HOT WIRES FOR BATTERY-POWERED CARS

California utility prepares for surge in plug-in electric cars
Chris Woodyard, March 16, 2009 (USA Today)

SUMMARY
Southern California Edison (SCE) is preparing for a coming transition in the U.S. to battery electric vehicles (BEVs) that is expected to boost electricity demand.

One of the best things about BEVs is that they will spread power demand over a longer period of the 24-hour cycle because owners are likely to be powering up at night, when demand is otherwise low.

BEV charging could put too great a stess on the tranmsission system if the grid operator is unprepared for new, off-peak demand. If the grid operator is prepared, however, the stress on the transmission will be entirely manageable and potentially insignificant.

A utility or grid operator will profit from the transition to BEVs by selling more electricity and can profit further by becoming a charging station provider.

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SCE, an investor-owned utility, has been spending $5 million per year acquiring and testing electric vehicles (EVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), batteries and charging stations. It runs a fleet of 300 BEVs, mostly Toyota RAV4s, and does testing at a Pomona, Calif., facility.

Ford tests with SCE and plans to have an EV in showrooms by 2012. Other cars tested with SCE: Mitsubishi iMiEV subcompact, Daimler plug-in hybrid van, and the General Motors Chevy Volt expected in showrooms by the end of 2009.

One of SCE’s key findings is that utilities will require better transformers to manage BEV charging traffic because charging a BEV equals running 6 plasma screen TVs.

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SCE presently gets 16% of its power from New Energy sources, mostly geothermal. Because of the California Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) it must get 20% of its power from New Energy sources by the end of next year (2010).

COMMENTARY
- An important study from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) showed that BEVs, even when run off a grid supplied by 50% dirty coal, as the U.S. presently is, would produce lower greenhouse gas emissions than internal combustion engines (ICEs) powered by petroleum-based fuels.

Even when plug-in vehicles run on a grid powered by coal they generate less emissions than gas-only vehicles. (click to enlarge)

- EPRI predicts 1 million BEVs on the road in 8 years is a workable limit. Volkswagen’s CEO says it will take 35 years to transition the U.S. fleet to BEVs.
- 12-to-15 automakers have announced plans for BEVs, beginning in 2009-10 with the Volt PHEV and followed soon afterward by an EV from Nissan. Sales will initially be concentrated, like early sales of the hybrid Toyota Prius, in certain communities like Berkeley, Calif., and the Washington, D.C., suburbs.
- If the public response to BEVs follows the pattern of the public response to the Prius, purchases will be greater than SCE anticipates and demand on the grid will be significant – but SCE is readying.

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- The real importance of the BEV goes beyond the vehicle itself to V2G technology and New Energy.
- V2G technology creates an interactive relationship between the entire fleet of BEVs, the grid and the electrons on the grid. The vehicle batteries become a cost-effective way to store electricity for later use. The extra electricity needed for that charging can come in larger proportion from New Energy sources during off-peak periods, especially wind at night and solar during the afternoon.
- BEVs will also serve New Energy as storage in another, potentially more important way. As the vehicle batteries age they eventually will no longer hold a 100% charge and require replacement but will still have as much as 80% of their storage capacity. Inadequate for powering a BEV, these batteries could be strung together as essentially cost-free, massive storage reservoirs for wind installations and solar power plants.

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QUOTES
- Ed Kjaer, electric transportation director, SCE: "This stuff is coming…We have to do it with safety and reliability. It cannot destabilize the system…."We have more data than Toyota does on [the RV4 EV] fleet…"As long as we see the impacts of [the BEV] and where it's going, we have the ability to prepare the system…"
- Ted Craver, CEO of SCE parent Edison International: "The holy grail of the electricity business is storage…"
- Sherry Boschert, author, PHEVs and vice president, Plug In America: "There's been a lot of thinking (about) what can we do to incentivize customers to not use electricity at a particular time of the day…"