Forget capacity. Can the grid handle plug-ins?
Is a smart grid required for plug-in hybrids?"The analog grid has served its purpose for the last half century, but the future requires an integrated, digital smart grid. This next-generation grid will allow customers to better manage their energy consumption while optimizing the grid through real-time generation management and distribution controls," stated Ray Gogel, CAO and vice president of customer and enterprise solutions of Xcel Energy, recently.
At NAIAS I spoke with a fan of the Chevy Volt whom kept reassuring me that there was plenty of excess electricity in the electric grid for plug-in hybrid vehicles and electric cars. However, when I asked, "What happens when you come home from work at 5:30 PM, when that excess capacity isn't in the grid? Do you set your alarm for 2:00 AM and then plug-in your car?"
While the grid might have extra capacity, that excess capacity is only available in a very small, finite window of opportunity, so it seems obvious that cars and the grid, for example, will need to communicate with each other via some sort of V2G technology. Still, how much will this new digital grid cost? And, will it benefit consumers as much as utility companies?
Labels: plug-in hybrid vehicles, v2g
posted by Dahcredyns at
10:46 AM
24 Comments:
Duh, that's why it's a hybrid. At 5:30pm in the middle of the summer, if you can't bring yourself to use a little gasoline, then I guess you have to stay home until the morning.
What? You completely missed the point. You have to think about 10 years from now when there could be millions of plug-in hybrids tapping into the grid.
At 5:30 PM, with today's grid, there isn't enough excess electric capacity in the grid to power a large fleet of electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids - that is the goal, right? You'd knock out the grid or, minimally, pay a much higher amount for your power.
So, again, do you wait to plug-in your car until after midnight - when you are probably asleep - when excess capacity is available? Most Americans are not going to accept that.
Until there is a smart grid with V2G technology that enables a car and the grid to communicate, then you can't control the timing of recharges, which will be CRITICALLY important if America ever starts powering millions of electric vehicles.
So, the point is how much would a smart grid cost, and will it benefit utilities far more than customers.
For example, if you have a solar power system in Los Angeles and you sell electricity back to the grid, you only receive a small amount of the value of that electricity. Some utilities have rigged the grid AGAINST solar power.
With electric cars, V2G technology is going to enable utilities to tap into the power stored in your batteries. Will this cause wear and tear on batteries? Will the rate from utility to car and from car to utility be the same?
These are questions that consumers must ask because if we allow for-profit corporations and the government to develop the solution, it will be the people - as it always is - that get screwed for the benefit of shareholder value and lobbyist kickbacks.
Ultimately, America's electric grid has the capacity to power a fleet of electric cars, but it DOES NOT have the ability to manage that capacity effectively enough to power that fleet.
A smart, digital grid will be a requirement to plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. If taxpayers are going to bear the brunt of that cost for this new grid, we should at least make sure it's built to our advantage, rather than to the advantage of utility stock holders.
You answered your own question. A digital grid would surely give the homeowner power over when the car is charged. Plug it in and then program the outlet to charge your vehicle in the middle of the night, "sensing" when demand upon the grid is lowest...
Yes, I did answer the title of my post. NO. The grid cannot handle plug-ins without a smart grid.
However, the question asked in the post was about costs, which I did not answer.
My question is who is going to fund this smart grid, and if tax payers help fund the grid, how can we ensure that utilities don't screw the owners of plug-in hybrids much the same way that some utilities screw the owners of solar installations?
The costs of upgrading the electric grid into a smart grid will surge well into the billions, probably many, many billions. Why do you think utilities are so into the idea of plug-ins? It's cha-ching, bundles of unaccounted for government money.
Plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles are extremely important developments in the automotive world, but making them a cost-effective reality is far more complicated than just building the vehicles.
Even more interesting, I've now talked to numerous top-level auto executives from multiple automakers and all of them have indicated that if the electrification of the automobile occurs, there is a good chance that nuclear power will be needed.
If you believe in nuclear power that's great, but a significant percent of Americans aren't supportive of such a development. These issues will have to be reconciled, so why not start addressing reality right away?
BTW-
When Congress investigated legislation for a smart grid to better manage air conditioning across the US, it was estimated to cost between $14 billion and $26 billion, and that was just for the smart technology - not the cost of upgrading the grid, etc.
Expanding this program to handle tens of millions of cars is sure to raise this tab much higher.
Millions of people, plugging in their cars to power plants, many of which will still be burning fossil fuels? No way. Plus, these cars will still rely on gasoline after a certain amount of time on the road. This is the wrong way. Blowing $20bil or more here is just a waste, plus it locks in legitimacy for a dead end technology. The grid, digital or not, is the next dinosaur we should be getting away from. Wireless is the way, and I think that should include automobiles. A car is perfect for harnessing solar and wind energy. Fuel cells to get it going, and solar/wind for sustaining, is the goal. More improvements with solar/wind are what we need.
see Obama's policy statement on this. He proposes funding the transition to a digital grid.
The grid can't handle a fleet of electric cars all plugging in at 5:30 pm every day? It would create a spike in demand, but so do air conditioners all turning on when it gets hot outside, the power companys manages to deal with that. I can't see any benefit to the common man by adding digital communication to the inherently analog power grid. If the price per kilowatt is higher at peak usage times of the day, then the recharging receptacle could be programmed to turn on during non-peak hours which is simple and effective. The only party to benefit from a "digital grid" would be the utility company.
Since we are looking 10 years ahead, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that solar panels on rooftops(or wind or mabey home fuel cell generators in some instances)should be more attractive and affordable. Use the grid as a huge buffer to smooth out demand but effectively charge your car from you or your neighbors solar panels. This is not to say that a Digital grid is a bad idea at all. I just think there are other ways to solve this problem.
Hold on folks: Facts here please the one here closest to the facts is infact "dahcredyns". I work in a very large industrial setting and in close operations with the local power utility. Facts on this matter are very complicated and not for someone (not trying to be an idiot here but if you overstep your boundry on my industry back off you don't know anything of what your talking about) When we so much as blow a single fuse on our main feed substation this affects the "Tri-state area" thats right we get an immeadiate call from Mass / NY / and Jersey. If you find this hard to understand without me writing seven pages which I aint doing .............this is merely to "quickly throw some quick rules out to this post" Florida just had an interesting issue happen. To keep it simple Fl is ofcourse a huge state and look how simply an issue can greatly affect thousands. You have to understand most houses are energy in-efficent single phase energy wasters NO MATTER WHAT YOU BUY OR DO. Your cheap Sears air compressor in your garage is at best with its mountain of capacitors 82.5% that basicly meens that it is "off" 17.5% of the time. That meens your refrigerator A/C basement pump / pool pump / atic fan / anything with a motor is just a hog on power. Houses right from the start are killers. This is where you people must start to understand what has to be done first. Do you really think that your new washer or dryer is more eff than your 1998 washer? Did you ever wonder why grandma's electric bill is cheaper than your new home with all the latest and greatest gagets? A CLUE FOR YOU!! Grandma's stove without the clock is actualy OFF when she's done with it. Yours lights up the flourescent clock the logic board inside. Your fancy dishwasher is on waiting for that inevitable command on its micro sensing pad for a "touch comand" Now add up all that standing logic overhead microwave over your stove the garage door opener "waiting" as it rolls new safety codes constantly through the night / your home alarm keypad light and logics / your phone answering machine fax machine waiting logics electronic furnases powered up thermostats with backlite clocks nightlights LED or bulb still adds up!And its all single phase power in a house: What am I talking about phases???? Please look this up and research it yourself I'll keep this simple for the reader here on a typical home---your house is going on and off 60 times a second ya its true the light behind you is off 60 times a second. The filiment just doesn't have the time to totaly de-light itself. The capacitors in your computer which is actualy DC power after your power supply smooth and makes things possible to stay on longer smoother. Wanna catch the power with the human eye!? Watch on a non digital broadcast and look at the tvs in the background looks like all there tvs are endlessly scrolling eh? You are actually catching the on/off cycle through the slower camera speed in the transmission. Years ago it was decided that 60hz = frequency at which we use power in the US 50hz in europe was the speed that humans could work in without getting headaches (you may notice you get headaches if your area uses flourecent lighting. (New high frequency energy eff ballasts are the new saviors in this plight)But back to the issue of the topic at hand you need lots of "smart" grid style workings because you have to have "anticipators" that can plan ahead for loads. I wrote earlier that we got called when we tripped a fuse. When we fire up this one unit we have it is equal to 5 hundred homes (large homes at that) coming on line we can't just turn it on it doesn't work like that. #1 if we did we would be so fined from the utilitys it would be cheaper if the plant stayed down for two weeks! They in short would FREAK! We have a stepping processor controler that starts it slowly on early Sunday morning and brings it up to temp by Monday morning around 8 am this is not an option it is mandatory. When you come on line you surge the high tension lines every weak spot in the transmission circuit is "hit" power transmission lines actually move when jolted in load! YES those big overhead lines will try and pull themselves to eachother in a bad situation!! They don't put those wires so many feet apart because its a nice arougant thing to do on those high tension towers. There are technical reasons / engineering complications. If even 150k people went home between 4:30pm and 6:30pm plugged in there hybrid , hit the A/C put on big screen tvs / fired up there stoves for dinner kids computers lighting street lighting all typical "stuff" when we get to our homes....ya our office is still semi up and running till about 8pm (depending here largely on what type of industry in short DON'T FOOL YOURSELF... THAT POWER PLANT IS HUMMIN!!Oh buy the way,,,, the most used thing in the operation of a powerplant to date is coal...yep so the more load the more fossil fuel (in massive quantitys is used). And several southern states may add to the mix soon as the water is now so low in Atlanta / Fl / NC SC that the Nukes may have to power down as the water is getting so low its getting to close to the cooling pipes and there isn't enough "makeup water" fo cooling capacity.
I agree that Hybrid technology is nice gesture for the time being, Chevron reported that in 2007, they sold TEN TIMES MORE OIL THAN THEY REACQUIRED!!, the day after I read that Venezuala started jerking Exxon around, can you imagine what would happen if OPEC read that and decided to be extra jerky and do the same? I feel that hybrid technology is still a dead end technology. It doesn't really matter if you get 45mpg, oil is only going to get more expensive. Granted, in 10 years I hope the hybrid technology is giving us twice that, but to be honest, it reallys hasn't come that far in the last 10 years since the first hybrid cars came out.
Maybe I was just out of the loop but it does seem like it was never so cool to be driving an SUV until gas prices started sky rocketing. Funny thing is that American car companies are still producing probably 5 or 6 SUV/truck models per Sedan. How many people they actually find dumb enough to buy those at the outrageous prices they charge for them, I'm not sure. All I know is that it's not merely for the reliability of their cars that Japanese companies like Hondas and Toyotas are kicking GM's and Ford's but (although that's true too and don't get me started on how American car companies need to get their head out of their @$$s. No, I think it has equally as much to do with fuel efficiency and just having the looming feeling that in 6 months I could be paying $4.50 a gallon similar to how between March 2006 and 6 months later, gas increased by a whole dollar and has never gone down remotely close to $2 since. You know that if we make cars more fuel efficient, that will only allow oil companies to charge more for it.
YAY, let's dump billions of dollars into our electric grid for plug in hybrids so that we can stay dependant on foreign oil for longer!
At best, hybrid cars are delaying the inevitable (slightly). In a study done by the pentagon, and I definitely believe this, if you count tax dollars going into the war and other measures to secure oil, Americans are already paying $10/gallon for gas (and that was 4 years ago, things are a lot worse now I'm sure). Hybrid technology is just something to tide us over until more progress has been made on a front that is totally different from being based on foreign oil
If they come out cost effective fully electric cars with a backup gas engine just to limp to an electric refueling station or something, that might be doable. The oil companies are going to have a hayday and seeings how they have been posting 40 billion dollar profits, I don't see that happening any time soon because I'm sure their lobbying power is next to omnipotence.
As for the point of this story. All you'd have to do is set an alarm clock type thing for your car so that it knows to only recharge between 11pm and 5am or something unless otherwise told. Leave this the factory default. My friend has a trinket similar to this concept that cost $3 that his cable modem is plugged into so that the internet is automatically turned off at night and comes on in the morning. This isn't rocket science. Obviously there is probably a lot of other benefits to a smart grid that I don't fully understand, but basically there needs to be classes in school teaching kids how not to be ecological/electrical morons if you ask me. This is a very real problem, it's just tree huggers seeing the problems at this point.
More people should learn about electric vehicles as a solution. "Zero emissions" is something that's going to be required by law one day (you know it will). Making the decision to go electric is far cheaper anyway, like 10 cents on the dollar vs. gas. (source: zapworld.com)
More people should learn about electric vehicles as a solution. "Zero emissions" is something that's going to be required by law one day (you know it will). Making the decision to go electric is far cheaper anyway, like 10 cents on the dollar vs. gas. (source: zapworld.com)
What's the issue? I have economy heaters at home which run on a timer and only heat up at night when the electric is cheaper. Thats just the same principle.
Dahcredyns, how old are most power plants? You're stuck in the last century. The Government you are so fond of bashing (the one that paid to invent the internet, the transistor, and the compact disk) is actively working to create smaller and more efficient power utilization. Efficient devices. Better solar generation. ultra-efficient power amplifiers (current state of the art is 9% - next gen - my current project - is 40%).
If we relied on the efficiencies of 70s technology (the average age of power generation plants in the US is 47 years old!), we'd behind on energy production today. Adding additional wind and solar to the grid and more efficient data centers, and there should be enough power to handle the increase.
You know, I don't think people would have to wake up to plug their vehicles in at a certain time ... recepticle & circuit timers have been around for years and years now ...
anon-
"recepticle & circuit timers" have been around for years and years now, but they won't be sufficient to manage the amount of juice that plug-in hybrids will require.
more important, you'll want to be able to send power back into the grid to help make these vehicles more cost-effective.
plus, if standard timers will handle the problem why are so many companies getting into the V2G space.
also, when electric cars go electric, people will want to update their electrical systems so that more electicity can be moved from grid to car faster.
the move to the grid is a good move, but it isn't nearly as simplistic as you believe.
old guy-
then you should know better than anyone the state of our grid and the costs to repair, unless of course you're into the game for the money??
a squirrel has knocked down the grid in a significant part of the us recently.
california can't manage AC surge in the summer and we experience blackouts every summer.
when congress investigated smart grid technology to manage air conditioners, they cost was 10's of billions, but getting the grid to manage electric cars will be a cake walk???
please, your belief in the government is so last century.
BTW - I'm not arguing against the electrification of the automobile, just a significant amount more transparency into that process, so lobbyists, contractors and shareholders aren't the only ones whom benefit from that electrification.
sorry for not trusting the government - they have such a great track record when it comes to energy policy!
back to capacity for a second. Just finished watching a segment on cnbc on how to invest in the deteriorating electric grid - not my words - but the words of an energy analyst.
essentially, the analyst spoke about how since the midwest and east coast blackouts, little has been done to make the grid more robust at handling blackout situations.
even worse, by 2010, he stated that the electric grid will be COMPLETELY out of spare capacity.
isn't it time that america WAKES UP and accepts the reality that our electric grid - in terms of capacity, production, and grid reliability - is in the stone ages as we move into the digital revolution and the electrification of the automobile?
Can someone explain to me what the true cost tradeoff is between using gas or electricity? How much electricity (kWh) does it take to fully charge a plug-in hybrid car battery? How long does that take? Then how many miles can you go on the fully-charged battery?
maureen-
that are a lot of variables to answering that question. for example, the weight of a car is going to affect the efficiency of battery of life, for example.
also, filling the car with electricity could, in theory, happen quite quickly, but a standard electric socket, even the wiring itself, is only able to transmit so much electricity. of course, this could be assisted via vehicle to grid technology.
in terms of costs, i've seen numbers, but i don't have the mathematics in front of me, and its oo early in the morning (i just woke up) for me to remember where i might find them. however, if you charge during off-peak hours, its pennies on the dollar, according to gm.
nonetheless, our grid is in poor shape, so billions of dollars in upgrades will be required, of course many of those upgrades will be required without plug-ings. also, we're dangerously close to running out of spare capacity, so new forms of power generation are going to be required, which will also cost billions of dollars, especially initially, particularly if nuclear is used because its so expensive upfront.
i love plug-in hybrids and i would use one because i would power my plug-in significantly from solar power. for those using the grid, there are still a lot of questions - all surmountable - but still a lot of questions.
Perhaps the chargers on the plug in hybrids could have a timer to start at 2am, that way the grid itself doesn't have to be updated.
that's something being investigated, but its not as easy as it sounds.
first you're talking about a lot of juice, its not like recharging your flashlight battery. the batteries in EVs will be able to power your house temporarily.
vampire electronics already account for a significant percent of power consumed. if cars just started plugging with a generic timer, they would still be sucking juice, collectively, a massive amount of juice even when the timer wasn't running.
the most positive studies indicate that in a perfect world there is enough juice in the grid during non-peak hours to power about an 80 percent conversion to EVS if timed PERFECTLY.
how often in life do things work perfectly?
this is an issue being seriously investigated by automakers like gm, many utilies, and many third party companies - that's a fact. while i absolutely believe in the potential of PHEVs and EVs, advocates need to realize that the electric grid needs serious updates in infrastructure and seriously more electricity generation.
thinking that just building evs is enough is not enough. we need a more comprehensive energy policy that doesn't just reward EVs but clean electricity generation, a more distributed grid, V2G technology and this shouldn't be achieved through only corporate tax credits, in my opinion, but tax credits for consumers.
in the southwest, for example, every homeowner should be well incentivized to add solar to their roof because it would be good for consumers and technology manufacturers and it strengthens america's energy infrastructure.
in reality, the average homeowner in the southwest has enough roof space to power their house and two EVs. then there would be plenty of capacity in the grid for everyone else that doesn't have a house, and it would be cheaper.
and, therein lies the problem, doesn't it? politicians have people to pay off and somtimes doing the right thing isn't much of a payoff. that's why EV advocates need to do more than advocate for EVs, updating the grid will be just as essential, but it won't happen as expeditiously as needed if left to the politicians, even if they are all democrats.
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