March 31, 2009

BC Hydro is developing an electric car grid but there is
more to be done. The grid must be smart, not just
convenient.

Hydro customers are familiar with taking power from the grid
but less familiar with putting it back. Electric cars fit
into that picture.

The problem with our power system is as old as the
generation of electricity itself. It's a problem easy to
explain and difficult to fix. Here it is: power in equals
power out. Every time you make toast, the electricity has
to be supplied by a generator. One toaster doesn't make
much difference on the grid but millions create a problem.

Every morning British Columbians get up and turn on lights,
toasters and coffee makers. That power has to be pumped into
the grid from a generator or else brown-outs occur. The
problem is just as bad when all those appliances are turned
off; if generators aren't shut down the excess power will
cause damage.

Luckily for the folks at BC Hydro, we are creatures of
habit. We get up in the morning and use electricity. We
come home at night and start using power again. Our
predictability allows BC Hydro to anticipate how much power
to pump into the grid.

If we could somehow soak up the excess power and reuse it
later, management of the grid would be simpler. Storage
would also reduce our dependence on dirty electricity
imported from coal-fired sources.

Enter the electric car.

The electric car both takes and gives back to the grid. The
car's battery soaks up electricity. One plugged-in car
doesn't represent much stored energy but millions do.

Consider the Mitsubishi i MiEV electric car. This pure
electric car will be tested on Vancouver streets before the
end of the year.

The Mitsubishi's battery stores 16 Kilowatt-hours of energy.
If one-quarter of B.C.'s cars (1.25 million vehicles) were
electric and they were all plugged in, that would represent
a sizeable amount of storage.

I estimate that all these cars would supply as much energy
as we currently import. When BC Hydro shuts down the big
generators each night, we have to import about 20 Giga
watts.

Of course, storage doesn't create energy. But it does help
smooth out the ripples of electricity that surge through the
wires. Also, it soaks up power produced by solar cells when
the sun shines and turbines when the wind blows.

By day we would use the energy stored as water behind dams
and at night use the energy stored in the batteries of
electric cars.

But what's in it for the owner of electric cars? Owners
could make money by storing electricity for BC Hydro. Car
owners who agree to allow their cars to be used for
temporary storage would buy electricity at the normal rate
and sell it back to BC Hydro at a higher rate.

And even if you are not inclined to help out BC Hydro, the
storage capacity of electric cars fits nicely into the
scheme of living off the grid.

You could be independent of BC Hydro with rooftop solar
panels and/or wind turbines. Surplus energy could be stored
in your electric car to be used later.

Obviously, the primary purpose of a car is transport so you
wouldn't want to discharge your car when you need it most.

That's when the power grid needs to be made smart. Google
and its partners are testing a system that does just that.
It's called PowerMeter and it tells users exactly where and
when their electricity is being used.

The next phase of the project is to coordinate appliance use
with availability of electricity. It works like this:

Most of the strain on our power grid results from millions
of people turning appliances on and off. Although we have
no choice about when some appliances are used, others are
optional. You have little choice about when you cook but
dryer use is less critical.

Under Google's smart grid system, you load the dryer but it
doesn't run immediately. BC Hydro talks to your dryer
through the internet and tells it to turn on when the demand
for electricity is low. The same system could be programmed
so that your car is always charged when you need it and
making money for you when you don't.

How many people can claim that their car is making money for
them while they sleep?
 

David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

go back to my Columns in the