The Oil Drum

197 comments on Why wind power works in Denmark

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jokuhl on September 1, 2006 - 8:34am

It would seem to me that any vehicle that is connected acts like a house with grid-tied solar. If you need power, you are drawing it, if you are charged up, your potential amperage is leveraged by the grid in general.. I think, like the Once-and-Future-Wetlands of New Orleans, this is expected to act like a sponge with the surplus. Even 'charged' batteries will be, more accurately speaking, something like 90-95% charged, and (a whole bunch of them) can sop up the spikes, and can fill in the gaps.

You'll be charging all night, probably plug back in once you get to work.. so for a great majority of the day, your PHEV's batteries will be working with the system. Be interesting to see if the 'Park and Ride' concept would grow to include plug-in's at the train station parking spaces instead of parking meters, and your net electricity usage is charged or credited accordingly.. Could the parked cars (and electric bikes/mopeds) actually be helping to power the train that takes you on the next step?

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jokuhl on September 1, 2006 - 8:46am

So now extend this picture to the fleets of utility vehicles that maybe could operate on electric. Post Office Cars, City Busses, Forklifts at warehouses, etc etc.

If the system was modular, there would be the potential for some truly massive battery systems to be connected together. During non-workday hours, there would be a complementary need to recharge many of them, allowing for a lot of 'sponging', and also a balancing of the disproportionately high daytime demand.

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alistairC on September 1, 2006 - 8:57am

In order for this to work with wind, in particular, you have to postulate that the typical EV has excess battery capacity.
e.g. 50% more than I actually need for my daily commute.

... so if there's a windy night, my battery gets a full charge. And if there's a week without wind, my battery only charges to 50% every night. And I need an override button to charge it to 100% (at a higher price), because I've got a longer trip tomorrow.

Something like that.

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Nick on September 1, 2006 - 11:34am

I would think that the first step would be automating the charging process, based on electricity pricing. A smart meter would tell your car the price of electricity, and the car would charge based on the price you told it you were willing to pay. You'd likely charge up to your daily commute needs as long as the price was less than the equivalent price of gas (for a plug-in), but weather forecasting would likely give a projected pricing pattern, which would allow the software on the car to maximize use of the cheapest electricity.

This would smooth out demand during the 12 or so hours at night that the car was available for charging, as well as eventually during the day at work, when charging stations were installed in parking garages and at meters, like in Minnesota and Canada for engine heaters.

As battery size grows, the period of time for which the battery can provide smoothing would grow from the daily cycle, to a weekly cycle and more.