Science & Technology - Posted by Louise Lerner-Chicago on Thursday, April 22, 2010 5:12 - 9 Comments 
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Could plug-in cars zap the power grid?
The smart grid offers more choice to consumers by letting them micro-manage their energy bills. Consumers could also choose to pay a clean energy premium for solar and wind power and thereby promote the use of these renewable energy sources. "The smart grid doesn't propose to revolutionize the way we do power," Ted Bohn says. "It's just about doing the same things more efficiently—smarter." (Credit: Rennett Stowe/Creative Commons)
U. CHICAGO (US)—President Barack Obama has called for one million plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to hit the road by 2015. If the demand for plug-ins skyrockets, a flood of new electric cars could strain America’s power networks to the limit.
Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory are working to develop a “smart grid” that will not only adapt in real-time to handle larger electricity loads, but also operate more cheaply and efficiently than the existing grid.
“The smart grid proposes to reorganize the way power is used in the home and how it is distributed,” says Ted Bohn, an electrical engineer at Argonne’s Center for Transportation Research.
In the home, electric vehicles and all major appliances would be connected to a central hub that monitors how much electricity they use. The hub in turn would “talk” to local power suppliers. All of these appliances and the grid would talk to each other and could also share power.
Communication flow
The communication between vehicles, appliances and the grid allows suppliers to track electricity use in real-time. With that information, more utilities could vary the price of power by time of day and create incentives for consumers to use electricity at certain times. If power suppliers are overwhelmed during peak demand, consumers will receive a high price signal that will encourage them to reduce their consumption until the situation eases.
“Say you’re running the air conditioning and charging your car battery at the same time during a hot afternoon,” Bohn says. “With a smart-grid infrastructure, your AC and battery charger will automatically dial down their consumption, and then run it back up again when prices are lower.”
The smart grid offers more choice to consumers by letting them micro-manage their energy bills. A consumer concerned about price could set a dishwasher to run when power is cheapest, usually at night, when demand is lowest. Environmentally conscious consumers could also choose to pay a clean energy premium for solar and wind power and thereby promote the use of these renewable energy sources.
“The smart grid doesn’t propose to revolutionize the way we do power,” Bohn says. “It’s just about doing the same things more efficiently—smarter.”
Powering plug-ins
Les Poch and Matt Mahalik of Argonne’s Center for Energy, Environmental, and Economic Systems Analysis (CEEESA) are concerned with the demand on the existing grid as more and more electric vehicles hit the road. Poch and Mahalik model the potential strain on the grid if millions of new electric vehicles were to plug in every night.
“Depending on what Americans do with their new cars, energy suppliers could be overwhelmed—or they could stand to gain a lot,” Poch says.
Electricity suppliers closely monitor regional demand. To prevent shortages, they must predict how much electricity will be needed at any given time. “Until now, the pattern of power use in the U.S. has been relatively stable and predictable for the past 30 years,” says Mahalik. “The last major bump was probably the widespread adoption of air conditioning.”
Now, electric vehicles stand poised to throw off that stable pattern. No one knows how quickly electric cars will catch on, in what areas they’ll be most popular, or when everyone will choose to plug in their cars.
Peak performance
Today’s electricity demand follows well defined cycles. It increases during the daytime when commuters head to work, as homes and offices turn up the air conditioning and factories power up the machinery, and falls sharply during nighttime.
Utilities must prepare for that afternoon peak. “The way we build power plants now is to make sure we have enough to meet the highest demand possible—the maximum amount of power on the afternoon of the hottest day of the year,” says Vladimir Koritarov, deputy director of CEEESA. “Then they add some more for backup in an emergency. The rest of the year we won’t need nearly so much power, but we have to be prepared for that one day.”
For this reason, utilities must maintain a large reserve capacity that is unused for the majority of the year. Koritarov thinks that with the right approach, the smart grid could work out to everyone’s advantage.
By using incentives to smooth out demand for electricity between day and night, a utility can produce power more economically. Also, smart charging of electric and hybrid vehicles during the off-peak periods can significantly help with that goal by filling up “demand valleys.”
A significant stumbling block for power distribution is the lack of technology to store power for extended periods. Stockpiled power from variable resources, such as solar and wind, could be fed back into the grid at peak times to reduce the strain on the grid and conventional power plants.
“The smart grid isn’t a theoretical concept,” says Bohn. “It’s happening now.” Across the country, aspects of the smart grid are being tested in homes and neighborhoods.
University of Chicago/Argonne news: www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/
9 Comments
John Robinson
David
Surprised there was no direct mention of the potential for vehicles that store or produce electricity to provide power to the owner or even the grid during peak demand periods. If your EV is 3/4 charged and just sitting in the driveway at 3pm, maybe you’d rather draw down a little of that storage rather than pay peak prices. Maybe your employer would pay you nicely for it. Maybe the city would let you park downtown for free given some kind of peak demand agreement.
There’s one huge issue this post dances around, but doesn’t really address fully: As noted, electric vehicles charge almost exclusively at night. As noted, peak load typically occurs in the afternoon, then drops off substantially. Why not connect the dots and realize that this isn’t so likely to be an immense problem? Matter of fact, electrical vehicles act as an ever-growing electrical storage system for the grid, drawing down power when the loads are lowest, then burning that power when the loads are highest, but they’re off-grid, driving around town. Electric vehicles are therefore more likely to be part of the solution than the problem.
Xavier Longshot
Why can’t people just walk more!!!!
Xavier, that’s the best thing, obviously! I moved from a completely unwalkable place 7 years ago to Miami Beach. My family driving dropped to 1/8 of what it was before. For example, I haven’t been in my car for five days right now. But for the people temporarily stuck in sprawl, electric cars have several notable advantages over gas-powered ones, IMO.
In my view the Smart Grid, like de-regulation of the energy industry is a red herring when it comes to consumer savings.
And lets fact it, our electric grid as it exists now is a purely early 20th century system. The 21st century grid should have at least 30 to 50 percent renewable energy in the mix.
Chelsea
With Electric Cars we are building the cart BEFORE the horse. We don’t have excess electric power in our grids no..Not in China, Not in the USA not in India ,Not in australia,not in europe not anywhere..
On excessive heat of summer days we have routinely strained the US Electric system causing Blackouts & Brownouts already.
Where do you boys & girls think the extra power for our Electric power grid is supposed to come from while you talk of EV this & EV that? Thin air? Like T Boone Pickens says : we have enough CNG for the next 200 years. We have enough coal for the next 100 years w e have enough Wnd to make it part of the Power Grid solution. Shouldn’t we increase out capacity BEOFRE adding all these vehicles that will use up power on our already taxed system.
David
Chelsea! Read my and Steve’s comments. EVs can actually help rather than hinder the electric power system. The only real question is what will we use to make electricity in the future, solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, nuclear, waves, tides, etc? Burning natural gas isn’t a long term solution unless the CO2 can be recaptured somehow. Coal has to go ASAP. Oil next. Nukes have to be made safe–fail-safe. I would start with conservation. Fewer than 10% of the pickups and SUVs on the road are ever used for anything that a car can’t do better. We wouldn’t miss half the junk we buy (look around, how much of it do you really even use?). Buildings could be built to use half the energy for heating and cooling, starting tomorrow. Our lifestyles wouldn’t even be altered by these sorts of changes.
The smart grid isn’t a theoretical concept
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One area that is poorly understood — except by operators of our electricity supply systems — is that today, the electricity delivery systems are designed with thermal limitations that depend upon cycling loads. At peak usage times, everything gets heated — often to the limit of temperatures that will damage equipment if the hevy loadscontinue for extended periods. The designs of today’s systems now depend on the cycling of loads so that typically, at night when loads are reduced, everything cools down somewhat — essentially catching its breath. The assumption that simply leveling the loads by filling in the “cool-down” periods of light loadtimes would have no serious impact is not correct. Assuming that existing systems can be fully loaded to a more constant level 24/7 by charging electric cars “off-peak” ignores they physical realities of thermal limitations and traditional therma cycling. In reality, significant growth of these additional “off-peak” loads still will require major — and extremely expensive — rebuilding of our entire electricity delivery systems. Smart Grids can help generation econiomics, but probably will not mitigate the delivery system limitations.