Electric Vehicles and the Grid

[91040]

From BBCFuture:

How can we meet the demands more electric vehicles will put on our power supplies and grids? Jon Stewart visits the centre seeking answers through creating common standards for vehicles and charging stations.

Launched last July, The Electric Vehicle-Smart Grid Interoperability Center aims to ease the potential strain on our resources by developing common standards and systems worldwide that ensure vehicles and charging stations work in unison with the electric grid. It's a collaboration between the US Department of Energy and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, with the first of its twin centres based at the Argonne National Laboratory, outside of Chicago in the US. The second site will open in Petten, The Netherlands and Ispra, Italy, in 2014.

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[pkulak]

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[Randy]

In San Diego, we offer special EV electric rates with pricing incentives to charge in the off peak and super off peak times. Best price is from midnight to 5am, which of course is the time of the day when the power system has the most excess capacity. We also allow downstream 2nd metering for EV charging, or you can get the EV rate on the whole house.

Using this strategy, we will be able to add LOTs of EVs in the region without having to worry about major upgrades on the power system. Of course, we are also monitoring usage and clustering effects of multiple EVs in neighborhoods.

I think we're off to a good start and are seeing success in EV charging in the early morning hours. Over 80% of owners are taking advantage of those prices in the super off-peak time...

 

[pkulak]

Exactly. There is a hell of a lot of excess capacity during off peak. Here in Portland we don't have any smart metering, but hopefully soon.