By Golie Alemi
UCLA Anderson’s Energy Management Group hosted the 4th annual Challenges in Energy Case Competition, which stands among the top energy case competitions among B-schools in the country.
This year, eight teams participated from six different schools, including Berkeley Haas, Michigan Ross, Stanford GSB, Carnegie Mellon Tepper and Purdue Krannert. The focus of the competition charging solutions for electric vehicles. Specifically, students were tasked to develop a business model for EV charging at commercial locations that would provide a win-win value proposition for the commercial customer, the EV driver and the local electric utility. The UCLA Anderson team, the Energizer Bunnies — consisting of Dan Freeman (FEMBA ’15), Dan Abbott (’16), David Penskar (’16) and Vishal Saheta (FEMBA ’17) — took first place and the $2,500 prize.
Their proposal involved deploying networks of chargers at rental car agencies and large hotel chains, as well as managing vehicle charging to occur during off-peak hours. This would enable rental agencies and hotels to jointly attract new customers with an EV offering. Consumers would get the opportunity to test out an EV while traveling, and the charging would occur at times most beneficial to the electric utility.
The competition allowed students from the various schools to network with each other as well as the judges who represented the industry’s top companies including SoCal Edison, SolarCity and NRG eVgo.
Edward Kjaer, director of transportation electrification at Southern California Edison, delivered the lunchtime keynote address and spoke to the audience on the future of vehicle electrification.
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