205 comments on Will the US Electric Grid Be Our Undoing?
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205 comments on Will the US Electric Grid Be Our Undoing?
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Interesting points. In a lower-energy world, doesn't it make more sense to move industry and people to the resources, rather than electricity to the people? Seems like a fairly small movement of industry could drastically change consumption patterns.
Gail, this is all very interesting and all, but I was really hoping you were spending the day polishing your crystal ball for 2009 prognostications. Enough with all this factual data stuff, I want to see some true magical thinking! :)
Gail,
You paint a very clear picture of what seems to be insurmountable problems with expanding the electric grid. This brings me back to the basic goal: expand the grid to allow local electrical shortages to be supplemented by importing their needs. It may be rather simplistic but if expanding the grid isn’t an option then the solution is simple: expand the local generating capability. This would, of course, require the delivery of energy sources to those new plants. That problem would itself justify an entire new thread so I’ll set it aside for now.
Developing new local electricity supplies would thus put the problem exactly where it belongs IMO: with the local community. If New England wants more electricity they can fund and build the plants. This also brings the negative effects (pollution, costs) where it should be: the local consumer. It would be nice for the folks in LA or NYC to burn the coal in Wyoming and export the product to them while leaving the pollution hanging over the head of the folks in the Rockies. If the folks off of Martha’s Vineyard don’t want to spoil the view with wind turbines…fine. But they shouldn’t expect others to make the same sacrifice they refuse to accept. Any expansion of electrical generation, be it wind, coal, NG or nuclear, will bring its own set of financial and environmental problems. It seems only logical that those problems be borne by the same folks destined to benefit from the effort. I know that goes against the US history of taking advantage of someone else’s resources and leaving them to deal with the resultant problems but perhaps it’s time for the beneficiaries to pay more of the total cost. Seems fair to me.
Human nature must favor the buyer, else corn flakes would cost more and guys in South Dakota would have jets while guys in NYC would not.
It seems that a lower-energy world may be less pleasant, but considerable more fair. Like when China decides that its people shouldn't trade unaffordable luxuries or T-bills.
Rockman,
I agree with your comments. The parts of the country that want to import electricity are the ones who have not made adequate provision for their own electricity production, often because they do not want the pollution and other problems that go along. Upgrading the grid would allow these areas to piggy-back on the areas that have made adequate provision, and further remove the responsibility for adding new electricity production. Thus, with the enhanced grid, it would be easier and easier to shut down any electric power plant that was for some reason offensive--CO2 emissions, too much water use for cooling, or because of nuclear fears. If we want to continue to have adequate electricity production, we need the responsibility for producing electricity to lie with the area that uses it.
There's another approach that's been fairly successful, and cheap, in California. Demand side management via advertising/incentives. It's, so far, been cheaper to offer rebates on more energy efficient stuff (appliances, roofing, etc...) and run some commercials telling people to turn off non-essentials during peak demand in the summer, maybe turn up the thermostat a few degrees, than it is to expand electricity transmission capacity when it would only be used one two-thousandth of the year or so. W/ demand side management, for instance an on-board timer that interfaces w/ local wlan for EV charging would be dirt cheap in cities where demand would be the greatest and could charge problems. Dispatchable cuts, so to speak, are already here, it's just how pervasive they need to be given peak energy consumption compared to average energy consumption.
I don't think ROCKMAN cares much for the results of deregulation. Nor do I. Vertically integrated munis and community owned sources are the only sorts of entities that can handle the externalities and work in anything close to a "fair" manner. Dennis was right.
If New England wants "more". MORE is the problem. Rebuilding the grid is similar in many ways to rebuilding the highways. To accomodate "free market" transfers of energy every which way, we need much more capacity in a much more delicately arranged and complex structure. It starts to remind me of the financial games being played.
cfm in Gray, ME
Briefly ... I have the same instinctive reaction. This entire grid business is more of the same, more 'big solutions' that allow 'big business' to gain monopoly power over diverse and local resources and demand, to create dependency and support a hidden agenda. It would be supported (funded) by the central government with benefits directed toward the well- connected (financially and politically).
In my opinion, the 'smart grid'/'digital grid' terms are advertizing buzzwords. Transfering and metering electricity is basic. The marketing of 'grid world' appears to overshadow all other considerations, such as what would the overall engineering specifications/requirements of gridworld be? Would it be a Direct Current grid, an underground Superconducting core grid, a redundant grid ... or what? What would the baseline parameter be? What would happen with the ridiculous dangling wires? Is the for this to be a project with its own ends, or is it a part of a 'stimulus package'? Can the end withstand scrutiny as measured as a return on investment, either in dollars or in EROEI? Is gridworld really as vague as it appears to be ... is it 'Pie in the Sky'?
If a power producer starts generating large amounts of electricity from geothermal in Wyoming, what EXACTLY are the barriers to getting that additional energy to a market? Does this power need to get to New York City or Los Angeles? The question is not 'can it be done?' but rather 'is it desireable?'.
Is the 'new improved grid' simply a stalking horse for a large increase ... in investment and political pressure for ... electric cars? Or ... would this system be part of a new electric rail transport system?
The current third world grid is vulnerable, but a 'bottom up' structure of producing and distributing power needs to emerge. The current grid is old and it strains under peak demands such as during very hot days when air conditioners run and run. A set of modest improvements to support decentralized power generation such as from wind turbines or home solar needs to be made. Facilitating this requires a different administrative approach along with new equipment. The ridiculous dangling wires which make the grid vulnerable to every puff of wind need to be put underground. There isn't sufficient capacity in the grid as a whole to service more than a few extra thousand electric cars - that lack of excess capacity is a blessing.
I think conservation and discipline - including a return to more vertically integrated generartion and transmission - would produce results a lot faster and with less of an uncertain outcome economically. One issue that the 'gridworlders' and deregulators have always pressed is that the localized, regulated structure cannot provide adequate supply, inferring that demand growth is a constant. Currently, demand growth can be questioned from this point onward; any revision from the present must acknowledge this change in the ground rules ...
The "ridiculous dangling wires" are there for a reason. The cost to cable the circuits underground is 10x the cost of overhead. Plus, there is higher ampacity for the same size conductor for aerial over cable. Think people complain about higher electricity costs now, wait until they see the bill for buried cable systems!
I won't go into the differences for maintenance and repair between the two...
The environmental impact of ALL that trenching for underground cables !
Alan
Why not?
The dangling wires are an expedient. 'It's cheaper' is the rationalization given for all that is done in this country, even if it's not and even if there are other benefits to 'more expensive'. Lowest cost is not always best value.
Problems with dangling wires:
- Weather and debris vulnerability. Underground utilities are far more robust.
- Ugly. One of the depressing features of the auto slum- scape is the endless mess of ridiculous dangling wires, not to mention all the other power infrastructures added to them; the poles and towers, transformers, grounding, switching, lamps, meters, etc. This is a significant issue; why do we build anything in the first place? Do we exist in order to please the infrastructure? Or, does it exist to serve us? Do we not build for pleasure and utility or is all a part of the rat race? Is our life- support system an end ... to support of the cost side of a business ledger? At bottom, who cares whether a utility makes money or not; the issue is value to the user which is the community the utility pledges to support. If a business cannot serve the customers except by expedients it will fail.
- The 'eyesore' issue is a reason large transmission lines cannot be sited. Nobody wants to look at them; they destroy the landscape. Adding capacity to the grid does and will continue to involve long passages through the courts as adding capacity is always sued by persons and entities adjacent to it. Capacity is ugly. Ugly is an externality that cannot be ignored - like all the other externalities - by the utilities. NIMBY is powerful and load- shedding always takes place in 'undesireable' neighborhoods whoee inhabitants cannot afford lawyers. Putting capacity underground solves the problem. Putting distribution under the streets is simple because the streets already go everywhere ...
- Dangerous. Power lines fall on people while energized and kill them. Underground utilities do not do so, although poorly maintained installations can cause fires and explosions. Nevertheless, the same sorts of maintainence failures take place in the dangling wire universe and the fires and explosions take place in open air. (I used to live in a building that was badly damaged by a transformer explosion.)
- Not only is our electric infrastructure a great eyesore, it is an unnecessary eyesore. In most cities, the electric distribution is currently underground. Almost everywhere in the US, the water, sewer, natural gas, telephone, subsciption television and communication/internet systems are also underground. Even where electric is overhead, cable TV and telephone are placed underground because such an istallation is less vulnerable to weather and connections can be made and service performed without the need for a large, six- wheel bucket truck. As for installation; the companies that provide broadband internet are currently installing tens of thousands of miles of fiber 0ptic duct underground and have been doing so nationwide for the past fifteen years. What is easy for the fiber optic people should be no less easy for the power companies. Other utilities have the same universal service requirements and safety concerns as does the electric utilitiy.
If the gas company can provide universal service underground, with large pipes, valves, meters, ducts and other equipment, and do so on a cost effective basis, so can the electric utility.
Putting the wires underground is a job that needs to be done, It is obvious and the requirement increases with every long blackout caused by a storm. To put in a depression tens or hundreds of thousands of otherwise unemployed men to work at good jobs with good pay; the wires of America can be buried at a small cost to a government that has spent already trillions on air. It would be an investment with a return of agreeability, safety and permanence.
Underground residential distribution is one thing; putting 115kV, 230kV, or higher voltages underground is substantially different. What I reference below is referring to the bulk power system.
Yes, we do this in some cases. Aesthetics for one, inability to traverse population dense areas, two, or underwater, three. But these are always short distances, because currently the installation cost is at least fifteen times as much as overhead.
Fifteen times. We could reduce this substantially, I'm sure, with scale, but that's a lot to overcome.
Once we start getting into higher voltages we run into capacitive reactance problems that over long distances would cost more in external equipment to manage, not to mention much higher losses.
Cable faults are almost always destructive, resulting in far longer and more expensive outages. Fault location is much more difficult, as is splicing. Granted, they do occur much, much less often as you indicate...but over the long run, with more underground, this becomes a bigger issue. 85% of all overhead transmission faults can be cleared instantaneously and reclosed within cycles, resulting in a much improved reliabilty margin. Cable faults are never reclosed.
As for the eyesore issue, I tend to agree. Personally, I think the way around this, and perhaps to also employ a few more people, would be to eliminate the lattice towers and replace them with monopole structures, something not widely available 40 years back. They take up less land and in my opinion are sleeker and better looking. But lattice towers are probably only a third to a fifth (my estimate) the way through their life cycles; they are extremely robust. This would be exceedingly difficult to justify.
Cable faults are triggered in the distribution (from substation downstream) and spread upstream. A falling branch or a lightning strike will trigger one. So ... addressing the distribution would be more cost effective than not.
Why would cable faults underground be any more difficult to clear than cable faults overhead? Any duct system that could carry the conductor(s) could also carry monitoring equipment. In general high- tension is low maintainence, all else being equal - leavng out the vulnerability of downstream distribution. If an interrupting fault is a 25 year event on any circuit, enough redundant/spare capacity can be engineered into the system to prevent a ciruit shutdown, even if repair might be more costly than an overhead repair.
I don't think that an electrical trunk should be less of an investment than a transport corridor (rail line) or major highway or navigation canal. All serve an equal purpose and have the same requirement to conform to an overall value system that includes more than just cost, and maintainence ease. A high tension corridor isn't free; only by applying to the current economic status of a potential corridor a value of 'zero' - which, ironically a transmission route gains after the towers and conductors are in place - does the status quo have an overwhelming value advantage.
As a strip mine is less costly than alternatives, the expansion of more and more strip mines calls into question the value of mines and compares that value against the utility having them at all. The same value/utility measurement applies to transmission and transport corridors. The issue becomes, 'when do we have enough mines?' 'When do we have enough highways?' When is enough? The answer is not never ... 'development' or 'progress revulsion' is real even if it cannot be quantified or modelled.
Even where 'development' is taken for granted along with progress and an adman's idea of 'status' and wealth, the idea that more (and more and more) of the same is really a benefit is being re- examined. If the end product is for all to be submerged into a kind of industrial process, the 'sex appeal' of development disappears. It may be happening already.
I don't know if 'slowing development under current crisis conditions' is in the general best interest, but overall value has been ignored for too long and the reputation of development in general - which is always given a positive cost- benefit ratio - is very poor.
"Why would cable faults underground be any more difficult to clear than cable faults overhead?"
Overhead lines are uninsulated (bare metal). They rely on the air gap between the wire and ground, plus ceramic insulators on the towers, for insulation. Sometimes they flash over to ground for some reason. When the relays shut down power, the electric arc de-energizes and insulation integrity is restored. The relay can reclose and restore transmission within a few cycles. Generally the faults are self-repairing.
Underground cables rely on a layer of oil impregnated paper or some kind of plastic sheething (depending on cable design) to insulate from ground. When they fault, they fault permanently. Someone has to go out and dig up and splice the cable. Underground insulation is probably ok up to 100kVAC. Above that and it gets very expensive. Overhead lines are more vulnerable to bird poop, fires, dust storms, gunshots, tree limbs and other problems, but at transmission voltages (above 100kVAC) its pretty easy to repair the problem. Often fixing the problem amounts to waiting from a few cycles to a few hours. Cables above 100kVAC are really, but really expensive. There is no comparison to fiber optic cables.
Jeff Barton
Jeff is spot on.
An aspect he hasn't pointed out is heat. In overhead insulate wires the heat is dissipated away in the air. Underground cables have a much bigger problem in this. The city of New York has a lot of experience with this. They have found it necessary to put electrical cables inside underground corridors large enough to permit workmen to stand upright in them to allow for enough space for heat dispersion and repairs.
It would be a lot more complicated than just throwing a cable into the ground like we do with fiber-optic.
Tailwinds! ChipSeal
Siemens offers three rigid, hollow copper pipes suspended in a SF6 gas.
Not cheap, but it has advantages for short distances.
Alan
SF6 is really an excellent green house gas.
Unfortunately, one of the worst !
Alan
You're missing the point. It doesn't matter whether the air- insulation is more cost effective or whether the need for grid power is utmost, the greatest obstacle to increasing capacity is public opposition to generating plants, towers and transmission lines.
Public opposition isn't going to go away, in fact it is likely to become more intense. Accomodating it will cost more money and the utilities will find themselves in a position where the difference in costs between various options will be negligible and public relations will tilt the balance.
Ten years in court with multiple appeals add a lot of percentage points to the cost of a transmission line. If the court rules against the utility and the ruling is upheld on appeal ... no transmission line at all.
I tend to agree all around, especially with transmission line structures being an eyesore. I am constantly on the look out for better aesthetics for power lines and substations. So I agree with Steve from Virginia and the collective engineers. Just because it was done one way in the past doesn't mean its the only way to do things.
I won't repeat what has been said about the differences in repair except to add that underground repair work requires at least a three man crew and can take hours to set up for enclosed space entry. An overhead line can be repaired by one lineman.
A little more about clearing times. It depends on the protection and control system. If a transmission line has an automatic reclose, the duration is around 30 cycles or 1/2 second. The duration is decreased as the voltage increases for stability reasons. As noted earlier, cable faults are mostly catastrophic and don't have a reclose. When a cable trips off, its down for the count and fault detection has to be employed (typically >4 hours, less if they get lucky).
There is no dispute about putting the cables in the ground for distribution systems. Its been relatively equal in cost to do over the past ~50 years as subdivisions were being built and the cable plant went in with the other underground infrastructure.
Transmission on the other hand...
I've just finished the initial design for a 138 kV transmission system that is using overhead and power cable. Most cable installations these days up to 230 kV are going with XLPE (Cross Linked Polyethylene - or plastic) insulation. Above 230 kV assessments have to be made for efficiency and life span. We are keeping the footprint of the overhead lines to a minimum using a single mast wood structure, and the power cable is going under a provincial park via a directional bore of world benchmark setting proportions.
We have to find ways to make it work for all parties. You see, my initial proposal was to do a cut and fill power cable installation through the park - just as one would do in a city. This park is remote and not easily accessed, but with this development we could provide that access. The cable installation would be designed so that once complete it would look like a trail system through the park complete with sleeping and picnic shelters over the vault manholes. Within 2 to 3 years, no one would even know there was a power cable installation underground. (BTW, I'm using differential protection throughout with fast clearing times of 3 to 5 cycles and reclosing on the overhead line). The power cable installation is over $15 million in itself, so we are protecting the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out it.
If the project goes ahead, it may get some attention during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics as the project is in the vicinity.
To put a reality spin on it, we are stuck with the existing overhead transmission infrastructure. It isn't going anywhere for quite a while.
There's enough generating capacity in the grid right now to convert a large fraction of the US vehicle fleet to PHEV, if they charged in off-peak periods. So say the people who actually know what they're talking about.
Generating capacity, yes, OFF PEAK.
1) Is there enough fuel (mainly NG) for 17% (all PHEV) expansion in GWh generated ?
2) Will EVERYONE recharge off-peak (I believe a good % will not, convenience over price).
So not a meaningful fact IMHO.
Best Hopes for Murphy taking a vacation,
Alan
They would all charge off-peak if charging was automated. Since an intelligent roll-out of EVs would involve replacing autos in dense urban environments where excessive idling at low load operation result in horrible engine efficiency first, odds are there would be suitable wlan connectivity to manage the fleet initially. Offering customers off-peak plans/rates would also increase off-peak charging time. Why pay 15c/kWh to charge in the day when you can set a timer and pay 5c/kWh to charge at night? Hell, go low tech and run a second meter connected to a specific outlet for EV owners that'll result in lower rates but will only work over some time window. The owner gets home, plugs in, and some time during the night their car charges up. They can still charge using another outlet and get hit w/ the normal rate, but given the difference between peak and off peak they'll probably just plug it in and let it charge off peak when they get home. Scheduling the charging of a substantial portion of the fleet wouldn't be very hard or costly even w/ current tech. Wind power expansion has a huge head start on PH/EV expansion, and I imagine it will continue to lead, so electricity production is a non-issue for now and probably over the next decade at least. As demand side management advances wrt EVs we could even surpass the ERE's 20% wind power by 2030 objective.
They would all charge off-peak if charging was automated.
BS !!
I would quite likely charge up as soon as I got home just in case I needed to go out again. An hypothetical extra 10 cents/kWh would make very little difference to me. It certainly does not with cell phone use. When I want to call, I just do so.
I am VERY far from being the only one with this attitude/choice.
Alan
BS? If it's automated you wouldn't have a choice. :P
If you wanna charge at peak demand, outside of a incentives program (as opposed to when it's automated, different things entirely) in other words when there aren't incentives, maybe even higher rates, then you'll pay to play so to speak. It'd probably be more than a 10c/kWh differential if the electric company wanted to dissuade extra peak demand, and use the proceeds from the people who have enough not to care on expanding infrastructure, so w/ an extra ~20 miles per day, you would be at ~5kWh/day, and ~$200/year extra, which takes away about half of the cost savings of an EV. If it's a 20c/kWh differential you might as well use a typical car. And if it's 40c/kWh to do what ya wanna do, yer just paying for electricity generation/transmission for the rest of the users. If you wanna do whatever ya wanna do at inopportune times you'll be charged accordingly in order to keep the grid up and humming. :)
You are assuming that a species other than homo sapians Americanus is buying these PHEVs.
First, I would NEVER buy a car that I could not recharge as desired/needed.
Second, I will find a way to use household current from another source. No technofix will stop me.
So, unless you want to charge me, and everyone else, quadruple for fixing dinner, you cannot overcharge me for recharging as desired.
Unrealistic expectations lead to false conclusions.
You want it to work, so a way will be found to make it work.
I disagree.
Alan
You could, as long as the grid was up. But you'd pay premium rates to charge at peak hours.
The car itself would control that, so unless you rigged your own charger you'd be going through the car's DSM/V2G control system.
Since everyone fixing dinner at once is so costly in equipment, it's not "overcharging" to bill top rates for it; people willing to spread their usage around reduce the cost of the system and should receive the proper benefits. Ditto the PHEV. If you charge in the slack period in the wee hours and let the utility regulate the immediate load to run generators most efficiently, you should get the cheapest rate; if you insist on charging when the grid is heavily burdened instead of burning a little fuel, you should get stuck with a big bill.
(A big bill, at best. Enough other people will probably do the cost-effective thing and shift their use, but the system should cut your car off rather than overload the grid and cause blackouts. If everyone tried to fill their gas tanks at once the filling stations would run dry and you'd have "gasouts", so your complaint about PHEVs insists that they solve a problem they did not create and that you already have.)
Large scale use of PHEVs will increase peak demand and require new generation, despite what the advocates claim.
That is the only logical conclusion based on knowledge of human behavior.
Time of Day pricing will shift a fraction of the new demand, but only a fraction (my SWAG, 1/2 to 2/3rds will time shift, 1/2 to 1/3rd will not. Many new peak power plants to power that 1/3rd or 1/2th).
And PHEV will require more GWh, and fuel to generate those GWh, regardless of time of day that they are charged.
Alan
The other reality wrench to throw into the plan is the voltage used for the home based chargers. Don't they use 240 V circuits, or do they expect to make them work at 120 V - probably have an option. To get the effective charging duration down, 240 V would be required.
This is important because household 240 V circuits are specific purpose and few whereas 120 V is general purpose and plenty. Therefore some additional wiring will be required for the charger unit. To be the conciliator in this discussion, both required modes could be accommodated. Normal charging could be programmed for off-peak with an emergency override. The override may include a usage fee (say $1) with the increased kw-h rate.
Lesse, ~20A/110V would provide ~2.2kW, and w/ charging efficiency, ~2kW into a battery. At the ~30 miles per day U.S. average, in a small sedan, that means we'll need about three plus hours to charge. A 220V hook-up is generally only needed when charging a pure EV w/ something like 200 miles of range from empty to full, since that would take ~20 hours, instead of ~10 w/ 220V. Course, I don't think 200 mile EVs will be common, so it's kind of a moot point for now, but if they do become common I imagine that we'll put 'em on 220V circuits just like we do w/ air conditioners.
There are some "non NEC" means of turning a 110 V plug into a 220 V plug (hook white to second phase, use ground as return for other 110 V plugs on the circuit and disconnect their white, breaker to taste).
Not good for insurance after an electrical fire.
Alan
Or, don't drive 200 miles a day in an EV (that isn't available yet) and hack home wiring just to save some charging time. ;)
The first-generation vehicles like the Chevy Volt will only take about 8 kWh to top up the battery from max depletion, so 110 V 15 A will do the job in about 5 hours, 8 hours if you limit to 10 A.
To me, a 220 V circuit is just a different type of breaker stuck in the panel with heavier wires to the load. Yes, it may need new wiring, a bit of conduit, etc.; that never stopped me before! If the panel is inconveniently located it might cost more to add 220 V outlets, but people crunched for cash can just stick with 110 V and accept the longer charging times. The only way I could see this being crippling right away is if a multi-car family gets two or more PHEVs at once and has only one 110 V 15 A circuit for the garage outlets.
If a multi-family dwelling or a parking garage is being wired for EV/PHEV, everything will be new anyway and tailoring to order will be relatively cheap.
V2G will cut peak demand, as well as reducing network losses by e.g. generating reactive power.
The blinking "12:00" on millions of VCRs is proof that humans tend not to bother to learn details if they don't make a big difference. If the default is for the car to charge off-peak and do V2G, that's what most of them will do. Even fewer will switch if the credit portion of their bills goes away and is replaced by charges.
This is very true, but that fuel can be anything from photons falling on your home PV to atoms splitting in a reactor to fuel oil from displaced gasoline burning in a CCGT powerplant. This is similar to electrified rail, but EVs with V2G can also supply grid power on demand.
I doubt that V2G is economic if, as seems quite likely, it shortens the life of the battery.
Also the prospect of coming out and finding that your car is half discharged after being plugged in for hours will not be good for this strategy.
The efficiency of EVs (or PHEVs) is several multiples worse than electrified rail (especially with TOD). 6x would be a reasonable SWAG. So they will drag down the grid and generation much more.
If the default is for the car to charge off-peak and do V2G,
I suspect GM marketing will argue very strongly against that strategy (making V2G the default and difficult to change).
As for the TOD charging and credits, the actual savings of V2G are fairly small in a majority of cases (worth next to zero to Entergy New Orleans for example), even if valuable in a few cases (California comes to mind).
The economic savings have to justify a massive changeover in metering (a couple of $100/meter plus labor & overhead to change the meter), systems to prevent islanding from too much juice coming in from batteries in a low demand area, enough to pay everybody when the # of batteries on-line exceeds what is desired, a utility profit margin and "something" left over to give as a credit to the PHEV customer.
In most locales, I do not see $$ left over for a credit to the customer. If no credit, why do it ? And a $3/month credit will not change much behavior.
Alan
AC Propulsion's V2G regulation test found the battery's capacity increased over the life of the test. That was with lead-acid, too; modern Li-ion wouldn't have a cycling problem. And the value of the services is much greater than the depreciation on the battery.
Why? If the utility leaves you enough juice for your driving, it makes no difference; if it pays you more than the value of the fuel you need, you're ahead.
The utilities are partners in this, and GM isn't exactly in the driver's seat these days. And it doesn't have to be difficult to change (it's not difficult to set the time on a VCR), it just has to replace the fees for service with bills for peak consumption.
Entergy spends nothing on spinning reserve? V2G and mere dynamic charging can replace a lot of fuel-burning hardware with batteries that few people care much about except that they're charged (far enough) for the next jaunt between work and home. The vehicle and batteries are a sunk cost, the fuel and hours on a powerplant cost money.
The vehicle is its own meter.
Vehicles in a low-demand area wouldn't be back-feeding the grid unless told to.
Spinning reserve is always worth something. Not having to heat up a powerplant unless it's absolutely needed is a cost-saver.
The PHEV customer can get paid the market value of the services (spinning reserve and regulation aren't cheap), minus the fees from the aggregating service.
Avoiding another 8/14/2003 is worth doing it.
It doesn't even matter if it impacts the storage capacity of the battery since costs are around 10c/kWh stored while peak power costs are north of 20-25c/kWh. The power industry pays you 20c/kWh for something that cost ya 15c/kWh (storage plus off-peak electricity), and you make 5c/kWh while they save 5c/kWh in generation, plus they don't have to expand transmission capacity. Everyone, except the company running the natural gas peaker plant, wins.
Situations like this are why CA is offering solar panel rebates, and w/ panel prices at $3.50/Watt and dropping, it's another win-win for the state and for owners. Toss in the federal tax credit and an enterprising DIYer can put in a decent sized solar setup for ~$5,000 (after rebate/credit) and have ~5.8c/kWh electricity for the next twenty five warrantied years or so provided they keep consumption in line w/ their generation profile, and it drops to ~3.9c/kWh over their likely lifespan of about five decades. CA gets fairly cheap peak generating capacity from homeowners, and the owners get dirt cheap electricity. Again, everyone wins, except for the NG plant/fuel owners.
AC Propulsion's V2G regulation test found the battery's capacity increased over the life of the test.
This fails the smell test, BADLY ! A lead-acid battery has INCREASED life the more it was cycled.
with batteries that few people care much about ... The vehicle and batteries are a sunk cost,
Battery life will be a MAJOR concern to owners.
Your other points are faulty too.
Yes, it is a bad thing to find a half full tank when you expected a full one ! Does the utility know how far you are going to drive ? And many people today NEVER get below a half gas tank today. Psychology is important to consumers.
Spinning reserve takes lots of dispatcher time, but it is not that big an expense. Basically, it is cheap (<1% of total utility costs I was told years ago). Just run a few plants at a part load with good heat rates but below 100%. Entergy has large industrial loads (some with their own generation) and overall demand is pretty stable and predictable.
Any utility with hydro uses that for spinning reserve. VERY cheap !
So this statement is simply wrong
And the value of the services is much greater than the depreciation on the battery
There are other, and better, ways to prevent another 8/14/2003. And few cars would have been plugged in when it blacked out (early afternoon from memory). Doubtful if enough would have been plugged in to make a difference.
The vehicle is its own meter.
Huh ! I am boogled at the parties that would have to agree to that ! Ain't going to happen. And if it did, I would expect detailed drawings on the internet on how to bypass that "meter".
Vehicles in a low-demand area wouldn't be back-feeding the grid unless told to.
Typically, utilities have no real time demand information below the substation level. ANOTHER major expense !
You have convinced me that V2G is a worthless concept in almost every case, and other than some PR exercises, it is not going to happen.
Alan
But that's what was measured [1], and it does stand to reason. Electronic de-sulfator devices work using pulses, and the very small, short cycles used for regulation are similar.
I really don't care, I just care how much it costs me. If someone is paying me to use "my" battery and will replace it, hey... free money!
We're talking PHEVs here. Half a battery would be a very rare event, and the utility could look at the fuel gauge to make sure I've got a minimum reserve mileage available (minimum determined by me).
Assuming the worst case, suppose the car's on a 220 V 30 A circuit and is offering spinning reserve when a major plant trips off-line. It goes from some level of charge to 6.6 kW back-feed while the utility cold-starts some backup gas turbines. The turbines start feeding the grid in 3 minutes and linearly take up the full load after 15 minutes. Total energy from car to grid during the event: 990 Wh, which can be made up in 9 minutes at full charge. That's about 5 miles of electric range, roughly 1/10 gallon of fuel at 50 MPG, 50¢ if fuel is $5/gallon. If it happened once a month and I was paid $2/month for reserve services, I'd be way ahead.
How many utilities lack hydro? Michigan has the Ludington pumped storage facility, but if it's being discharged to meet peak load demands it can't count as reserve.
It was about 3:30 PM. I was driving through Troy, MI when all the traffic lights went dark.
Most people were either at home or at work (and tried to get home immediately after... the traffic was unbelievable). Had the fleet had a large fraction of PHEVs with proper legal support for at-work charging (like handicapped spaces), they would have been plugged in.
It's implicit in the system. The V2G capability requires the vehicle to communicate with the utility. Your house may be on a flat-rate meter, but the vehicle will do its own measurement and reporting. If it doesn't measure what it thinks it should be doing, it will report a fault.
It's possible to hook up a secondary charger and program it to offset the V2G system, but the number of people perverse enough to do that is too small to be significant. That's true whether or not the group includes you.
But they have detailed statistical information every month in the bills, and know exactly where each plugged-in vehicle is and thus what lines they are connected to.
Just because you see it as competition for your electrified-rail TOD does not mean that the public won't like it.
[1] The report is off-line, but here's the Google cache:
from your own quote, my bold
If someone is paying me to use "my" battery and will replace it, hey... free money!
So NOW the utilities are not only paying to use my battery, they are replacing it for free whenever it dies !
Toothfairy economics comes to mind. Given the multi-thousand dollar costs of these batteries, it is hard to find the economic justification for this. Utilities could get stationary batteries (cheaper (no vibration to engineer for, etc.), larger, more convenient, available 24 hours/day) for less $.
There is also a convenience cost associated with a battery dying.
The discharge cycle mentioned is rare, but a rapid discharge (close to a discharge to ground during first 3 minutes) is generally not good for batteries. I wonder about over heating issues.
$2/month is not going to entice 98% of the population (there is that cheap 2%). With other overhead for this scheme, it is doubtful if utilities have even that to pay.
... with proper legal support for at-work charging
SO a new legal requirement for every employer with parking. Several thousand $ for the first couple of charging spots, increasing over time (trenches in middle of lot to reach those spaces later). You just assume this is going to happen. ADA for our beloved utilities.
Reality is that very few PHEVs will be plugged mid-day during work days.
If it doesn't measure what it thinks it should be doing, it will report a fault.
And then what ?
You did not understand my point about islanding. A section much smaller than a substation can be islanded (you were quoting discharge rates of 7 kW/PHEV, easy to overcome local demand with a number of PHEVs hooked up).
Say Quiet Oaks subdivision has 32 PHEVs plugged in one Christmas when "everyone" (all but, say, 8 families) are on vacation. Gas heat in Quiet Oaks. Spinning reserve trips and all 32 PHEVs start discharging. Most homes have only refrigerator loads and couple of CFL lights. Two dozen furnace fans on in the entire subdivision when the trip happens and 5 kW of LED Christmas lights (Quiet Oaks is environmentally aware).
PHEVs generate 32 x 7 kW, subdivision load is 32 kW, 192 kW fed into the distribution line for Quiet Oaks (utility has no monitoring for specifically Quiet Oaks load today). But the strip malls nearby absorb the 192 kW (some electric heat there) and an electrical island is created. Which quickly gets out of phase with the rest of the grid.
LOTS of scenarios that would create islanding.
Just because you see it as competition for your electrified-rail TOD does not mean that the public won't like it.
$2/month plus or minus will neither make or break PHEVs. V2G is an "add-on" concept to a basically valid concept, PHEVs. Invalidating (or validating) V2G will have very little real world impact on PHEVs.
When I was touring Raccoon Mountain pumped storage, they mentioned that TVA liked to always leave one of the four reversible pump turbines off-line for spinnign reserve if needed (spin in air). When one was down for rebuilding/enlarging, this complicated dispatch.
About half of utilities have significant hydro production, enough for spinning reserve. Alabama Power (of Southern Companies), LCRA in Texas, TVA, New York State, all Canadian utilities except PEI, and maybe Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Rocky Mts, some New England and MidWest utilities. 9% of all generation is hydro, that is a lot of potential spinning reserve.
I do support PHEVs. I just recognize Murphy is active with "break through" technologies and fail to buy the projections of what PHEVs will do (like V2G, reduce gasoline demand by 35% by 2019, etc.) and how quickly they will come on-line.
Best Hopes for PHEVs,
Alan
That is correct. The study did not attempt to examine the exact interaction between cycling in regulation service and battery life. However, your speculation:
has some very strong evidence to the contrary, even for cheap, notoriously short-lived lead-acid batteries.
One of the business models is that someone else owns the battery, leases it to you, manages its use and replaces it when it's no longer suitable for mobile service (perhaps putting it into stationary service until it's time to recycle it). This business makes a lot of its money from selling grid services (or eliminating the use of higher-cost service providers if the business is the utility itself), so yes, they'd replace it "for free" because your lease says you get a battery with XX capacity. Your lease costs less than amortization, because the other services pay for much of the cost of the battery; you get paid for plugging in. You also get time-of-day rates on power, which are very cheap in the wee hours.
Yes, but then you have no savings from reduced petroleum consumption to help pay the freight. The bulk of the batteries would be available during the off-peak hours when extra demand is useful to the utility, and the utility can still have a crack at the batteries once they're too degraded for mobile use—the initial depreciation would be paid for with the fuel savings, and the utility gets the used units at a steep discount.
True, but in an EV/PHEV this is unlikely to be an all-or-nothing phenomenon like an ICE starter battery. The "Check Battery" light goes on or the utility gives you a phone call, and you have your 80%-capacity battery swapped out for a 100%-capacity battery at your next service visit.
If a battery is too discharged to be a good supply, it wouldn't be counted as part of the spinning reserve.
Anywhere from a check during the next service visit to a safety shutdown. And you'd deserve it; tampering with the management system so that you're getting paid for services not performed is fraud.
The frequency or voltage would quickly go out of limits and the cars would disconnect; this is how grid-tie inverters work today. Alternatively and with the right hardware between the grid and the house, the meter would detect the frequency/voltage excursion, disconnect the house from the grid and command the car to function as a UPS. The house would keep running like nothing happened until the grid came back.
V2G is a way to cut the total system cost by using vehicle hardware (already required for the vehicle) to cut costs elsewhere in the system (spinning reserve, reactive power, regulation). This reduces the net cost of EVs.
Which has a certain amount of losses involved. The half of utilities without hydro have to run something that's both burning fuel (generally at far less than best efficiency) and running up its operating hours and annual emissions totals. If the DSM and V2G capabilities of EVs are used to reduce use of the least-efficient units (even leaving them cold unless they are needed), fuel costs, O&M costs and pollution can all go down.
There's also the little detail that a few thousand vehicles doing V2G would be perfect to supply the starting surges and absorb the regenerative braking spikes of an electrified train. These things are all synergistic.
Yes, yes, I imagine you're the type that would want to pay $200,000 for a $100,000 house. If that's your decision I'm not going to disagree w/ you here, do whatever you want.
That said, if you want to charge at a time that will put undue stress on the grid, expect to pay to play. If you want to spend more on your EV than it would cost to run a conventional vehicle of the same size just because you want to charge at peak, that's fine, and I for one support you, since your excessive spending will be subsidizing the grid for the rest of us.
Electric companies will raise rates proportional to demand if DSM does not work w/ EVs. That's just how it will be. If you want to end up paying 20-50c/kWh, or whatever it is, to charge at 4-5pm, then that's what you'll pay.
That said, there will undoubtedly be options in the future as there are today, just more varied w/ an EV roll-out. If I want to use a ton of electricity, feel free and subsidize use for the rest of us. A savvy EV owner can still get a decent on/off-peak rate if they so choose. Hell, the costs are such that it's worthwhile to have a secondary battery pack charged off of the 5c/kWh off-peak rates for use during peak since storage seems to be at ~10c/kWh these days while the peak rate is ~20-25c/kWh. This isn't any special EV owner program, this is just something that's been around for years. In CA, a market w/ some of the highest costs nonetheless.
You seem to think that electric companies will just let everyone plug-in willy nilly and crash the grid. Ya gotta pay to play buddy. If you and others don't mind paying excessive rates for more peak capacity then that's what you'll do. That said, the electric grid works regardless of whether you or others want to charge at inopportune times. If ya wanna do that, you'll pay accordingly. The pricing structure is what will determine who charges when. Feel free to finance the grid for the rest of us Richie Rich! ;)
Quoth ROCKMAN:
How can you set that aside? That's the death-blow to the concept. Renewable resources like solar, wind and hydro have to be used where-is. Almost everything else (save for nuclear [1]) is polluting, running out or both; if it's neither, it's got severe supply constraints.
People need more than energy. People need water, food, and a host of other things. Non-fossil energy supplies don't match well with the others.
This is a classic case of comparative advantage, where different regions trade what they can produce better than others. We'll ship what's easiest to ship; the population of New York isn't going to move to North Dakota for the wind power and leave the water and infrastructure behind, so we'll move the power.
North Dakota will get the construction and maintenance jobs and perhaps excise taxes on electric generation, so New York will pay for having the pinwheels in flyover country. Everyone along the route of the power line will benefit from having access to power generated far away, and will pay taxes levied by the producers when they use that power.
[1] According to an on-line reference I found, fission of a ton of U-235 yields 7.4*1016 joules (20.55 billion kWh); converted to electricity at 40%, that's 8.2 billion kWh of electricity per ton. The total electric demand of the USA could be met by the fission of less than 500 tons of U/Pu per year (fission energy of plutonium is not different enough to matter). The USA already has 43,000 tons of uranium in storage as spent PWR fuel alone, plus at least 5 times as much as the depleted uranium (DU) byproduct of enrichment. Used in Integral Fast Reactors, the spent PWR fuel would run the nation's grid for ~90 years, and the DU for another 400+ years.
Regarding moving the people to the resources, rather than sending electricity long-distance through the grid, I am tending more and more to agree with you. Upgrading the grid will be a huge project and difficult to maintain. If we can manage local production of electricity, using local resources, that would seem to be a better direction to go.
I have started working on a 2009 prognostications post--hope it is not too gloomy for TOD to post.
What about wind in the Dakotas and solar thermal in the southwest? Both areas have lots of power potential, but not the water to support a big population. Also wind needs to be averaged, and solar thermal is just right for covering afternoon peaks -- perfect for export over as wide an area as possible at the time when watt-hours are at their most valuable.
Some such excess production will be exported, some will be inefficiently (or less than optimally) used, and some won't get built.
For much, though, the factories and support people will follow along. It doesn't take a huge population to run a steel smelter or concrete kiln.
I fully expect, though, that the coast-driven, top-down planners will come up with a new "super grid" to wholesale electricity inefficiently, and development will lag and be overspent at every step. And it will still ultimately fall short.
If our biggest energy source is the sun in the southwest, but the region is expected to be short of water, this just isn't an option. Also the relative cost of the real estate to build a plant in say an urban corrider, versus in the country is very different. I see no way that increased transmission won't be an important part of the solution.