Exciting Infrastructure Support for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) Adoption

Slowly but surely innovation in the automotive industry is pushing toward PHEV technology. On a recent trip to Shanghai, I spoke with the CEO of Ford, China. He believed the PRC officials in Beijing were going to leap-frog the U.S. - going straight from combustion engines to PHEV technology through blunt force (as is typical in China). U.S. national policy seems focused on providing incentives for consumers to purchase PHEVs (mostly in the form of rebates), and putting a gun to Detroit’s head by forcing PHEV innovation with strings attached to the bailout money.

Some controversy about the actual mpg performance of existing models has questioned the economic savings at the pump. Several DOE tests done under real-world driving conditions showed only 51mpg performance for vehicles that were capable of 100mpg performance under lab conditions.

Despite the challenges there are several firms who are locking-in their first mover advantage in the U.S. urban markets they think will be early PHEV adopters.

Two top competitors in this space are starting their efforts in California. Coulomb Technologies has plans to install 500 PHEV charging stations along California highways in 2009. Better Place is focusing on charging stations that also offer battery swap services. A San Jose news report stated that a Coulomb’s “ChargePoint” charging station was installed in twenty minutes and cost only $2,000 dollars (paid for by Coulomb). The unit is only three-feet high x one-foot wide and in this case they had strapped it onto a modified street lamp. Coulomb customers who have an account, sign-up for a access key, that when swiped at a charging station, opens the door to the outlet. Once plugged in, you close and lock the door (so that no one is tempted to unplug you). What I found fascinating was that Coulomb is emulating the electric utilities’ rate model by charging customers a “subscription fee” which blends the cost of the electricity that they consumed at the charging station with maintenance costs, and the up-front capital cost it took to install the station. Most importantly, the units have bi-directional metering so if your car is plugged into a charging station at a parking deck during peak hours, Coulomb’s software will stop charging your battery during those peak hours to help the electric utility “peak shave” demand. There is a revenue sharing business model with “hosts” who buy the charging stations, although this isn’t released. They have also integrated with Google Maps to not only show the location of charging stations in their network, but through their network software they can determine which station is occupied at a given moment. This will allow customers to plan their route and choose the closest unoccupied station. The company has already formed a joint venture with a German company to distribute Charge Point stations throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia (EMEA). Although GridPoint’s V2Green has through their partnership in the “Pecan Street Project” marked Austin as their target. There are two PHEV vehicles on a proof-of-concept project with Austin Energy to determine the value of PHEVs as load-management resources. It will be interesting to see if these two California players make inroads in the Austin market in the next 3-5 years.

Web Sources:
http://cleantechnica.com/2009/02/18/smartlet-stations-charge-plug-in-vehicles-from-sidewalk/
http://www.coulombtech.com/aboutus.php
http://www.betterplace.com/
http://www.gridpoint.com/solutions/electricvehiclemanagement/
http://www.verdek-ev.com/MainPage.aspx
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/are-the-benefits-of-plug-in-hybrids-overstated-6014.html

V2G technology: Power stations on wheels

Imagine turning your car to a power station when it is lying idle at the parking lot when you are off to work and actually getting paid for it. That is V2G technology for you. V2G technology or vehicle to grid technology enables an electric-drive motor vehicle to export electric power to the grid when the vehicle is not in use for transportation. It can be used with gridable vehicles, like battery operated electric vehicles (BEVs), fuel cell run vehicles and plug in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs). Figure 1 below shows the V2Gtechnology as it is envisaged when fully developed.

Fig 1: Concept of V2G
(Source: Center for carbon free integration: The University of Delaware [1])

The main advantage of using V2G technology is that it turns the car into a power plant which can supply electricity to the grid when required. It makes sense since most vehicles remain parked at any point of time (95% for an average vehicle in America and 90% even during peak hours) according to some estimates [2]. It provides a way to supply electricity to the grid when it is required the most, during the peak demand hours like for instance the late afternoon hours while charging them during the off peak hours where fortunately in many places (Texas for instance), a lot of renewable power (like wind energy) is generated. This has the potential to spare the utility companies, at least partly of the need to invest in the creation of spare capacity to cater to the peak hour electricity demand.

The Center for Carbon free integration at the University of Delaware headed by Dr. Willet Kempton has created a system that uses this technology. In this video [3], Dr. Kempton explains about this system which has been fitted on an electric car as a prototype. Google Inc. [5], in collaboration with P.G and E has employed this technology on Toyota Prius cars with PHEV capacity at its headquarters at Mountain View, CA.

An additional advantage is that the car, instead of supplying electricity to the grid, can also be used to power homes directly by plugging it to the mains as explained by Dr. Kempton in the above video3. This is especially useful during times of blackouts [4]. Using V2G technology also has environmental benefits as the cars themselves are emissions free. Provided we could generate a good percentage of our electricity from renewable sources [5], they could help reduce carbon emissions. It also results in cost benefits to consumers as it would be cheaper for them to utilize electricity at a lower rate while charging during off peak hours while either selling electricity to the utility companies or powering their homes during peak hours when the per unit rate of electricity is higher. It also makes sense for utility companies on account of savings arising due to lowered capital costs as they are spared of the need to invest in the creation of additional capacity [4].

Further research is underway on different aspects of the V2G technology [5], including the idea of smart charging, systems to control the amount of electricity that could be fed back to the grid, besides further trials of this system by universities, utility companies as well as car manufacturers. According to some estimates, the commercialization of this technology is at least ten years away, by which time PHEVs should have penetrated the car market to a significant extent and hence serve as the media on which this technology could potentially be deployed.
On the flip side, there is also a lot of skepticism [6] about this technology mainly in the areas of the compatibility of the power electronics between the system fitted in the car and the ones used for the grid, the longevity of batteries, their weight as well as the number of charge and discharge cycles they could be subject to, as well as the plug in infrastructure. Further research is needed before this technology could be deployed on a large scale and it could be some years before this becomes a reality. However, one thing is for sure, V2G technology holds great promise for the future.

References
1) "V2G concept", Center for Carbon free power integration, The University of Delaware.
2) J. Tomi´c, W. Kempton, J. Power Sources (2007), "Using electric fleet drive vehicles for grid support", Journal of Power sources, doi:10.1016/j.jpowsour.2007.03.010 (article in press)
3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5639ceWg0us
4) "Power to the people: Run your house on a Prius" New York Times (09/02/2007)
5) Vehicle to grid V2G technology, www.solarnavigator.net
6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJgRznnjYm0&e

Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Technology Aims To Help Electricity Grids Use Renewable Generation

Newly elected President Obama just unveiled his 'American Reinvestment and Recovery Plan'. Part of this plan is a push for renewable energy, including a promise to double it in three years. Possibly more telling and exciting is the inclusion of a commitment for “3,000 miles of new or modernized transmission lines and 40 million 'Smart Meters' in American homes.” The reason this is important is because the current system cannot handle significant increases in renewable energy.

Our nation's industrialization and subsequent use of fossil fuels has given our society access to a switchable utility system. That is, when steam engine train conductors or coal plant operators wished to alter a supply of energy, they could simply add fuels to burn and convert to energy at any time they wished. Because of this, our electric grid is designed to simply deliver peak-load supply, i.e. the grid is built to have the necessary capacity for the maximum energy use on a hot day in the summer. If users are pulling more Watts from the system, grid operators can just switch the system to deliver more Amperes.

Renewable generation technologies including photovoltaic (PV) modules and wind turbines do not follow this model. These sources of energy cannot be controlled such as those provided by fossil fuels. These sources require the sun to shine and the wind to blow, respectively. For grid operators, increasing the use of these sources adds undesirable fluctuations of available energy. This is especially true for localized distributed generation sources such as solar panels on residential homes. Connecting these sources to the grid changes the makeup of the grid in unpredictable ways that make grid operators unable to properly evaluate system load requirements and locate system faults. Additionally, energy consumers cannot be expected to utilize renewable generation at the instant it is most abundant. Consumers are unlikely to dim their lights until the sun is bright or to complete their most power intensive computing when an impeding storm causes high wind speeds. Clearly, our electric grid will need to be updated in order to use more renewable energy.

Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology is one possible way researchers hope to improve the stability and reliability of our grid when incorporating renewable generation. The idea, originating from University of Delaware Professor Willett Kempton, is that the electrification of our transportation fleet goes hand-in-hand with the inclusion of renewable energy in our grid. He and other researchers argue that the Lithium-ion batteries on fully electric and partially electric vehicles can be used to temporarily store and redistribute energy to and from the grid. This means that your future Prius may come with a two-way connection to the grid. Professor Kempton argues that because 95% of vehicles are parked at any given time, a significant number of electric vehicles could potentially end reliable concerns of variable energy supplies.

An analogy with a different technology that you are using as you read this post may help illustrate how this works. Imagine that our information superhighway was changed to where there was no storage involved. Each bit and byte had to be available at all times so it could be delivered instantaneously upon request by the consumer. This is how our energy system works today. However, due to Internet protocols and storage technology, we do not have those requirements. As you access this post you are utilizing storage components within the Internet structure, and as you read this post you are utilizing storage on your personal computer. In fact, one crucial component of a V2G system is information technology that tells the grid when and where to pull and deliver energy.

The city of Newark, Delaware, is now testing a demo V2G system. Professor Kempton envisions a situation where consumers will be compensated by energy companies to enable V2G to pull from their vehicles. The Smart Meters necessary for V2G could also be used to give energy prices that correspond to the demand. This would encourage the public to buy into V2G systems because they could opt to sell energy when the price was highest.

Of course, problems still need to be clarified and researched further including the impact of V2G on the life-cycle on the Lithium-Ion batteries currently installed on electric vehicles. However, hope is increasing for V2G as politicians accept the need to modernize our electric grid as we increase our use of renewable energy.