Member spotlight: Drive Oregon

 Year founded: 2012
 Location: Portland, Ore.
 Geograhic scope: Oregon
 Member rep: Emmaline Pohnl
 Website: http://driveoregon.org
 Contact: http://driveoregon.org/contact/

 

 

Drive Oregon, the NW Energy Coalition’s newest organizational member, is a non-profit trade association dedicated to supporting Oregon’s electric vehicle (EV) industry and strengthening the state’s EV market.

The Drive Oregon team at their workplace charging awards ceremony,
featuring local firms that signed onto the DOE’s Workplace Charging Challenge.
(photo courtesy Emmaline Pohnl)

NW Energy Coalition membership
The organization recently began looking at electric utilities’ role in growing the EV market and developing supporting policies in Oregon. When the group learned that the Coalition had expanded its focus on EV policy across the region, Drive Oregon pursued Coalition membership to boost those efforts and to engage with key stakeholders.

Utility work group
Last month, Drive Oregon launched a new work group within the Energize Oregon Coalition to support utilities interested in examining the opportunities and challenges in vehicle electrification. This work group will serve as a forum in which utilities may share their experiences, pose questions, easily access information and resources and, ultimately, develop or improve their individual approaches to vehicle electrification.

All utilities, as well as energy or EV-industry stakeholders, are welcome to participate in the work group. The group’s first in-person meeting will be on February 23, 2016 in Portland, Oregon. Click here to learn more and register for the meeting, or contact Emmaline Pohnl at Drive Oregon.

EV Roadmap conference
Don’t miss one of the biggest and best electric vehicle conferences in the country, Drive Oregon’s annual EV Roadmap in July!

The automaker panel at the EV Roadmap conference last year.
(photo courtesy Emmaline Pohnl)

Read the NW Energy Coalition’s white paper on vehicle electrification
Reflecting its expanded focus on transportation electrification, the Coalition recently released an in-depth issue paper, “Building ‘good load’ to reduce carbon emissions: Getting Northwest utilities more involved in widespread transportation electrification,” authored by senior policy associate JJ McCoy.

Upcoming member spotlights
If your organization would like to be featured in our member spotlight series, contact Kat Plimpton at kat@nwenergy.org.