Plenty of Grid Power for a National Fleet of Plug-In Hybrids

December 17, 2006 – Vol. 11 No. 39

PLENTY OF GRID POWER FOR A NATIONAL FLEET OF PLUG-IN HYBRIDS.

Here’s a scenario for the future of automobiles: Hybrids evolve to plug-in hybrids (PHEV) running on a variety of fuels, bio and otherwise. As people get used to plugging in, pure electric vehicles begin to share the road with plug-in hybrids. Both may be more expensive than today’s cars, but battery electrics, because of their simplicity, will be the cheaper of the two. We will keep these clean advanced cars longer - and they will last longer - to make up the difference in cost.

It looks like part of this scenario is already coming true: GM’s decision to build a plug-in hybrid and the steady good news from Tesla. (Look for additional good news from other PHEV and pure electric vehicle developers in 2007 as well.)

So, if our cars begin to be grid-connected, how will the grid hold up to the additional load?

With flying colors, at least for plug-in hybrids carrying enough battery-only power for 30 miles or so of driving per day.

Calculations for a national PHEV fleet are in: The grid could handle a nearly full fleet of PHEVs if they were recharged with electricity that’s now generated but not sold.

A new study from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) shows that there’s enough spare generating capacity in non-peak hours to energize 84-percent of the nation’s 220 million vehicles if they were plug-in electrics. That’s nearly 185 million vehicles that could travel 30 miles a day in efficient, emission-free mode on energy that’s already out there, but never put to work.

The study shows how underutilized the nation’s power generating capacity is and should be a great asset to the nation. The power may already be there to help remove the country from dependence on foreign oil completely. If only it were tapped.

While power would still come from the usual sources - coal and natural gas for instance - the nation’s carbon emissions would drop too, since electrically-driven cars are so much more efficient than gasoline-driven cars. Electricity used to propel vehicles would displace petroleum fuels at ratios far better than one-to-one because combustion engines waste so much energy when electric vehicles do not.

Further, as the grid gets cleaner - as it is doing already - emissions would drop even more. It will be less expensive to trap emissions from power plants than from individual cars. And, the addition of more renewable power to the grid will help keep emissions dropping.

Researchers also noted that though PHEV’s might cost $6000 -10,000 more than conventional vehicles - because of the batteries - and the break-even point because of the dramatic increase in efficiency would be 5 - 8 years, about the life span of the batteries, they say. (At least one battery manufacturer, Altair Nanotechnologies, says its products will last longer, more like 20 years.)

DOE researchers also said that utilities probably would like the idea of a switch to fleet of PHEV’s recharged with overnight electricity: They’d be able to sell all that electricity that previously hadn’t been sold thus have more cash to do other things like build clean coal power plants. With more electricity sold - more gross revenues - they might be able to drop rates a bit too, which everyone would like. The considerable interest from utility companies in the Plug-in Partners campaign and the Plug-in Hybrid Development consortium shows that they’re thinking about PHEVs as a new market for their power.

A big question looms for the PHEV possibility. How would the oil companies react.?

Well, for one, none of this would happen immediately.

Two, the oil companies could buy utility companies to hold on to some of their revenues from the lucrative transportation sector.

Three, as power plants cleaned up they could sell some of their lesser, dirtier petroleum fuels to power them. (Emissions would still drop because of the greater efficiency of electric drive.)

Four, US oil companies might like the idea of operating safely at home rather than to working in the most dangerous parts of the world scrounging for oil.

Visit Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at http://www.pnl.gov/ Plug-in Partners Campaign at http://www.pluginpartners.org/ and the Plug-in Hybrid Development consortium http://www.hybridconsortium.org/