Could Electric Vehicles Kill the Power Grid?

In August 2003, 55 million Americans and Canadians lost power for two days in the largest blackout in American history. While this blackout was largely a product of human (and software) error, it's a compelling example of what can happen to the grid when the right -- or wrong -- circumstances align.
Electric vehicles, or EVs, are gaining in popularity. According to the International Energy Agency, global sales of EVs doubled from 2011 to 2012, while here in the U.S., the Electric Drive Transportation Association reported that sales of plug-in cars nearly doubled from 2012 to 2013, and are on track to grow by 30% in 2014. From 2011 to 2013, the percentage of cars sold that featured electric drive -- this includes hybrids and plug-ins of all types -- increased from 2.3% to 3.8%, a whopping 50% jump.
What's the potential impact of adding all these new vehicles to America's power grid -- a power grid that has been described as old enough that Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison would recognize many of its components?
After all, it only takes two EVs to equal the power demand of one average American home.


The impact of a single electric vehicle

The most popular fully electric vehicle in the U.S. is the Tesla Motors. Model S sedan, with the company expecting to deliver 35,000 in 2014. Furthermore, Tesla management expects to be building cars at a rate of 100,000 per year by the end of 2015, enormous growth from today's levels.
According to Tesla, the average driver would need about 4,800 kilowatt hours, or kWh, of electricity per year to travel 15,000 miles. The average American home pays $0.12 per kWh, so you're looking at about $576 per year in additional electricity cost. Compared to a gas-powered car that gets 25 mpg and paying $3.85 per gallon, that's a cost savings of $1,700 per year. That's pretty awesome, if you don't mind paying more than $70 grand for a Model S.
But what's the impact of that 4,800 kWh on power usage? According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average residential customer consumed just over 10,800 kWh in 2012, so we are talking about increasing power use by a whopping 44% per home, per electric vehicle. There are more than 115 million households in the country. Here's what power consumption -- just for residential customers -- would look like based on an EV in every driveway:

Adding to the load at the worst possible time

Adding 44% to the demand load isn't the big risk with EVs, because our grid has capacity to meet additional demand. The problem is when so much of that new demand is concentrated into a narrow window of time. Residential power consumption tends to peak in the late afternoon and early evening, when people arrive home from work and school en masse.
The concern with EVs, then, is that the power demand they add to the grid isn't distributed evenly over the day. Going back to information supplied by Tesla, the average daily commuter would pack that new demand into about 90 minutes, potentially every afternoon when he or shre returned home from work, right when residential power demand is peaking.


Technology and time to the rescue

While plug-in vehicle sales are rapidly escalating, the raw numbers are still relatively small. Sales did double from 2012-2013, but the actual increase was from about 55,000 units to just under 100,000. Through July 2014, EDTA reported just over 66,000 plug-ins sold in the U.S. This would put total plug-ins sold since 2010 at just below 235,000 cars, adding a more manageable level of demand to the grid.
The IEA's EV Initiative has set a goal of having 20 million electric vehicles on the road globally by 2020. That's an enormous increase from today's levels, but not enough to even remotely put the grid at risk in the U.S.
Power companies such as CenterPoint Energy are beginning to take a closer look at the impact now, before it becomes a threat. As the Houston Chronicle recently profiled, CenterPoint is working with makers of EVs today in order to be prepared to manage demand later.
Just as technology is allowing plug-in vehicles of all kinds to grow market share, technology will also be the answer for the ability of the grid and utilities to meet future demand. One of the simplest ways to manage demand already exists, via charging only during set times of the day. The best -- and cheapest -- time to charge an EV is very late at night when energy demand is lowest.
This corresponds to utilities still operating baseload power plants, which are largely underutilized at these hours, because not only is household demand at its lowest, but commercial and industrial needs are also lower. This increased demand would actually be a boon for utilities, which frankly are losing money at these hours due to the incredibly high fixed costs associated with operating a power plant.
Technology that can actively control when a car is charging is a major possibility. Utilities can offer incentives to EV owners to allow the utility to actively manage charging, and reduce or alter a charging cycle in real time based on grid use.


Distributed utilities, in-home power storage part of the solutionSome estimates put sales of plug-ins at a half-million units per year by 2023, and there will be demand on the grid. However, the same technology that is putting EVs on the road in growing numbers -- cheaper, better batteries -- could offset some of the demand on the grid.

Earlier this year, SolarCity -- another company backed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk -- announced that it was partnering with Tesla to offer battery storage for residential and commercial customers. While it will be years before this technology becomes established and affordable, and before utilities and regulators allow it in many markets, the potential for EV owners to store power from solar systems, to use later for things like charging an electric vehicle, could be a reality when EV sales reach levels that could threaten grid operators.


Final thoughts: It's a long road

It's going to be a decade before enough EVs are in enough driveways to make this a serious threat, and you can be sure that technology will keep advancing at the same time. These advances will largely address the potential threats that EVs present.

Warren Buffett's worst auto-nightmare (Hint: It's not Tesla)

 A major technological shift is happening in the automotive industry. Most people are skeptical about its impact. Warren Buffett isn't one of them. He recently called it a "real threat" to one of the most important businesses he's ever invested in. An executive at Ford called the technology "fantastic." The beauty for investors is that there is an easy way to ride this megatrend.

Source : The Motley Fool, by Jason Hall, August 24, 2014

 

Electric Vehicles Could Save U.S. Utilities From A Death Spiral

In the past year, much has been written by various analysts concerning the risk to the utilities of declining sales volumes as a consequence of numerous factors, especially on-site solar. Every time a solar panel goes onto a roof, sales volumes decline. In May, Barclays downgraded the entire U.S. utility sector to underweight, focusing on the threat of on-site solar and the potential for storage as well. The Barclays analysts commented:

In the 100+ year history of the electric utility industry, there has never before been a truly cost-competitive substitute available for grid power. We believe that solar + storage could reconfigure the organization and regulation of the electric power business over the coming decade.

But it’s not just solar power that utilities need to be concerned about. Each time an LED bulb supplants an incandescent, sales volumes for that application of illumination drop by 70 or 80%. A similar dynamic applies with efficient appliances and other measures.


Innovation And Disruption Is The New Normal
To some extent, we are developing a nascent trend of substituting commodities with intelligence and improved technologies. And that is a good thing. As a society, we want that to happen. To some extent, it has to happen if we are to successfully get out of this climate change box we have created and create space on this planet for another three billion souls. It also makes us more economically competitive and frees up capital for other uses.
And yet, if utility sales dry up too quickly and companies go into free-fall, as has happened in Germany where the utilities lost half a trillion Euros in market capitalization, that is not necessarily a good thing. Innovation and disruption may be beneficial, but the pace of change matters.
However, disruption and innovation can also involve shifts that move benefits and losses from one industry to another. And if the electric industry can steal from the petroleum industry by vastly increasing the number of EVs, perhaps everybody wins except for the oil exporters (whom we are generally not so fond of anyway).


Could A Wholesale Shift To Electric Vehicles Save The Day?
The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) just came out with a report extolling the virtues of electric vehicles (EVs), and arguing for their rapid adoption in order to maintain sales volumes and restore health to a threatened industry. EEI states that “electrification is our biggest opportunity.” The Institute comments in the report that 93% of energy in the transportation industry today comes from petroleum, and that electrification of the transportation fleet could benefit the economy and the environment, while offering utilities new opportunities to engage their customers.

Against the backdrop of slowing growth in the electric power industry, bringing electricity to the transportation sector is a huge, albeit long-term opportunity for load growth.”

In one sense, you would think that this is obvious, but you would not know it yet by the actions of the utilities themselves: to date only 1.7% of the vehicles purchased for the utility fleets in the past five years have been electric. So much for eating one’s own dog food.
The good news is that this dynamic can change quickly, if the will is there. EEI comments that over 200,000 plug-in EVs are currently on the road. Last year, approximately 96,000 plug-in EVs were sold in the U.S. and we are on track to increase that number by approximately one-third in 2014. It seems as if every manufacturer is now offering a model: even Mercedes Benz just started taking orders for its S500 model (for $146,000 you get the equivalent of 442 hp equivalent, can accelerate from 0-60 in 5.2 seconds, and reach a top speed of about 155 mph).
It’s not just cars, either. Electric pick-ups and service trucks offer superior performance, while school buses would have distinct advantages over their diesel brethren, according to a recent University of Delaware study.
As far as vehicles specifically dedicated to the service of electric utilities, EEI cites a number of benefits from an electrification, including:

• Reduced operating costs over the vehicle lifetime
• Extended lives based on mechanical simplicity
• Improved crew safety through noise reduction
• Extended work hours in areas where noise restrictions would otherwise be a limiting factor
• Enhanced brand image

 

 

EVs Bring Other Valuable And Capabilities To The Electric Power Grid

 

And then there is the potential value of being able to use electric batteries to provide services to the grid, such as shifting demand to when it can be best accommodated -usually to off-peak hours – and providing other services which enhance grid reliability (such things as frequency modulation and voltage regulation).
EEI notes that plug in hybrids with a liquid fuel and battery combination (set up in the same way as the Chevy Volt) serve another potentially useful purpose. A utility service vehicle with this type of architecture could provide ‘exportable power.’ That is, they could essentially serve as mobile generators on wheels – providing as much as 125 kilowatts of power which could be delivered right to the distribution grid. The first such ‘Class 5’ vehicle will be in testing by the end of this year, with Pacific Gas & Electric working to develop the appropriate interfaces and protocols relative to safety.


Time To Plug It In And Get Going
U.S. electric utilities need to find new sources for electricity demand. With batteries that can store a day or more of typical household electricity use, (the largest Tesla battery, at 85 kWh, can store the equivalent of four days of average household use) EV’s can clearly suck up a good deal of juice. If adopted in large numbers, EVs could help offset declining power demand.
The utilities also need to find ways to increase adoption of renewable energy sources, particularly solar power. Properly coordinated, and with intelligent and market-aware software, EVs can represent a critical storage component to the grid, facilitating the integration of more renewable energy. Finally, as noted, electric vehicles have numerous advantages that are specifically of value to the utility industry.
U.S. utilities are under a lot of pressure in this new and disruptive world they now find themselves in. If they are suitably forward looking and take advantage of the opportunities, they could become proactive agents of disruption and positive change. They probably don;t have much choice in the matter.
The EEI study puts it bluntly:

The bottom line is that the electric utility industry needs the electrification of the transportation sector to remain viable and sustainable in the long term. While the market has started moving in this direction and the technology has been proven, there is still more to be done. .. Electrifying our own fleets is an important first step in moving the industry forward.

To that end, The Edison Electric Institute is laying down a challenge, asking each of its member utilities to spend 5% of its annual fleet purchases on plug-in vehicles. OPEC’s probably not worried yet. Maybe it should be…

Source : Forbes, by Peter Kelly-Detwiler

Why Electric Vehicles Are Beating Hydrogen Cars Today

While electric vehicles (EVs) have experienced a marketplace renaissance in the last decade, hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs) have not. Multiple models of EVs (like the Tesla and Nissan Leaf) and plug-in EVs (like the Chevy Volt) are selling in this country and around the world, but there are no commercial consumer FCVs yet.
Moreover, at least two major manufacturers – Tesla and GM — are in pursuit of the “Holy Grail” of EVs, an affordable (around $30,000) 200-mile range electric vehicle. One of the big reasons is steadily declining battery prices (see chart).

But the reason that EVs have been kicking FCV butt is more complicated, since fuel cells have also seen declining costs. To fully explain why EVs are winning now and why they are likely to keep winning for the foreseeable future — and why climate hawks should view that as good news — we need to understand why, until very recently, alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) haven’t had much success.

A significant literature has emerged to explain that lack of success by AFVs.
There have historically been seven major (interrelated) barriers to AFV success in the U.S. market:

1. High first cost for vehicle
2. On-board fuel storage issues (i.e. limited range)
3. Safety and liability concerns
4. High fueling cost (compared to gasoline)
5. Limited fuel stations: chicken and egg problem
6. Improvements in the competition (better, cleaner gasoline vehicles).
7. Problems delivering cost-effective emissions reductions

Every AFV ever introduced in the past three decades has suffered from at least three of those problems. Besides the tough competition (like the Prius), EVs have suffered most from #1 (high first cost) and #2 (limited range and slow speed of recharging). But major progress Is being made in both areas.
FCVs suffer from all of them — and still do! It is very safe to say that FCVs are the most difficult and expensive kind of AFV imaginable.
A big advantage EVs have, especially over FCVs, is their edge in #4. Not only have EVs long had a per-mile fueling cost below that of gasoline. Now that key renewable sources of electricity have seen amazing price drops — a 99 percent plunge for solar photovoltaics in the past quarter-century! — EVs are the only AFV to have a lower per-mile fueling cost for zero-carbon power than traditional cars running on gasoline! FCVs, as we have seen, are a very inefficient and wasteful user of carbon-free power.
In fact, new research from UBS, a leading Investment bank, finds “the 3-year total cost of ownership (TCO) of a Tesla S model is similar to that of a comparable petrol combustion engine car such as an Audi A7,” in places like Germany.

Even more revolutionary, UBS projects that “the payback time for unsubsidised investment in electric vehicles plus rooftop solar plus battery storage will be as low as 6-8 years by 2020.” An analogous claim is exceedingly unlikely to be made about FCVs for the foreseeable future.

Because of these advantages (and others discussed below), it is safe to say that if EVs continue to improve their ability to address the barriers they face, there will be little or no room in the consumer market for FCVs.
 

Obviously unless an AFV is significantly better at delivering emissions reduction than the marketplace competition, especially CO2 reductions, there isn’t really much reason for state or federal governments to devote substantial public sector resources to that AFV or its fueling infrastructure. And there’d be no reason for climate hawks to support that AFV.
On the the other hand, if the new AFV isn’t super-green compared to the (lower cost and more practical) alternatives, on what basis is the vehicle going to compete with the existing array of clean, fuel-efficient vehicles people can buy now without any compromises?
This brings us to #5, the chicken and egg problem — who will build and buy the AFVs in large quantity if a fueling infrastructure is not in place and who will build the fueling infrastructure before a large quantity of AFVs are built and bought. Infrastructure remains the most intractable barrier, especially for FCVs, as I’ll discuss in Part 4.

Here is where the big advantages of EVs start to appear, synergistically. The U.S. has 12 public hydrogen fueling stations versus more than 8,400 charging stations (and 20,000 charging outlets), according to the Energy Department’s “Alternative Fueling Station Locator.” If you include private stations, then it’s 58 hydrogen to over 10,000 electric!
In part that’s because hydrogen fueling stations cost a LOT more than electric charging station, millions of dollars versus 1 to 5 percent of that cost for EV charging. In part that’s because of the related problem of a lack of FCVs on the road (versus some 234,000 plug-in vehicles in the U.S. alone). A third related reason is that more governments and companies have an incentive to build EV stations than hydrogen stations.

And while charging at typical EV stations can still take hours, the super-fast charging stations some companies are now building can do a substantial charge in 25 minutes or less. And that is adequate for the kinds of rest/food area stops many people make on trips.
No, the EV hasn’t solved the range issue entirely, but it’s addressed it enough for many applications — including the city cars that are popular in many countries. And there’s every reason to believe battery and charging technology will continue their steady improvement, further opening up potential markets for EVs.
These are many of the reasons EVs have beaten hydrogen FCVs in the commercial market today. In Part 4, I’ll examine why it is unlikely FCVs will overcome their relative deficiencies to EVs for a long time to come.

Source : Climate Progress, by Joe Romm, August 25, 2014

California Bill Allows Renters To Install Electric-Car Charging Stations

Governor Brown’s goal of 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles by 2025 just got a boost. Assembly Bill (AB) 2565 will allow renters to install electric-car charging stations.

The amount of electric vehicles (EVs) on our roads more than doubled in the last year. With over 220,000 electric vehicles on US roads, about ⅓ of them are on the streets of California. As EVs become more prolific thanks to them being more environmentally friendly, less expensive to operate, and more of a treat to drive, these numbers are increasing every day.
Even though there are thousands of charging locations across California, the continued growth marks the need for more charging stations, and more charging stations will stimulate more growth.
With the goal of 1.5 million zero emission vehicles by 2025 closing in, and article in Capitol Weekly reports: “That’s why the governor should sign Assembly Bill (AB) 2565 into law. Authored by Assembly member Al Murastuchi, the legislation has now successfully passed both houses of the State Legislature with bipartisan support.”
Rental apartment restrictions have become a particular hindrance to continued electric car growth — many keep tenants from installing EV charging stations. This problem affects business and individual tenants. Both individuals and businesses need more freedom to install EV charging stations even if they rent.
Richard Lowenthal, the Chief Technical Officer of ChargePoint, which he co-founded in 2007, writes in Capitol Weekly: “AB 2565 is vital for expanding access to EV charging stations around the state. The legislation aims to address barriers for deploying stations in leased buildings, bringing access to charging stations to the more than 40% of Californians who live in multifamily housing.”
Lowenthal continues explaining the problem: “The deployment of EV charging infrastructure is increasing but not keeping up with today’s EV adoption rates. In 2012, the ratio of EVs to charging ports was about 7 to 1. As EV sales skyrocketed, the gap widened. In 2013, the ratio grew to about 8 to 1. To successfully grow the EV industry, it is imperative our legislators introduce and support policies that implement the installation of charging stations throughout California.”

The attraction of having EV charging stations at the workplace and business is well accepted. The problem remains that Californians who rent their homes or businesses run into obstacles. AB 2565 will change this, giving renter more rights as long as they pay.
The core issue that goes hand in hand with individual progress is that, with this legislation becoming law, not only will the EV industry succeed more easily, California will more likely reach its environmental goals. Clean air, less smog, less soot, less carbon monoxide, less burning of hydrocarbons and other toxic substances, fewer particulates being released into the air, and fewer CO2 emission being released into the atmosphere. This legislation is progress. I hope it spreads to others states around the country.

Source : Cleantechnica, by Cynthia Shahan

U.S. Utilities Push the Electric Car

As utilities across the U.S. grapple with stagnant electricity sales, many see opportunity in the fledgling need for electric-car charging stations. But some companies' tactics are spurring complaints from consumer advocates.

Electricity companies are asking permission to let them tack on fees to customer bills to fund pilot projects for building networks of charging stations. Critics say the requests are unfair because they would make all customers pay the high cost of experimental equipment even though it would benefit only a few—often affluent—people.

In San Diego, Sempra Energy's power utility wants to install 5,500 electric-car chargers at hundreds of office parks, apartment buildings and condominium complexes at a cost of $100 million. The company says convenient, easy-to-use charging stations will encourage more Californians to adopt electric cars, improving air quality for everyone. The utility wants to add a surcharge to all San Diego customers' bills.

The Utility Reform Network, a nongovernmental organization that fights rate increases, has asked state regulators to reject the new fee, about 40 cents a month for an average customer.

It is inappropriate to ask consumers to pay for risky business ventures, says Marcel Hawiger, a lawyer for the group. The equipment might not prove profitable in the long term or quickly could become outdated, he says. "Shareholders should fund business opportunities for the company."

As products from light bulbs to refrigerators become more energy efficient, U.S. electricity usage has gone flat. The prospect of more electric cars on the road—and plugged into power sockets when they aren't—could revive demand for power. But consumers have been reluctant to buy electric cars, partly because of their limited range. Nissan Motor Co.'s plug-in Leaf can travel around 80 miles on a single charge.

The Edison Electric Institute, an industry trade group, last month encouraged U.S. utilities to use electric vehicles to entice more consumers to embrace the cars. There are only 200,000 electric cars in the U.S., according to the Electric Power Research Institute.

Sales of individual electric cars are beginning to rise. Americans registered more than 46,000 new plug-in cars last year, according to research firm IHS. That was triple the number of 2012 but still less than half a percent of all U.S. car registrations.

Fueling an electric car costs about a third as much as filling up a comparable gasoline-powered car, according to the Energy Department. Charging an electric car costs the equivalent of $1.27 a gallon, compared with $3.52 a gallon for gasoline, based on nationwide average prices. The comparison calculates the distance an electric car can travel using the same amount of energy contained in a gallon of gasoline.

But it is generally more expensive to buy an electric car than a similar conventionally powered vehicle. Ford Motor Co. prices the Focus Electric around $35,000, roughly $11,000 more than the most-expensive gas-powered Focus. Electric cars also have limited range; most can travel less than 100 miles on a single charge, which can take eight hours.

"There's a place for electric vehicles, but it'll be a long time before they come anywhere close to being a universal replacement to an internal-combustion vehicle," says IHS analyst Phil Gott.

Another factor likely to constrain adoption of electric cars is that fuel costs for conventional vehicles are expected to fall because of federally mandated fuel-efficiency improvements. The average gasoline-fueled car is expected to run 53 miles on a gallon of gasoline by 2025, compared with 35 miles today, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Many utilities are rolling out public charging stations in convenient locations. NRG Energy Inc.'s Evgo unit operates car-charging stations at drugstores and grocery stores in California, Texas and the Washington, D.C., area. Austin Energy runs 200 public charging stations in central Texas and offers its power customers a 50% rebate when they install a home car charger.

In New Jersey, a utility owned by Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. recently began offering electric-car chargers to any employer in the state with at least five workers who could use it. The company is paying the program's $400,000 cost so it can study usage and better gauge what PSEG's role should be in customers' charging needs, says Jess Melanson, the utility's director of energy services.

But Indianapolis Power & Light, a unit of AES Corp. wants its customers to pay the $16 million cost of installing 200 electric-car charging stations around town. The chargers would form the backbone for an electric-car sharing service proposed by France's Bolloré SA, which operates a similar car-sharing service in Paris and Lyon. The cost would be 28 cents a month for the typical power customer for 10 years, the utility says.

The Citizens Action Coalition, a nonprofit group that advocates for utility consumers, says shareholders—not utility customers—should pay for the investment. "This is corporate welfare at its worst," says Executive Director Kerwin Olson.

More people would be willing to buy an electric car if charging stations were more plentiful, says Dave McCreadie, head of electric-vehicle infrastructure at Ford. "It helps allay people's fears that, 'If I get an electric car I'm going to get stranded.' " If employers added workplace chargers, it would help fill the gap, he says.

Ford is working with seven other auto makers and 15 utilities, including Honda Motor Co., Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz unit, Consolidated Edison Inc.ED inYour ValueYour Change Short position and Southern Co. to create a nationwide program to encourage the use of electric cars.

Source : The Online Wall Street Journal, by Cassandra Sweet, August 29, 2014

 

List of Electric Vehicles

Dear All,

Many websites tried to keep a concrete overview of the electric vehicles that are available or not on the market, but none of these websites survived up to today (at least among those I know).

So, for those who wish to see the state of the market, at a glance, I recommend the Wikipedia Electric Cars List.

If it's not extremely accurate, it as the merit to exist and to continue in time !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currently_available_electric_cars