<DrumBeat: February 18, 2008The Oil DrumDrumBeat: February 19, 2008>

429 comments on Four Billion Cars in 2050?

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billp on February 18, 2008 - 7:20pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

As a learner from The Oil Drum and Peak Oil posts, and a septuagenarian [45 days younger than Saddam] legal activitist , I've been attending PNM electric integrated resource planning meetings.

In addition to

irp participants are talking about possible effects of plug-in cars on electrical loads.

Let's see what happens.

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john15 on February 18, 2008 - 8:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

We have studies on what plugging in means for the grid.

Pacific National Lab's Surprising PHEV Study Released
http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/657.html

IMPACTS ASSESSMENT OF PLUG-IN HYBRID VEHICLES ON ELECTRIC UTILITIES
AND REGIONAL U.S. POWER GRIDS
PART 1: TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
Michael Kintner-Meyer
Kevin Schneider
Robert Pratt
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by Battelle Memorial
Institute under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830

ABSTRACT
The U.S. electric power infrastructure is a strategic national asset
that is underutilized most of the time. With the proper changes in
the operational paradigm, it could generate and deliver the necessary
energy to fuel the majority of the U.S. light duty vehicle fleet. In
doing so, it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve the
economics of the electricity industry, and reduce the U.S. dependency
on foreign oil. Two companion papers investigate the technical
potential and economic impacts of using the existing idle capacity of
the electric infrastructure in conjunction with the emerging plug-in
hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) technology to meet the majority of the
daily energy needs of the U.S. LDV fleet.

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AlanfromBigEasy on February 18, 2008 - 10:04pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

With the proper changes in the operational paradigm

Ain't going to happen.

EVs owners are not going to be compliant enough and we do not have enough natural gas to run the marginal generation more hours.

Alan

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john15 on February 18, 2008 - 10:34pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

'Ain't going to happen."

anything can happen in a crisis.

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AlanfromBigEasy on February 19, 2008 - 3:15am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Additional supplies of natural gas to run electrical generators all night will not magically appear just because we are in crisis, and neither will human selfishness disappear.

Alan

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DaveMart on February 19, 2008 - 6:54am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Alan, in the pdf they state that they run the analysis that way because the timing and rate of introduction of plug-in vehicles was uncertain, so looking at what could be done with the current grid was the most realistic way of appraising the potential.

My take on that is that they don't actually expect there to be no upgrades of the grid needed, nor that all EV drivers would charge at the best time, but that just the same we have quite a bit of room to manoeuver within the constraints of the present grid, so that capacity increases might be surprisingly modest.

In particular, one of your favourites, wind, would seem to be well placed to provide the needed power, and this use would tend to decrease the problem of intermittency and storage.

The right cost structure should do a great deal to ensure most charging takes place at the right hours, although I personally suspect that by the time there are enough PVEH's around to make much difference many especially in the South and West may choose to install PV on their roofs and do most of their charging at home - this would certainly decrease the load on the grid.

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