Coming soon to your grid: plug-in electric vehicles July 30, 2010

CODA Automotive announced the gasoline pump’s demise at a Santa Monica gas station last month. (I thought it at least deserved a montage on CNN.) Clever advertising? Sure. Accurate? Actually, the date of death on that headstone is closer than you think.

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, unveiling the Big Apple’s first electric car charging station on July 14, said the electric vehicle “is not just a pipe dream or a scene from ‘The Jetsons.’ It is here and it is here right now.”

And while we’re still waiting on the 9-hour, full-time work week of George Jetson, the 100-year hiatus on practical, electric vehicles (yes, the idea has been discussed for that long) is over. Ready or not, utilities, here they come.

A Senate committee approved two proposals last Wednesday to boost plug-in vehicles, including a $3.6 billion bill that received support from both parties.

The automobile industry is also investing billions into plug-in vehicles. Charging stations are appearing all over the country. Silicon Valley is the new Detroit.

Drivers can already place reservations on the Nissan Leaf (around $26,000 after the $7,500 federal tax credit) and have their car by this fall. Honda announced this week it will sell a plug-in hybrid car and an electric vehicle by 2012. BMW’s first electric car is the Megacity Vehicle, due in 2013. It’s made out of lightweight carbon fiber and really does look like it’s from the future.

Toyota and Tesla Motors recently announced they signed an agreement to develop an electric version of the Toyota RAV4. General Motors, in an attempt to quell concerns about its plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt, is offering an 8-year/100,000-mile battery warranty. These are positive developments for our country and our environment (and I like the idea of no oil changes). The BP oil spill magnified our need for petroleum. Americans could reduce petroleum usage by nearly 5 million barrels per day if we electrified half of our vehicles. That day won’t be in 2010 (sorry CODA). But it won’t be 2030, either.

Will our electric infrastructure be able to support these vehicles? Will enough smart grids be in place to better distribute energy when electric car owners (likely, at least initially, from the same, affluent part of town), are plugging up? We don’t really know. We’ve never done this before. Some pressing questions Chartwell will work to help utilities answer:

1. How quickly will Americans convert to electric vehicles?

Plug-in hybrids will account for 25 percent of all U.S. automobile sales by 2020, according to two studies, one by Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the National Resources Defense Council, and the other by the U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory. President Barack Obama pledged to bring 1 million plug-in hybrids to American roads by 2015. But these cars aren’t cheap.

2. How much power will a charging vehicle really consume?

Some experts say it will cause a home’s load to double. Others claim the usage more closely resembles an extra air conditioning unit. Some say it’s similar to a four or five plasma TVs.

3. Will drivers understand they need to plug-in at night?

The PlaNYC report, a Bloomberg-led sustainability plan for New York City’s future, concluded that the expected adoption rate “should not threaten the stability of the electric grid as long as most chargers are ‘smart,’ allowing charging to take place during off-peak hours.” What if most chargers aren’t smart?

4. Will electric companies be forced to return money for promoting extra energy usage?

Progress Energy and Duke Energy may find themselves in that situation. They’ll have to track all promotions and activities that cause consumers to increase electric consumption to the N.C. Utilities Commission. Will implementing recharging stations – 350 are coming to North Carolina in the next year – fall in that category?

5. Can electric vehicles help utilities?

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology would enable plug-in vehicles to store renewable energy that could be returned to the grid.

Plug-in vehicles are coming. This is not an episode of the “The Jetsons,” it’s reality. Are utilities ready?