Ecotality: Plugging in Austin… Texas Leading the Way to a Smart(er) Grid?
Editor's note: Today, we're pleased to launch a content partnership with eco-friendly technology company Ecotality. Each Friday, we'll feature a post from Ecotality's blog; they'll return the favor to us.
By Ecototality blogger A Siegel. Originally published on Thursday, March 29.
Austin’s Mayor, Will Wynn, is a serious plug-in hybrid vehicle supporter. And, he has been a strong advocate of PHEVs (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle) from Austin to Washington, DC. ”We have made our intentions clear that we want to pave the way for the plug-in hybrid …”
In short, the concept is to develop
- A concentration of plug-in hybrid vehicles plugged into
- A smart(er) grid that enables powering the hybrid vehicles or, as necessary (and according to owners’ desires), draw power from the battery back into the grid to
- Help balance out renewable power intermittency.
Austin currently receives six percent of its electricity from wind sources. As this increases, the issue of covering power requirements when the wind isn’t blowing becomes an ever more serious issue. With enough penetration of PHEVs plugged into a smart(er) grid, the car batteries can serve as storage for the grid, storing power when the wind is blowing and feeding power back into the grid when the wind isn’t blowing (and the sun isn’t shining).
As Wynn puts it,
“Really, the true beauty of this system is the fact that vehicles charged by the electric system will run on alternative energy sources, such as West Texas wind, instead of Middle East oil”
Austin plans to give $1000 to the first 1000 PHEV purchasers in the city.
Wynn is approaching this truly as a campaign. His goal is “a mafia of 50 like-minded, large U.S. cities that are fed up with pollution and high fuel costs. … Armed with commitments for fleet orders … to buy the first round of vehicles … this mafia will tell automakers that the time for change is now.”
For more information, check out Plug-In Austin.
Tags: austin, automobiles, electricity, plug-in+hybrid, smart+grid, texas
March 30th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Come on…this isn’t really for people that are “fed up with…high fuel costs”. This will end up costing the user much more than fuel. If it really was less expensive, the free market would adopt the technology fairly quickly instead of requiring the local governments to hand out checks. The financial and environmental cost of making, maintaining, and eventually replacing (and disposing of) these large car batteries cant be very good.
Plug-in electric cars have already been tried and failed in the early 1990’s. They were too expensive and inconvenient. This car only adds to the inconvenience. Not only do you have to plug it in, you must also fill the gas tank.
The “100 mpg” is misleading. Essentially, instead of burning fuel, you’re burning coal. Coal power plants are 30-some percent efficient. There are then electrical transmission losses, AC to DC conversion losses in the battery, and electric motor losses.
And “mafia” isn’t really a great term when coercing people to adopt this. Perhaps it is appropriate, though.
March 31st, 2007 at 1:33 am
paragraph 1: Your "if it hasn't already been adopted, it's not worth adopting" attitude is one of the most circular argument ever. If you were right, then nothing new would ever happen. If the airplane never got better from its first incarnation, airports would have to be spaced 500 yards apart. The problem with the free market is that it doesn't take into account all the real costs of certain economic choices.
paragraph 2: So a plug-in hybrid vehicle is worse than a hybrid vehicle because… it gets plugged in? Wow, if that's your best argument..
paragraph 3: Everything you say is misleading. the only reason we keep letting you comment is because you're representing your side so accurately. Less than 1/3 of the actual energy in gas goes toward moving an internal combustion car; does an 8% loss for transmission really outweigh that? no.
paragraph 4: Yeah, what a coercive post. Once again, is that the best you can come up with?
Keep 'em coming, James! I'm always up for a little troll in the evening…
David
GO Founder
March 31st, 2007 at 2:23 am
Also on the first point: claiming that "If it really was less expensive, the free market would adopt the technology fairly quickly instead of requiring the local governments to hand out checks" ignores well-established ideas on consumer adoption of new technology.
It also ignores the growth of hybrid sales in the US.
_______________________________________
Jeff McIntire-Strasburg
Senior Editor
Green Options
jeff@greenoptions.com
March 31st, 2007 at 2:47 am
On point two: I fail to see how either plugging in a vehicle when not in use, or having to put gas in it, or even the combination of the two, represents some major inconvenience. You have to put gas in your car now; you'd do that much less with a PHEV. For the vast majority of us, our car stands idle for hours at a time — yes, we're adding the step of actually plugging the vehicle in to an outlet… but is that really a major inconvenience? In most cases, adopting a plug-in hybrid now would mean using electricity generated from coal. But, as the post states, using plug-ins for electrical storage makes it much more likely that we can transition away more quickly from coal to cleaner sources of generation. Did you miss that part? Or, is a perfect solution right now the only answer?
_______________________________________
Jeff McIntire-Strasburg
Senior Editor
Green Options
jeff@greenoptions.com
March 31st, 2007 at 1:06 pm
James like to ignore a lot of things- science, logic, truth, and reality in general. It's easy to do when you are a 29% hold out rightinwingnutjob troll, in fact I think it's required as part of the job.
Shea Gunther
Publisher & Director of Marketing @ Green Options
shea@greenoptions.com
April 5th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Sadly, how to answer is a real problem when dealing with a comment like this.
To rudely dismiss because of its disconnection with the facts? Well, that would be rude, wouldn’t it?
Or, well, go through it point-by-point? That could be tiresome … but we’ll do a few items of response anyway.
1. Unlike gasoline, the electrical system offers the opportunity to get cleaner each passing day. And, as per my discussion, a plug-in hybrid can balance out the intermittency of many renewables, like wind, by drawing power when there is excess in the grid (like when the wind is blowing and demand is low). Thus, PHEVs offer the opportunity to make renewable power more easily used by creating a huge back-up reserve for when the wind isn’t blowing.
2. In any event, driving an electric vehicle off coal power is less polluting than driving with gasoline — even with the 30% efficiencies and 7% transmission losses and …
3. There are plenty of things that the market does that are far from efficient or smart. In part because the financial system/tax system disincentivises smart “ownership” choices. There is no question that it is cheaper, let us say with just a 4 year time frame (15+% ROI), to build according to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. But, commercial structures typically aren’t built that way because of how ownership turnover occurs or people don’t understand. Tract houses are built to code rather than highly energy efficient as energy efficiency is not counted in home appraisals and thus are meaningless for mortgages. While PHEVs will be more expensive (by definition) to buy, without tax incentives, they are almost certainly going to be less expensive to own — the mileage cost of 10 cent electricity is roughly the equivalent of $1 gallon gasoline. And, while there was $1 gallon gasoline under President Clinton, there is nothing to suggest that those days are ever coming back. (And, with Peak Oil, prices are likely to be higher than today’s rather than lower.) And, with the ability to manage purchase times to cheap electricity, that $1 can be cut.
4. Re PHEVs having already been tried … hmm … guess there is nothing to technological advances? Hybrids are better today than 20 years ago for a number of reasons — improved (and cheaper) computing, for example.
And, so on … get the drift …
But, fine, don’t buy one … I’ll be happy with mine when I get it …