Smart Grid Blog

Germany aims to have one million electric vehicles — powered by energy from renewable sources -on the road by 2020. And, within ten years, the German environment ministry expects “green electricity” to make up 30 percent of all power consumed. Arithmetically speaking, it would be possible to achieve CO2-neutral electromobility. But, in reality, it is a difficult goal to attain. As more and more solar and wind energy is incorporated in the power grid, the proportion of electricity that cannot be controlled by simply pressing a button is on the increase. In addition, there is a growing risk that the rising number of electric vehicles will trigger extreme surges in demand during rush hour.

via Charging Up Electric Car Batteries in Environmentally-Friendly Way | Technology Magazine Daily.

Ford’s (F) new Focus Electric Car and Plug-in Hybrid will be built in one of the auto industry’s greenest manufacturing plants. Ford is working with Detroit Edison (DTE) to install a 500-kilowatt solar photovoltaic panel system at Michigan Assembly. The system will be integrated with a 750-kw energy storage facility that can store two million watt-hours of energy using batteries.

The renewable energy captured by the project’s primary solar energy system will help power the production of fuel-efficient small cars, including Ford’s all-new Focus and Focus Electric going into production in 2011, and a next-generation hybrid vehicle and a plug-in hybrid vehicle coming in 2012. My test drive of the Ford Focus Electric.

via Cleantech Blog: Ford Focus Electric Cars from New Green Michigan Plant.

How things change.

I recall chuckling just four years ago at a “South Park” episode in which town residents buy so many hybrid vehicles that they replace their smog problem with a smug problem.

I’m not laughing today. Fortunately, hybrids can no longer be spoofed as cars reserved for the environmentally “smug.” Hybrids have gone mainstream.

And now several major car companies are preparing to launch their largely all-electric plug-in cars, taking another bite out of the 176 million mostly gasoline-fueled vehicles on this nation’s roads.

via Coming soon to a driveway near you: Times Argus Online.

State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) signed a cooperation agreement with the Shanghai municipal government to construct a smart grid on July 25, reports yicai.com, citing a company announcement.

According to the Oriental Morning Post, SGCC plans to construct seven charging stations and 360 charging spots in Shanghai’s first electric vehicle pilot project.

via CapitalVue News: State Grid To Develop Smart Grid In Shanghai.

Jim Rogers foresees Duke Energy Corp. operating as “Amazon Duke.” It would use a smart-grid system to offer customers discounts for energy-efficient appliances the way Amazon.com sells books at reduced prices through its Kindle.

Toward that end, the most important short-term goal for Duke is to promote customers’ conversion to electric vehicles from gasoline-fueled cars, the Duke chief executive told an international forum this week. That would make the vehicle an extension of the utility business, Rogers said.

via Rogers’ vision: Make Duke Energy the Amazon.com of utilities – Charlotte Business Journal.

As I wrote in my two-part series on big-box electric charging, the stores might soon be offering “fast charging” (just 10 minutes to half an hour) in their parking lots. Best Buy is in the lead there. But for safety reasons the big boxes may have to employ the equivalent of gas station attendants to run those stations. Or maybe, in an altogether new development, the utilities will do it for them.

via Fast 30-Minute EV Charging May Not Be DIY | BNET Auto Blog | BNET.

In their first face-to-face meeting, the leaders of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) and utility regulators explored options for increasing state-level participation in developing the standards needed to modernize nation’s electric power system with two-way communication and control capabilities. Such capabilities will be needed to give consumers greater control over their energy bills, facilitate charging of electric vehicles, enable high penetrations of renewable energy, and improve the reliability of the power system.

via Federal-State Cooperation Can Remove Delays, Obstacles to Achieving Smart Grid Benefits, Regulators Are Told | Business Wire.

GE has unveiled its latest foray into low-carbon technologies – an easy-to-use, smart-grid compatible electric vehicle charger.

The WattStation™ has been designed by San Francisco-based fuseproject, led by industrial designer Yves Behar.

via GE unveils smart-grid compatible electric vehicle charger | Energy Efficiency News.

Last week’s heat wave prompted another eruption of that perennial question: Won’t electric cars that recharge from grid power overload the nation’s electricity system?

Or put more bluntly: Will electric vehicles bring down the U.S. power grid?

The answer, equally bluntly, is: No. They won’t.

via No, Electric Vehicles Won’t Bring Down the U.S. Power Grid – The Car Connection.

A recent study by Transport Watch UK, an independent organisation, says the hope of emissions-reduction through battery-operated cars is a mere ‘fantasy’. The study has sparked off a heated debate over the issue of emissions, writes A Dyuti

via How green is the electric car?.

California is expected to be the United States’ leader in electric car drivers. While good for the state’s environment, California utilities need to implement strategies that accommodate the power needs of communities identified as potential EV strongholds such as Berkeley, Santa Monica and San Diego. The concern is that an overload of neighborhood transformers could trigger local blackouts.

via San Diego Launches EV Rate Experiment.

Whenever utilities talk about charging electric cars, they invariably invoke the smart grid as an essential ally in their case. Indeed, for a number of reasons it’s hard to imagine EVs having a smooth landing on the roads of America with the clueless and dumb power grid we have today. That’s why a visit to EPB, the municipal utility for Chattanooga, Tenn., — which gets its power from the Tennessee Valley Authority — was both disturbing and enlightening. EPB will have synergy between EVs and its smart grid, but most other places probably won’t.

via EVs and the Smart Grid Go Together in Chattanooga, but Few Other Places | BNET Auto Blog | BNET.

David Peichel’s commute from his home in south Minneapolis to his job at Medtronic in Mounds View is about 35 miles round trip.

Usually that’s no big deal. Unless you’re Peichel, and you never have gas in the tank — not one single drop.

Peichel drives a ’97 Geo Metro he converted into an electric vehicle about two years ago. When the weather’s nice, its lead-acid batteries can take him to work and back with a little juice to spare.

via Minnesotans plugging in to electric vehicles – TwinCities.com.

Anton Klima is a self-described electric car fanatic. The Los Angeles television cameraman is already on his second electric vehicle, a battery-powered BMW Mini E. To make sure he's carbon-free, he charges the car from solar panels on the roof of his Hollywood Hills home. But when he’s out and about, Klima has to make do with a patchy network of public chargers left over from California’s original electric-car campaign a decade ago. Though he can now track down chargers with an iPhone app, the shape of the plugs has changed, so Klima has to carry three adapters to be sure he can power up. “After a while you get used to [the hassles],” Klima says.

via Mapping Out an Electric-Car Future – Bloomberg Businessweek- msnbc.com.

Looks like Australia and Poland were just the beginning: Coulomb Technologies is looking to roll out nearly 5,000 electric vehicle charging stations in the US, effective immediately. If one of those cherry-red push pins is pointed at your neighborhood, you'll likely see the stations popping up at local businesses soon, and if you're looking to purchase a Chevy Volt, Tesla-powered Smart or one of Ford's two new EVs, you can even qualify to have a free station installed in your home.

via Coulomb partners with Ford, Chevy, Smart to deliver 4,600 free EV charging stations in US — Engadget.

Ford is promoting smart charging as it now takes orders for the Ford Transit Connect, next year for the 2011 Ford Focus EV, and in 2012 the Ford Plug-in Hybrid. Ford is partnering with Coulomb Technologies to provide nearly 5,000 free wall-installed charging stations for some of the automaker’s first electric car and electric delivery van customers.

Under the Ford Blue Oval ChargePoint Program, fleets and residents in nine designated markets could receive a free ChargePoint® Networked Charging Station with the purchase of a Ford Transit Connect Electric vehicle. The nine markets designated by Coulomb Technologies include Austin, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Sacramento, the San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area, Redmond, Wash., and Washington D.C. The installation of ChargePoint charging stations will begin immediately.

via Cleantech Blog: Coulomb Technologies Smart-Charging for Ford Electric Vehicles.

Turn the key; push a button; step on the accelerator.

The Ford Escape is slow off the mark as it leaves the garage at Burlington Hydro Inc. – for safety reasons its torque has been governed to 40 per cent of maximum. Once in motion, though, it’s a quiet pleasure—even on the QEW.

But performance is only part of what counts for this vehicle.

via Burlington Hydro tests electric SUV to save gas | Wheels.ca.

General Motors’ announcement this week that it plans to link up with Google to provide a set of location-based services to owners of the upcoming electric vehicle the Chevy Volt comes hot on the heels of Ford laying out plans to work with Microsoft to manage electric vehicle charging. Google and Microsoft have been competing on the desktop and web browser for years — is their rivalry spilling over into the new landscape of the connected and electric car?

via The Next Google-Microsoft Rivalry: Electric Vehicles?.

For the second time in two months consumer electronics heavyweight Belkin has demonstrated its commitment to products that monitor and manage energy consumption. This morning the company, known for its slick wireless electronics and Apple accessories, announced that it has made “a significant” equity investment in Juice Technologies, a 2-year-old company that makes electric vehicle smart charging and home energy monitoring equipment. Belkin and Juice also say in their release that they will co-create energy management products for the residential and small-business market.

via Belkin Invests in Electric Vehicle Smart Charging Startup Juice.

What will happen if consumers in a particular geographic area like Berkeley, California and Marin County flock to electric cars — and area utilities haven’t really prepared for the exigencies of mass smart charging?

“Fireworks,” said Andres Carvallo, chief strategy officer at Grid Net. Transformers could blow and start fires all over town. The ability to maintain power at hospitals and other mission-critical facilities could be imperiled.

That's good news, in a roundabout way. In the past few months, consumers have let utilities know what they think of their plans to embed two-way communications into the grid to control air conditioners and other equipment in homes and offices to curb power.

via Will Electric Cars Save the Smart Grid? – The Green Eye – CBS News.