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May 1, 2009 04:20 PM | 17
Imagine all the folks on the waiting list for the Chevy Volt or a plug-in Toyota Prius plugged in their cars at once. The result? Blackout, as the world's largest machine (otherwise known as the electric grid) is overloaded.
What's needed is a device that can sense when there's sufficient capacity to juice up an electric car and when there's not—a so-called "smart charger" (which would, of course, be a key component of a "smart" grid).
And that's exactly what engineers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash. have created. "If a million owners plug in their vehicles to recharge after work, it could cause a major strain on the grid," said PNNL engineer Michael Kintner-Meyer in a statement. "The Smart Charger Controller could prevent those peaks in demand from plug-in vehicles and enable our existing grid to be used more evenly."
The hand-size Smart Charger will do that for them, once programmed with a few key instructions (like how much you're willing to pay to juice up or times when it would be convenient). The charger would also connect to the overall grid wirelessly (like many "smart" meters today) to determine when it was a good time to charge.
A previous study out of PNNL had shown that there was more than enough spare electricity generated to handle a switch over of 70 percent of U.S. personal cars from internal combustion to electric engines. But most of that spare capacity is at night or other times when people are not up and about and plugging in their new electric vehicles. Enter the Smart Charger.
Ultimately, such smart chargers will need to be built into every electric vehicle, but that's still years off. So it's likely that the smart charger will hook into whatever cord links your home socket to your new vehicle. Charging your car this way (presuming variable pricing for electricity) could save consumers as much as $150 a year in costs. The charger itself will be "low cost" according to Kintner-Meyer, although an exact price has not been specified.
Image 1: Scientist Michael Kintner-Meyer (front) and his team at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (from left: Nathan Tenney, scientist; Frank Tuffner, engineer; Vilayanur Viswanathan, engineer; Richard Pratt, engineer) developed the Smart Charger Controller to manage peak demands in the electric grid once a mass of electric vehicles hit the road. The Controller tells an electric vehicle's battery when to start and stop re-charging based upon existing stress in the grid. COURTESY OF PNNL
Image 2: PNNL developed the Smart Charger Controller (pictured) to manage peak demands in the electric grid as more electric vehicles hit the road. The Controller tells the car's battery when to start and stop re-charging based upon existing stress in the grid. The Controller's interface screen allows users to understand what the Controller is doing at any particular time during the charging cycle. COURTESY OF PNNL
Image 3: PNNL Scientist Michael Kintner-Meyer assesses installation of a Smart Charger Controller device into a Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) provided by Energy Northwest. The Controller tells the car's battery when to start and stop re-charging based upon existing stress in the electric grid.COURTESY OF PNNL
Tags:
electric car,
electricity,
smart charger,
smart grid
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17 Comments
Add CommentMuch more sensible for adoption rates, would be having one of these built into the "home charging station" along with a fairly large set of capacitors or traditional batteries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe biggest resistance to electric cars is due to the charging time and range. This device may protect the grid, but it also means potentially an even longer time before I freedom (my car) is there for me again.
A smart charger that loads my home batteries or capacitor during least load hours (presumably at lower rates) makes much more sense and would actually allow a much more powerful and fast change when needed.
Fast recharges are the main problem for electric vehicles. I've read an european proposal about setting a standard so you could change your empty battery for a fully charged one. That would take only a minute in any service station and that could solve the grid saturation problem at peak hours. I don't really think that a smart charger that forces you to wait until midnight to recharge is the most practical solution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost people complaining about slow charging or "waiting" until off-peak hours before their car charges are really complaining about a non-issue for the majority of people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe vast amount of driving by most people would fit into the normal charge time of the batteries, so plugging it in when they get home and having it charge any time overnight is fine.
Few people drive so much that they would exhaust the battery during the day and be frustrated by some problem of slow charging. For those people that do drive in such a way as to outlast the normal battery charge, they could buy a model with a gas tank for a small generator to fill the gap, so they can be "free" to drive as much as they need, and still use the smart charger when they finally stop for some sleep.
But for those of you that just want to complain because an electric car doesn't behave exactly like a gas car, even if the difference won't make a difference for most people, and even if there are alternative solutions for those that need them, I say, you might consider being part of the solution instead of part of the problem...
Ah tharriss -- you sound like all the people who just don't understand why Americans don't want to use more public transit. All the logic and none of the understanding.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCar == Freedom; at least for most Americans from the time they turn 16. The thing that is BEST about having a car is exactly the feeling that you NEVER have to wait for it.
Local capacitance that allows rapid charging without impacting the grid will be a requirement to widespread adoption. That could also mean local fuel cell technology using natural gas at the home. One way or another, it has to be solved. The vast majority are not going to rely on a car that requires 8 hours of down time for ever few hours of drive time.
How about roof solar cells that could charge your car while it sits in the parking lot while you are at work?!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo Andrew, I appreciate your comments and I don't have any problem with your ideas for faster charging, I just reject your reasons this won't be accepted.... it isn't that the car won't work whenever people want it, because it will... (that is the big misunderstanding), it is that misinformation makes people THINK it won't and THINK their freedom will somehow be limited.... and all the negative comments just serve to hurt the progress of electric vehicles by strengthening the misapprehensions of those that are already misinformed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you have ideas that will make make the transition work better in reality, then great, let's continue to hear them, but if you just want to gripe about how Americans as a whole won't accept something for a reason that isn't actually accurate as to how this would roll out, then please don't.
Cheers!
@tharriss -- Let me put it this way:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am an American.
My understanding about battery powered electric cars includes the following negative factors, when would result in my not wanting one:
Nearly all batteries take as long to charge as to discharge. Cars with a projected 100 mile range, should then be assumed to have a roughly 90 minute recharge time. If there are faster rechargeable solutions, bring them on.
Currently, the "best" battery technology in widespread use is the the lithium ion battery as used in laptops. It is lightweight and high capacity. It has two major flaws. First, it is highly unstable. Only very careful electronic discharge management makes them useful and when this fails, you have laptops on fire. I'm a volunteer fire officer. The idea of having to cut someone out of a damaged car filled with these bothers me A LOT. Second, LION batteries have a limited charge cycle. After about 300 charge cycles, the batteries have only about half their capacity. Given how dirty they are to make, this seems like a bad plan.
I have READ ABOUT -- but not seen in actual production use -- both better battery technology and alternatives to batteries. One alternative as a kind of super capacitor. This had the advantage of nearly instant change given enough available grid power. The disadvantage is that like all capacitors, if something goes wrong they tend to discharge fairly readily -- and at that size the effect could be .....impressive.
Lugging batteries around is not a good long term solution. It is quickly going to reach a point of diminishing returns. Hydrogen fuel cells or hydrocarbon based generator power to push the electric motors both sound more effective for mobile technology to me.
This particular solution (the one in the article) will tend to make the charge time problem worse, not better. Adding local power storage would have the opposite effect.
Consider rush hour. Assuming charging terminals at home and at work, the vast majority of power draw pressure would then be at 9am and 6pm on weekdays. Not exactly off peak, is it? That means these systems become trickle charges at just the time when I've got home and my car is in need of a charge.
Bad plan.
Andrew, you're out of date with regard to batteries. Check out the battery packs developed by TeslaMotors, then check back.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNew nano-anode/cathode technologies (Stanford), and internal changes to charge transport "bands" or channels (MIT) will result in batteries able to charge 10x as fast to 10x the charge in a few years (2-4). The bottleneck will be adequate charging lines and connections to feed that much power.
Place your order now for the TeslaMotors 'Model S' ( teslamotors.com/s ). They're selling like hotcakes. And no wonder: 180-300 mi. range, 130 mph, ~200 mpg equivalent, 0-60 in 5.9, seats 5+2.
@Brian - Are these 10x as fast batteries currently available in widespread distribution? Does their power to weight ratio make it sensible to drag them around with you? Are they stable in the case of a crash?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven the ever popular Toyota Pious is pretty scary from the standpoint of having to cut someone out. Heavy high voltage lines run through many of the places we (as firefighters) would normally cut to remove the roof or pry up a dash (a procedure called a dash-roll). You see, we don't remove patients from vehicles. We remove vehicles from around patients -- without moving the patients. These cars make that extremely dangerous.
Still, my ONLY point about the charger in this article continues to be that its design purpose is to SPREAD OUT the charging time to save the grid from overload -- a design which is exactly counter to the needs of the consumer. Thus, that it must be accompanied by local power storage in either battery or capacitor so that it may slowly build up while the car is in use, then discharge into the car quickly so that the car is once again useful.
Nothing about the batteries changes this.
The primary objection to home powering stations with home storage is the energy loss incurred in that operation. For instance, typical flooded lead-acid batteries charge at 70% efficiency- it takes 142 amp-hours of electricity to put a 100 amp-hour charge on the battery. In addition there would be some up-front cost, maintenance cost, and hazard (electrocution, home fires) to such systems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for your comments on the Prius- there should be safety cut-offs for battery systems in electric vehicles.
@oldsol - re: Toyota Pious -- There are cutoffs to be sure. The high voltage RELAY system is disconnected when power is off or the low voltage power is disabled (battery cable removed, car off) -- but that doesn't discharge the high voltage. The cutoff also happens if the front air bag has been deployed (in fact the cutoff occurs first -- but not by long).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem is, in an accident or fire, things are by definition "broken" and it isn't possible to know what is and isn't working. A bit of metal could have impinged on the circuit before the cutoff relay or into the relay itself. Other issues we can't predict. It just isn't possible to be sure. Most of the other firefighters are know are at least marginally worried about these cars. Some are much more concerned.
Toyota is a good company, and I'm sure they've put a lot of effort into these safety features -- but the nature of a firefighter's job is to always realize that the reason he's there is that things which are usually safe HAVE ALREADY FAILED and may continue to fail.
Also, disconnecting the high voltage directly requires lineman's gloves and it requires you wait 5 minutes after to make sure the system is fully discharged. I believe this is also located under the rear sear -- but that may be an incorrect memory as I don't have the sheets in front of me.
http://www.asashop.org/autoinc/april2002/collision.htm
Many of these ideas are valid. What we need is a intelligent system. This charger may be one part of it. Many people (not ALL) have easily definable time periods when they know they will not need to use their vehicle. Hours at work, sleep, away on travel, etc. With new tech batteries, an intelligent charging network, and battery swap stations some of these issues can be addressed. The concept will evolve. As a first step, go to www.betterplace.com and read about their concept and ongoing system development.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm the ultimate skeptic when it comes to battery swapping. The reason for this is simply that not all batteries are equal at different points in their life cycle. They're also heavy and potentially dangerous. Yes, dangerous. The very definition of a light weight battery that can run a car for a long time, is "high energy density" -- which is why Lithium Ion batteries are so unstable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHome charging -- sure. Makes sense. Local capacitance is critical IMCO, but the issue of efficiency is valid. It may be that batteries aren't the best way, but actually capacitors are. I don't know. I do know that long down times are not going to fly.
The concept of exchanging your discharged battery for a charged one has a major flaw in the idea. The damages that can be done by improper use and care of batteries would make me very reluctant to depend on getting "good exchange units" at a "exchange" point. This is particularly true considering the high replacement cost for "damaged batteries" that someone other that the guilty party is going to have to absorb.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn entropy analysis shows coal-electric cars are unecological. Here is why
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEntropy (not Energy) is the Issue
According to the Conservation of Energy Principle (The First Law of Thermodynamics), we can neither create nor destroy energy. This means we will always have as much energy as we ever had. So, how can we experience an energy crisis?
Our crisis develops from another law of energy: The Entropy Law. It states that energy use always results in some overall loss of availability, quality, or order. Physics characterizes such loss as an increase of entropy. This is where informed energy discussions begin.
The inevitable increase of entropy seems to have a slightly different character for each system under consideration. For example, heat always flows from the hotter to the colder body, never the reverse. Perfume molecules escape their container and spread throughout the room, but never gather back into the bottle of their own accord.
While heat is flowing, or perfume molecules are spreading, they can do workare useful. Even after heat flows down its temperature hill, or the molecules spread out in a room, overall energy remains constant, but that energy is now unavailable for use--no good for doing work.
Entropy applies thermally, structurally, and environmentally. Just as a weight cannot supply any mechanical work once it reaches its lowest available level, thermal energy is not available for use after it falls to an ambient temperature. It simply becomes waste heat, like car exhaust. Entropic disorder is commonly termed pollution.
There are various mathematical expressions for Entropy, such as S = k ln W (where k is a constant and W is the microstates per macrostate). Due to its broad, complex, and abstract formulations, some have rejected the Entropy Laweven deemed it an illegitimate natural principle because too anthropomorphic (as if scientific laws had any other origin). Einstein, however, thought the Entropy Law was the one law that would never be overthrown.
Some have said that life transcends the Entropy Law, but no contradiction exists since the overall Entropy increase (system plus surroundings) still exceeds the entropy decrease of a structuring organism.
By extension of the Entropy Law, matter also becomes unavailable for use. High entropy copper junk (because dispersed in refuse dumps) can be too costly to recycle, both monetarily and environmentally, thus practically unavailable. Entropys economic decrements are developing beyond the control of todays
This isn't a problem, at least as far as I can see. Many people use their dish washer or washing machine at night when demand is low. The only glitch might be in warm weather when air conditioners are thrown into the mix.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho needs cars? Apparently that overtly american characteristic called 'widespread obesity' is the proof that americans are killing themselves because of their car-addiction. When I was a boy in Plymouth, England, everybody used public transport. Everyone was fit and nobody complained about not having their own vehicles. Then on sundays when people had cars they stopped attending church to go touring. Exit religious ideals!
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