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Smart Grid Technology6 truths about EVs that turn out to be false (utilities take note)
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Oct 18, 2011
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By Jesse Berst
Electric vehicles are a big worry for many utilities. Over the last few months, I've had several interesting conversations with Europeans responsible for electric vehicle pilots in places such as Denmark, Germany and Portugal. Based on the results of their research and their real-world pilots, I learned of six frequent fears that turn out to be false.
Still plenty to worry about of course. But you may be relieved to hear that:
1. We don't need a massive infrastructure of "intermediate" charging stations in malls and parking lots. Based on real-world pilots, almost all charging takes place at home at night. (In fleet situations, in the company lot overnight.)
2. Garage charging won't be enough. We still need to figure out how to handle on-street, overnight parking for urban dwellers who park their cars on the street.
3. We don't need a fast-charge option for residential users. Early pilots show that users rarely get their vehicles anywhere close to "empty." As a result, they typically only need a few hours of charging time to "top off" the battery.
4. We don't need battery swapping stations, except in special cases. The industry will never agree on standard battery sizes and enclosures. That makes the idea of hot-swap battery stations impractical. (Though you may see it crop up in military and fleet operations.) Besides that, most early adopters use their EV for scooting around town. For longer trips, they take a gas-powered vehicle.
Next page: The truth abour range anxiety and V2G >>
| EV facts |
| Very good points. I have a 2011 LEAF and in 6 months we have never been low and had to charge during the day. I've gone close to 140 miles by driving smart. Our GRID Tied solar runs our home, LEAF and I get credits for helping the utility right during Peak Time Of Day. I do think V2G is the next great option for all EVs. It can help the utilities, allow more wind and solar by balancing power and needs along with regulation power so standby power plants are not needed. read v2g-101.com |
| Jim Stack - 10/19/2011 - 07:07 |
| That's good enough for now, but... |
| These observations or facts only support the current market trends. EV sales are a tiny fraction of all sales, and part of that owes to the nature of the buyers. Not only are they the typical early adopters, but they adjust to the needs of ownership, including habits around driving and charging. In order for consumer EV product adoption to expand beyond the current levels, many of the "myths" come back into the picture. Commercial adoption is a different story, and much of the charging "myth busting" may still hold to a large degree. |
| John Sullivan - 10/19/2011 - 08:01 |
| Electric Vehicle Truths |
| Jesse, Your points are so timely. I am facilitating the new business process development relative to Electric Vehicle support for a Houston electric utility. There are few anxieties today, but the future may create the following challenges; infrastructure management (e.g. transformers), customer engagement, and data management (e.g. leveraging GIS and Smart Meter data analytics to support home charging). The increase in vehicle adoption will help to dynamically refine the business case for a utility. You did a solid job in outlining the truths related to Electric Vehicle deployment and support. We are now developing a strategy and project roadmap to support electric vehicles, and I can relate to this firsthand. As the regulatory landscape and the market mature, I would expect many of the misconceptions to dissipate. However, a question such as “What impact will the increased adoption of electric vehicles have on residential load management in the future?” remains as a challenge for any utility. I look forward to applying some of the best practices and lessons learned from the European utilities. Houston is expected to be a major EV market, and 200 public charging stations are already planned for deployment. I am sure that we will continue to engage. Keep the EV information coming! |
| Todd Q. Adams - 10/19/2011 - 08:14 |
| Electric Vehicle Truths |
| Jesse, Your points are so timely. I am facilitating the new business process development relative to Electric Vehicle support for a Houston electric utility. There are few anxieties today, but the future may create the following challenges; infrastructure management (e.g. transformers), customer engagement, and data management (e.g. leveraging GIS and Smart Meter data analytics to support home charging). The increase in vehicle adoption will help to dynamically refine the business case for a utility. You did a solid job in outlining the truths related to Electric Vehicle deployment and support. We are now developing a strategy and project roadmap to support electric vehicles, and I can relate to this firsthand. As the regulatory landscape and the market mature, I would expect many of the misconceptions to dissipate. However, a question such as “What impact will the increased adoption of electric vehicles have on residential load management in the future?” remains as a challenge for any utility. I look forward to applying some of the best practices and lessons learned from the European utilities. Houston is expected to be a major EV market, and 200 public charging stations are already planned for deployment. I am sure that we will continue to engage. Keep the EV information coming! |
| Todd Q. Adams - 10/19/2011 - 08:17 |
| EV Truths |
| I have been recommending the development of an EV use model. It sounds like a use model is emerging and these are the conclusion from that model. Thanks for a great industry service. |
| Chuck Drinnan - 10/19/2011 - 08:49 |
| Electric Vehicle Truths |
| I have logged 4400 miles on on LEAF since May. Your findings describe our habits perfectly. So far the experience has exceeded expectations. |
| Paul Larson - 10/19/2011 - 09:13 |
| CHARGE NOW can defeat the purpose |
| There certainly are trade-offs to any EV infrastructure. But if a utility is relying on demand response for managing peaks and end-users have the ability to override demand response with a "Charge Now" option, it defeats the purpose of demand response. Some envision or are anticipating (like FERC) that Demand Response resources will be able to schedule into the grid and provide reserves and other transmission support services. If the nation is on a course for DR (Charge Now) overrides at the end use level, this will have detrimental effects to reliability if DR resources are used for that purpose. I'd certainly want to avoid a national system with significant investment in smart grid only to have the system set up to fail. As a utility, until things settle down, I would have strong reservations in applying a DR resource for reliability purposes because of the dialog around an end-user DR override (or the equivalent). |
| Jeff Nelson - 10/19/2011 - 09:15 |
| EVs and Grid Reliability Red Herring |
| For a previous poster to imply that all utility customers will eventually always choose the charge now option, especially when the smart grid is also bringing variable time of day pricing into the mix, is to invite more of utility customers to install distributed energy sources to reduce dependence upon utilities that espouse approaches such as excluding a "charge now" option. Utilities might want to consider that customers are the reason they exist and that meeting customer needs is essential to their long-term survival. Most customers who own and will own EVs will be good citizens. This article certainly suggests that the early adopters are the utilities’ first good citizens. Perhaps these utilities might consider being proactive and preparing for the future rather than having to later play catch-up if the concern is truly as high as is suggested. Oil companies are well aware that oil is past peak production. Why else would so many of them be proactively moving into other areas of energy? Perhaps the utilities that are not yet forward looking might want to follow their lead in recognizing that the future is coming whether it fits the old business mold or not. The future is going to include EVs, maybe not in the lifetimes of everyone who is living today, but certainly in our children’s or grandchildren’s lifetimes. |
| Paul Shep - 10/19/2011 - 10:59 |
| I regret the misunderstanding |
| Red Herring vs. Reliability It is important to point out the requirements placed upon grid operators and load/resource balance for the stability of the system. Grid operators must operate resources based on known system capability and what is happening in real time. If they dispatch a resource for grid stability, it must be available. One can absolutely have a "charge now" option. If that facilitates deployment - great. But "charge now" does place limitations on the ability to allocate demand responses toward grid stability. That's all I was implying. You can use a demand response program with an EV charge now option for other purposes (potentially shifting peak) other than ancillary transmission services. |
| Jeff Nelson - 10/19/2011 - 11:42 |
| Implied Usage |
| Well, if only topping off the battery is needed, apparently most BEV buyers are not using their new vehicles for serious purposes. How many BEV buyers actually sell or get rid of their real cars when they buy the BEV? |
| John Lillard Burch - 10/19/2011 - 13:58 |
| putting around town is nice but... |
| I don't think that automotive companies would have that hard of a time standardizing their batteries. Internal combustion batteries are one of two types, top or side post. Why can't companies develop their cars around standardized EV batteries? Then the battery changing stations would be a viable option and we could get away from using gas/diesel to get around. I'm sure there are people who feel that it's not feasible, but its not to far from the realm of possibility.... |
| Shaun Hilts - 10/19/2011 - 23:00 |
| V2G |
| It's always so sad when I see people categorically dismiss emerging technologies. The first five of the six points have been well understood by the last generation of EVers and EV policy analysis for over a decade. But I suppose it's good that those who dismissed electric drive transportation options, up until about three years ago, are figuring all of this out...again. (That last comment was not directed at you Jesse.) What is not good, however, is that the new comers tend to ignore the volumes of literature that was researched and documented (at great cost) in the last EV deployment of the '90s. To be fair, though, it's always good to "play it again Sam" for the newcomers. Also, one important point missing here is discussion of the viability, and longevity, of networked charging infrastructure. It certainly has its place in the EV ecosystem, but not nearly at the levels we're presently seeing deployed. (We can thank misappropriated government funds for that one.) In any case, what inspired this rant was topic number 6--where, instead of "been there, done that" we're presently "testing it and have yet to deploy it." Jesse's abject dismissal of V2G technology reminds me of the automotive industry's dismissal of EVs in general a decade ago. Worse, Jesse entirely misses what V2G's primary use would be. Vehicle-to-grid, at least as a grid storage technology, is completely viable (even necessary) if we expect to integrate large amounts of renewables onto the electric gird. But first, we need to develop the systems to do so. And what better time than when EVs are in their infancy, rather than later when it will be prohibitively expensive to integrate V2G technology into the EV ecosystem. Anyone following the work of Dr. Willett Kempton, at the University of Delaware, knows that V2G is best suited as storage to offset ancillary grid services, such as frequency regulation. In such an application <15kWs of up and down regulation would be used. That's about the power requirement of a Tesla Roadster cruising at 30mph. It's nothing, and it has been shown to not depreciate the battery's storage capacity in any significant manner. Also, in regulation services, V2G would only utilize <10 percent of the battery's capacity, resulting in little to no cycling depreciation as well. Con't |
| Bob Tregilus - 10/20/2011 - 23:45 |
| V2G con't |
| Con't from above... Later, as more EVs enter the market, they could certainly be used to firm intermittent renewable energies too. Kempton has been quite clear, V2G is not suitable for offsetting peak energy demand. So as Jim Stack says above, read V2G 101, and I might add, the research papers at Kempton's site http://www.udel.edu/V2G. Finally, I think a lot of the objections to V2G we hear has to do with viewing the energy industry through a 20th century central-station utility archetype lens, where there are producers and consumers with no crossover. Net-metering is an example, where consumers are "allowed" to produce energy to offset onsite load, and are compensated at retail rates. That's in contrast to simply letting everyone produce energy and paying them a fair price to feed it into the grid--at wholesale rates. So what I'm saying here, is we rely on the "experts" to tell us what will and what won't work, meanwhile the experts are protecting their interests and their fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders--not the public. They are protecting their monopolies, and don't want anyone playing in their sandbox(es). Hence, the idea of actually paying an EV owner for the use of their battery isn't even on the table if we let the utilities dictate the rules to us. To quote my late colleague, Dr. Hermann Scheer (former President of EUROSOLAR, General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE), President of the International Parliamentary Forum on Renewable Energies, and Member of the German Bundestag and without whom solar PV would be four or five times the cost that it is today) "Relying on the energy experts [utilities] is a big mistake." (Now he climbs down off his soapbox...) :) |
| Bob Tregilus - 10/20/2011 - 23:47 |
| EV charging from 115v at work! |
| Amen. There is so much disinformation. Promoting Public EV charging is like trying to sell gas cars using images of a guy walking down an empty road with an empty gas can! People will charge EV's at home AND at work. We must focus on employers allowing us to plug into 115v outlets at work and pay 50 cents a day for the privlige. Please see the Payin-to-Plugin concept on http://aprs.org/EXorder-EVs.html |
| Bob bruninga - 10/21/2011 - 08:44 |
| Thanks for the soapbox comments |
| Thanks Bob for your thoughtful "rant." My power engineering friends tell me we can get 80% of the benefits of V2G through smart charging. And without the expense of rewiring every garage in the service territory with a special bi-directional circuit. And if you didn't get enough from the smart charging, then wouldn't vehicle-to-home be the next step? |
| Jesse Berst - 10/21/2011 - 08:49 |
| More V2G |
| Jesse - This is a huge topic, as I'm sure you are aware. Also, you seem to be looking at V2G from a demand-side perspective, while I tend to view it on many levels, including both demand- and supply-sides, distributed verses central-station generation, ownership of capacity, rapid deployment of wholesale DG, quickly scaling EV technologies to reduce costs, and so on. Federal and state regulatory overhaul is also a gigantic part of all of this as well. We need to disincent utilities from building generation capacity, and shift their business models to strictly transmission (as little as possible), distribution and grid services. It's a huge ecosystem. It's really too much to address in this space. Especially, when I'd have to discuss what's going on in other parts of the world to put it into context for the U.S. But also, have you been watching what GE and Nissan are doing, regarding V2B? And, of course Dr. Kempton with, for years now, PJM Interconnection (who service about a fifth of the U.S. population) and most recently now NRG Energy. con't |
| Bob Tregilus - 10/22/2011 - 00:41 |
| More V2G con't |
| Con't from above... Here's a couple of quotes I'll leave you with to ponder: "The long-term case for V2G boils down to a choice. We can keep the electric system and vehicle fleet separate, in which case we substantially increase the cost of renewable energy because we have to build storage to match intermittent capacity. Or, we can connect the vehicle and electric power systems intelligently, using the vast untapped storage of an emerging electric-drive vehicle fleet to serve the electric grid." -- Willett Kempton & Jasna Tomić, 2004 "The early adopters of plug-in hybrid vehicles would be able to enter our regulation market. We need something in the thousand megawatts to twelve hundred megawatts of regulation on the PJM system and we would pay those vehicles to be a part of that market. Our current clearing price is about $35 to $40 per megawatt per hour you're in the regulation market so it is a very lucrative market." --Terry Boston, President & CEO of PJM Interconnection, speaking on September 29, 2009 at The Present and Future of Grid-Connected Energy Storage hosted by Transmission & Distribution World Here's how V2G would work based on what Terry Boston said: With your car plugged into grid, and the regulation market paying $35.00 per megawatt per hour, if your car is able to provide 10kWs of power for 20 hours per day your car will earn $2555.00 in a year! ($35.00/1MW x10kWs x 20 x 365 = $2555.00.) Actually, most experts suggest an EV can provide 15kW and that they are plugged into the grid on average for 23 hours each day. Using the higher rate of $40 per megawatt per hour the result would be: $40.00/1MW x 15kWs x 23 x 365 = $5037! Of course, you need an aggregator to mange all of that. |
| Bob tregilus - 10/22/2011 - 00:44 |
| Beyond V2G |
| Hey Jesse - Not sure if you're still there, but in case you look here again, this link http://thedianerehmshow.org/audio-player?nid=14767 to a Diane Rehm interview pretty much talks about what I'm trying to say, except for the hydrogen nonsense. (Actually, just replace V2G for every time the author talks about hydrogen. That would work!) You should very much like the smart-grid aspects of the interview as well. It's Jeremy Rifkin and his book The Third Industrial Revolution. I'd heard the name before, likely read an article or two by him at some point. I guess he's pretty controversial by what I just saw on the 'net. But he pretty much nails it regarding how all of this stuff needs to be integrated--and decentralized. It seems like he might have plagiarized, to some degree, Hermann Scheer's work as outlined in his 2006 book Energy Autonomy. Cheers, Bob |
| Bob Tregilus - 10/24/2011 - 01:11 |
| Interested Parties Are Consumer-Owned Utilities Too |
| Utility experts are also representatives and ratepayers of consumer-owned utilities. With no shareholders. Consumer-owned utilties have customer-elected Boards, which hire a manager, which hire staff, which work for the Boards. We are beholden to the customers - the public - only. I'm not quite sure what the generalized statement of being beholden to stockholders means nor do I think consumer-owned utilities will be dismissed by that argument. If anything, since manufacturers, vendors, private utilities, grant receipients, etc... are beholden not to the customer but to an outside entity, it seems some comments are misdirected. |
| Jeff Nelson - 10/28/2011 - 16:43 |
| Batteries and V2G |
| Honda is chosen Toshiba's SCiB lithium-ion battery for their Fit EV. The SCiB is rated for 4,000 100% DoD discharge/charge cycles. In a 120 mile range EV like the Fit this means a >400,000 mile battery life before the 80% capacity level is reached. That's more than enough life to do a lot of renting of battery. Once/if we get battery capacity to the 200 mile range many/most people are going to have a lot of spare capacity that they can rent to the utility for supply shifting from off- to on-peak. Income to the car owner and capex avoidance for the utility. We probably aren't wise trying to make long range V2G decisions based on the first generation of EV batteries. |
| Bob Wallace - 11/20/2011 - 21:05 |
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