Some think ahead on EVs

Posted by tED magazine on Monday, February 20, 2012

By Joe Salimando

At the Feb. 8-9 National Electricity Forum, a breakout session’s unwieldy title was: “Game Changers: How Deployment of Plug-In Electric Vehicles and Grid-Scale Energy Storage Technologies will Impact the 21^st Century Electricity Industry.”

Note: See earlier Special Report on energy storage.

Quick point: Moderator Mark Ferron (California Public Utilities Commission) said the state’s goal for 85% of its cars be “zero-emission vehicles” by 2050. Along the way, 15% of the cars sold in 2025 must be zero-emission types…which might or might not be EVs.

GM’s Tale

Perhaps because she was speaking to an audience of utility regulators, utility people, and electricity people from the DOE, Britta Gross of GM talked about V2G and V2H.

“Director, global/energy systems and infrastructure commercialization,” which has something to do with EVs, is Gross’s title. Second, the NEF conference’s theme was the future of electricity (out to 2035). So her remarks weren’t off-base.

However, at least one person in the audience (the one typing these words) is skeptical of V2G – and, while we’re at it, V2H.

V2G = vehicle-to-grid. The idea: We’ve got battery-only EVs. The cars move around 1 hour (average) each day; they are parked the other 23 hours – including at a workplace for 8 hours or more on weekdays.

Let the utility suck some of the electricity out of the cars during periods of peak power demand. This reduces the need for additional power generation; EV owners might even be paid a bit of cash each time.

Futuristic thinking here:

• you’ll charge your car at home,
• drive it to work fully “fueled” with electrons,
• the utility sucks electrons out of your batteries
• when you drive home, you’ll enough some power left;        
• the utility pays you (hopefully, a more than you paid the night before); and
• you’ll be paid a bit extra, to compensate you for the reduced useful life of the batteries.

All this works, maybe – unless EV owners can say NO.

Let’s move on to V2H, supplying power to your house from your car. Under what situation would this be possible and/or smart?

a.       You power up the batteries at night, paying for cheap electricity.

b.      You call in sick, but you leave your car plugged in.

c.       There is a peak power event that day.

d.      Instead of buying power from the utility at peak rates, you suck some (relatively cheap) electrons out of your car.

Here’s the thing: How often do you plan to call in sick?

Battery info

Ms. Gross said interesting stuff about here and now, which I’ve boiled down to:

1. GM DOEsn’t have much experience with the lithium-ion batteries used in the Chevy Volt. The experience it has it is gaining – right now.

2. While batteries installed in the Volt have a 16 kW capacity, GM rigged things so drivers use only 10 kW. Why? It won’t let users run the battery all the way down – a sure way to reduce battery life.