Preparing for WAZIP
Through the Washington Zero-Emission Incentive Program (WAZIP), fleets can now claim point-of-sale vouchers on medium- and heavy-duty zero-emissions vehicles and equipment, backed by roughly $112 million in Climate Commitment Act funding. For an operator who has watched sticker prices stall electrification for years, WAZIP helps remove that barrier for purchase.
But purchasing the truck is only part of the equation. You also need the power to charge it.
Over the past year, Energy Infrastructure Partners has been helping Washington's utilities get ready for WAZIP, guiding them through what the program funds, the kinds of fleets it will bring, and what those fleets could mean for the grid. In nearly every one of those conversations, some version of the same question surfaced:
Once these electric trucks arrive, what are they going to do to the load at the yard?
There wasn’t a quick way to get an initial answer. That is why we built LoadCast, a free EV fleet grid-impact estimator.
How LoadCast Can Help Plan for WAZIP’s Grid Impact
Consider a depot that adds 15 battery-electric trucks. Each one might charge at 60, 120, even 350 kilowatts. Add the nameplate numbers together, and the site appears to need more power than the building has ever drawn. Somewhere upstream, a transformer or a service line becomes the constraint, and closing that gap is a utility project measured in months rather than weeks. Often an operator discovers this after the trucks are delivered and ends up with expensive assets parked against a wall, waiting on an interconnection they could have started much earlier.
LoadCast gives fleet operators and utilities a fast, shared first look at that potential change in demand. Enter your vehicles, your daily miles, and your charging windows and it returns the numbers a utility actually works in: coincident peak demand, the electrical service size implied, and the likely infrastructure tier, from a panel-only job to a new transformer to a primary-service upgrade.
Faced with a new fleet-charging request, it's tempting to size to the maximum: every truck, at full power, at the same instant. That number is large, and it's almost always a stretched version of the truth. Depots don't work that way. Vehicles arrive across a shift, plug in at different states of charge, and rarely reach their collective peak.
Grid planners already have a name for this, the coincidence factor. The coincidence factor is the ratio between what a group of chargers could theoretically draw and what they realistically draw together. Applying a defensible coincidence factor is the difference between planning for reality and planning for the worst-case scenario. Size to the worst case and the fleet overpays, the utility overbuilds, and both the timeline and the cost grow for no good reason. Early, honest estimation can avoid this situation. That is why the coincidence factor is built into LoadCast, which shows a realistic, coincidence-adjusted peak next to the theoretical maximum, so the gap between them is visible to everyone.
LoadCast also lets you see what charging management might do. When you model managed or battery-backed charging, the estimate points to how much lower the peak could be, and sometimes to a smaller service upgrade than the worst case would suggest, which can shorten the interconnection timeline and lower the capital cost, both in the near term and over the life of the site.
LoadCast does not replace a utility’s engineering assessment. It is a fast first look designed to help fleets prepare for that assessment and start the utility conversation earlier.
LoadCast for Fleet Operators
If WAZIP is on your radar, consider running a LoadCast before you finalize your purchase.
Instead of approaching your utility without an initial estimate, you can begin the conversation with a clearer picture of your potential charging demand, the infrastructure your site may require, and the questions you need to ask.
Early planning means more time to evaluate options. Waiting until the vehicles arrive can mean discovering infrastructure constraints when there is much less flexibility to address them.
LoadCast for Grid Planners
LoadCast gives fleet customers a realistic starting point and another reason to engage their utility early.
By applying coincidence factors rather than relying solely on the theoretical maximum, LoadCast helps frame the initial conversation around a more realistic estimate of potential depot demand. It also provides a shared, transparent view of the assumptions behind that estimate.
The utility’s engineering assessment remains the authoritative next step. LoadCast helps fleets arrive at that step better informed and better prepared.
Run a LoadCast: https://loadcast.energyinfrapartners.com
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