehicle market will need early adopters, and two Southern-based utilities just stepped up to the plate. FPL Group, the company that includes Florida Power and Light, and Duke Energy, which serves 11 million people in the South and Midwest, together operate about 10,000 vehicles. And they said this week that by 2020 all new purchases of fleet vehicles will be plug-in hybrid or all-electric.

In a statement, the companies said the commitment represents potential revenues of $600 million and could offset 125,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas.

“We really feel that E.V.’s can be a huge catalyst for our industry,” Christopher A. Bennett, an FPL Group executive vice president, said in an interview. “Someone had to step forward and make a volume commitment. There are a lot of toes in the water, but it was time to catalyze change.”

Mr. Bennett said that FPL, which has stakes in wind and solar power, will start in 2010 with passenger vehicles, moving later into larger hybrid or fully electric bucket trucks. The company will buy about 300 green vehicles annually in the early years, he said. Mr. Bennett also said FPL will convert some vehicles, notably the Toyota Prius, to plug-in hybrid status using existing kits. In the company’s fleet now are more than 2,400 biodiesel vehicles, as well as 300 hybrid or plug-in hybrid cars and trucks.

Tom Williams, a spokesman for Duke Energy, said the company has 4,500 highway-capable vehicles, only a handful of which are hybrid or plug-in hybrid now. “We’ve been looking for a way to put the carrot out and push the manufacturing sector forward,” he said. “We’re also interested in reducing our carbon footprint and learning more about how E.V.’s can be integrated into the grid.”

That integration, Mr. Williams said, can include what is called vehicle-to-grid, which allows utility companies, at peak times, to draw down electricity from the batteries of plugged-in electric cars. “We like that option,” he said.

Duke Energy is a part owner (15 percent or less) of Indiana-based Bright Automotive, whose Idea vehicle would be a plug-in hybrid panel van intended for just the type of large fleet that the utility operates. “If they build it, we will come,” Mr. Williams said. “We have bucket trucks, scout and crew vehicles, and we want to transition all of them. The last thing will be 18-wheelers, because we operate those, too. Right now, there are no fully electric bucket trucks, which is why we need to demonstrate that a market exists.”