Powering Chicago
The demand for electric vehicle infrastructure is growing nationwide. But meeting that demand will require more than just equipment to deploy and funding to install it. We’ll need qualified contractors and electricians to do the actual work.
We met up with an organization that is powering Chicago’s EV charging future and setting an example for cities across the country.
Illinois is going all-in on promoting electric vehicles, with a goal to increase EV registrations from 37,000 currently, to over a million electric vehicles on the road in Illinois by 2030. To help achieve this goal, the state is providing a $4,000 rebate for select EV’s on top of existing federal incentives, along with a rebate of up to 80% for the cost of installing a charging station. Federal funding is expected to add 500,000 new chargers nationwide over the next few years.
In addition, a 2020 Chicago city ordinance requires all new residential buildings with five or more units, and commercial properties with 30 or more parking spaces, to have 20 percent of onsite parking be electric vehicle ready.
With thousands of charging outlets to be installed over the next decade, where now you typically see clusters of two to four chargers in a store parking lot, there might be dozens of units lined up in the not-so-distant future. That creates a daunting task for electrical contractors, who will need a larger skilled workforce to install them all.
Powering Chicago is the entity that bridges the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 134, with the Electrical Contractors Association, through classroom and on-the-job training and community outreach.
ELBERT WALTERS III: The contractors serve as management, so they do the hiring of electricians and managing electricians on the jobsites. The relationship is that powering Chicago and the IBEW Local 134, the labor portion, actually provides the manpower-- the qualified workforce.
JOHN DAVIS: The IBEW/NECA Technical Institute, in the Chicago suburb of Alsip, is already one of the most forward-thinking and well-regarded electrical training centers in the country, with a history going back more than 100 years. And there is no shortage of applicants testing for admission to the union’s 5-year paid apprenticeship training program.
GENE KENT: Our current enrollment of apprentices in the entire apprenticeship is about 1300. Right now, in school, we have about 200 apprentices every quarter, come through for their quarterly education.
JOHN DAVIS: In 2015, In-Tech debuted this renewable energy training field: a fully-functional microgrid with a wind turbine, solar arrays, a bi-directional 100-kilowatt power inverter and a battery energy storage system. These are active training aids for the students that also harness and use renewable energy within the school building.
GENE KENT: What we like to do is make sure that our apprentices are taught foundational knowledge. And then we build knowledge of the industry throughout their entire apprenticeship, so that when those new cutting-edge things come into play, they only have to learn the very end-user component.
JOHN DAVIS: Reaching beyond the in-tech campus, this demonstration trailer travels to area schools and events, serving as a mobile classroom and EV ambassador. At the recent Chicago Auto Show, thousands of show visitors stepped up to ask the experts about adding EV charging equipment to their own homes or businesses.
Powering Chicago has also produced this downloadable e-book, full of information on how to plan, install and maintain electric vehicle service equipment. Car dealerships are among the many types of businesses expanding their EV charger inventories, anticipating the influx of new electrified models soon to be hitting their showrooms and service areas.
GINA DOLLEY: The typical layout is that there’s several in service, three to four, in service. Um, one in the back for delivery of the vehicles, and then eventually you’re going to see them coming out front for customer-facing, customer use.
I only see it growing from this point on. Right now, it’s-- I’m doing one to two a month. I think it’s going to be more. I have a feeling that we’re going to open up an EV division, and I just have guys dedicated to the installation for these units.
JOHN DAVIS: The winds of change are a’ coming, and forward thinking, like that shown here in the Windy City, is what it will take to keep us all charged up for the road ahead.
EV Tech Training
A shortage of qualified auto repair technicians has been an industry-wide problem for years now, but the high-tech nature of today’s advanced safety systems and high-voltage EV architectures are attracting a new generation of tech trainees to maintain the cars of tomorrow.
TODD RENFRO: “In the market today, automotive technician training is extremely important. For every seven technicians that are leaving our industry, we’re only having two come in to replace them. And unfortunately, the information we have at this time is, one of those two won’t make it past 12 months. So, we need to get young people excited about the automotive trade, all the opportunities that are in the automotive trade, and get them started in a path of career to be successful.”
As the number of electrified vehicles on the road increases, dealerships and independent shops alike are pushing to be ready for their service needs. But working around electrified vehicles means following very specific safety protocols for the high voltage systems and learning a whole new type of vehicle architecture. So, across the country, vocational schools big and small are adding electrified vehicle training into their curriculums.
Utah’s Weber State University has been teaching hybrid and electric systems to their students for nearly 20 years, and they also share their experience with technicians, educators and the general public in a unique five-day EV bootcamp, funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy with the Utah Clean Cities and Communities Coalition.
JOHN KELLY: “I would say that for the last five or six years, probably half of the students coming through the class are teachers at other colleges and universities, high schools, technical programs that are interested in starting an EV or hybrid training program at their location, and are coming here to see how we do it. So that gives them a lot of ideas. They can go back, they may or may not have the same vehicles that we have, but it gives them an idea of what type of activities can they do at their school to, uh, enhance learning with their students.”
Like with conventional vehicles today, OEM-specific systems and procedures may have to be learned on the job, but weber’s program takes a universal approach, starting with the basics of high voltage wiring, and how battery electric vehicles work.
BRANDON STEVENSON: “Every OEM has their own common components, but they are named differently. So, unless you understand what that component actually does, it is a struggle. So, with our students that are already technicians, they’re coming in because they don’t know how all of the different OEMs work and they actually want to know it.”
And while new EV models continue to arrive on the market, remember that EVs and hybrids have been around for quite a while now, so there’s plenty of service experience to draw from.
BRANDON STEVENSON: “So, when you’re looking at where the industry is going and where it has come from, we’ve got a 2002 Toyota Prius in there now that’s 22 years old. That sounds like it’s really old and outdated, but it actually has a lot of technology that is still leveraged today. So, we’re able to show students where we were back in 2002 to where we are now in 2024.”
As the market share for plug-in vehicles grows, related jobs will open up as well over the next few decades, like electricians to install EV chargers, battery engineers and software developers, creating opportunities for existing workers to retrain, and appealing new career paths for the next generation to drive forward.
TODD RENFRO: “The excitement about EV, and also with hybrid, is that it’s the future. It’s what’s coming down the road. So, to be ahead of the curve and be prepared for that future, is exciting to a lot of the young students.”