Not long ago, several important companies with interests in the utility and energy businesses created the GridWise Alliance. The group, which recently added fifteen new members (still no CA Edison), announced a meeting next week in Washington D.C. to discuss smart grids, how they can help us reduce our carbon footprint and how they are affected by the Energy Act of 2007.

According to their website, the Gridwise alliance aims for "an electric system that integrates the infrastructure, processes, devices, information and market structure so that energy can be generated, distributed, and consumed more efficiently and cost effectively; thereby achieving a more resilient, secure and reliable energy system." For us, this means that electric networks need to be adapted for plug-in cars. As we pointed out, our current electricity grid is dumb and does not distinguish what we plug into our socket walls - and there are serious concerns about the capacity of power plants to feed new electric demand. Smart meters should allow EVs to purchase electricity at certain times, such as during the night, when there's less electricity demand.

[Source: Gridwise]

The Wall Street Journal has published a very interesting article that states that GM is teaming with a dozen electric utilities operating in 40 states to prepare the arrival of its plug-in model (the Volt, if you didn't remember the name). From the business point of view, the article states that both the utilities and the auto industry have a lot to win. The plug-in hybrid car is seen as a "hot product" that can revive car sales, as well as reduce our dependence on oil. GM needs utilities which can keep the grid reliable for recharges, the same way it needed a reliable battery manufacturer for the cars to work correctly.

Why a safe grid? Think of what happens in a hot summer afternoon with all A/C working and energy at its peak tier prices and plants at maximum production. Intelligent chips and software tuning would identify the car as plugged to the electric grid and then use spare electricity to recharge. According to some studies, spare power plant capacity at night could feed millions of cars.


[Source: WSJ]

Halfway through Al Gore's challenge today calling for a 100% renewable electric grid within ten years is a call for plug-in electric cars. This represents a big change in his thinking, and will hopefully quickly push political and environmental leadership to coalesce around policies to push plug-in cars into the market as quickly as possible. The unfounded fear that large numbers of plug-in cars will overwhelm the grid and increase the use of coal and reinvigorate the nuclear industry to produce electricity has kept major environmental organizations from looking at plug-in cars with clear and objective eyes.

"We could further increase the value and efficiency of a Unified National Grid by helping our struggling auto giants switch to the manufacture of plug-in electric cars. An electric vehicle fleet would sharply reduce the cost of driving a car, reduce pollution, and increase the flexibility of our electricity grid."

[Source: NY Times]

Studies have been performed that indicate that there is enough excess electricity already being produced to charge a nation of electric cars. One hitch to that plan, though, is that it requires people to charge their vehicles while they sleep, during "off-peak" hours. For this reason, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory ran some numbers and found that the worst-case daytime charging scenario could require up to 160 new power plants to be erected nationwide. Their projected best-case scenario includes people only charging their cars after 10:00 pm and may not require any new power plants at all. That's a huge spread, of course, and we'd expect to see reality set in somewhere in between those two extremes. Of course, it would be great to see a large number of people choose to purchase renewable power, either from their utility or using solar cells or wind generators of their own. It is impossible at this point to know how consumers will react to electric cars being available on the market, but now is the time to start planning, so we're happy to see reports like this one being conducted.

[Source: ORNL via Science Daily]

As discussed in URGE² theory, utilising the grid to overcome the supply intermittency of renewable energy sources is a critical step in moving forward towards a green energy future. Californian utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is looking to do just that by combining the overnight charging of EVs via renewable energy with the opportunity for consumers to sell some of the power stored in their vehicles' battery packs back to the grid during the day.

The plan is designed to both drive the uptake of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and give the utility more capacity flexibility in dealing with peak load situations. Essentially the battery packs in the plug-in cars would be recharged over night and then would recharge the grid during the day.

Wind energy is California's major renewable energy contributor, with more than 2,500 megawatts of capacity. But with aggressive renewable energy goals, around 4,600 megawatts is projected to be added to meet the targets. Xcel Energy is also looking at smart-grid technologies to help it meet Minnesota's Renewable Energy Standard legislation.

Analysis: Expect to see a lot more on smart grid technologies such as high-tech meters over the coming few years. Estimated to be just 5-6 years away, power grid-to-car-batteries technology should reduce both emissions and energy bills.

Related:

• A call to URGE² - Use Renewably Generated Electricity, Efficiently
• How about a garage covered in wind turbines with solar windows?
• GridWise sets aside four days in April to work on U.S. smart grid

[Source: EcoFriend]

In a lengthy, two-part editorial, David Roberts, a staff writer at Grist, presents his position on unifying the green lobby around the flag of URGE²: Use Renewably Generated Electricity, Efficiently. He is expecting bumper stickers and t-shirts - here's why.

Mine negawatts: The cheapest source of new energy is not using it - increase efficiency and you can slash the growth in energy demand. See part two of the interview with Michael Brylawski of RMI for his related comments on how people don't want extra kilowatts, they want hot showers and cold beers.

A good example of where to find negawatts is right above you - replacing standard incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs as is being proposed here in Australia. Similarly, make a car lighter and you can make it more efficient, or faster, or both.

Electrify: It's easier to find clean, renewable sources of electricity than it is to find clean, renewable liquid fuels which leads to an obvious conclusion - shift almost all energy use to electricity. That's not to say that there isn't a lot of room for renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel in the mean time, but long term, the electricity grid is just more efficient.

Kill coal: "Coal is the enemy of the human race." Coal fired power stations are responsible for a huge percentage of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. Coal also causes environmental damage where it is mined and air pollution where is burning. Cleaning up coal is likely to make it financially non-viable in comparison to green technologies such as wind.

Upgrade the grid: Focus on energy storage and decentralisation through renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal, hydrokinetic, cogeneration and biomethane. Developing good power storage technology is important to even out the supply intermittency of renewable energy sources. Examples of storage Roberts mentions include battery technology (both lithium and nano), hydrogen fuel cells, pumped storage, molten-salt storage and ultracapacitors.

Analysis: As Michael Brylawski said, "if the ultimate efficiency is, say, 10 percent of turning coal into refrigeration for your beer, every unit of energy saved at the fridge saves ten times that in coal." I especially like the concept of mining negawatts - you can start today by using compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Related:

• GridWise sets aside four days in April to work on U.S. smart grid
• Wind and solar powered streetlights... I hope there're no solar red-light-photo cameras!
• Interview with Michael Brylawski of RMI part two - Hypercars and cold beers

[Source: David Roberts / TomPaine.com]