Electric Cars and the Kindness of Strangers

Guest blog by Cara Miale

March 23, 2011

As if we don’t have enough phobias already, now there is range anxiety, a malady brought on by the electric car. But it’s okay; there is a cure, or rather an app for that.

Studies indicate that many electric car drivers – and those considering joining the ranks – suffer the fear of running out of power and being stranded with a dead battery. A little planning ahead could take the pressure off; there are an estimated 1,400 vehicle charging stations in the United States today and the number is growing. Even though most people drive less than the 100 miles a day allowed by many EV’s, range anxiety remains a logistical – and largely psychological – impediment to widespread electric vehicle adoption by consumers. One 2010 study showed range anxiety even caused EV drivers to modify their driving behaviors, decreasing the travel range and limiting most trips to no more than 25 miles.

Several companies have stepped up to ease the pain. The navigation system in the new electric Ford Focus finds electrical charging stations nearby and can help the driver conserve power by suggesting turning off the A/C or taking a more leisurely route. Google Maps, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently added electric vehicle charging stations to its popular platform, allowing users to search for and pinpoint more than 600 charging stations.

PlugShare, a new free app from Xatori, goes one step further with a personal touch: users can find home charging stations close by, and even list their own as a safe-haven for range-anxious drivers. PlugShare works with iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, and you don’t need an EV or a special outlet to join. Accounts are customizable; those who wish to share can list their name, number and address as well as what types of energy they have available and where to find it (like the garage). The integrated app uses handy icons to identify private and public standard outlets, EV plugs and charging stations. With just a few clicks, you can identify the nearest charging station, call or text the person who listed it, and get directions. PlugShare hopes to launch a study of the app’s impact on the environment so users can celebrate the positive impact they’re making, not unlike other resource-sharing models like Denver B-cycle (members can track their miles ridden, calories burned, carbon off-set and money saved – and compare their stats to other members of the B-cycle community).

PlugShare’s website even encourages those without EVs to join the community: “Sooner or later an EV owner may ask to charge at your outlet, and you’ll be able to talk to a real person (not a dealer or a salesman) to find out if an EV is right for you!”

With President Obama’s goal to have one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015, community-building applications like PlugShare may bring the unintended benefits: more folks who get to know their neighbors. And, it could mean the end of the EV car salesman as we know him.

Cara Miale is a freelance writer in Denver.

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What energy efficiency type are you?

By Elisa Wood

July 29, 2010

Not so long ago, consumers seemed to like energy efficiency just a little bit more than going to the dentist. Clearly that has changed, as evidenced by the recent run on appliance and home retrofit subsidies in several states.

Greens are no longer alone in swooning over front loader washing machines and geothermal heat pumps. But who exactly are these new energy efficiency buyers and what do they want? Two recent surveys shed some light.

E Source partnered with Nielsen Claritas in surveying 32,471 U.S. consumers to find out how ready they are to pursue efficiency. The survey revealed that larger households are more inclined toward energy efficiency than those with one or two people. In addition, demand response seems to be somewhat addictive. Try it once and you want to do it again. And, no surprise, appliance rebate programs are very popular.

Energy efficiency consumers can be broken into four categories, says E Source, which trademarked each of the names.

• EE Achievers, who represent about 12% of those surveyed, are the prime market. They’ll jump into one or more programs at a time: rebates, weatherization, audits, load management, efficient light purchases.
• EE Anticipators account for about 26% of the US population. They’re inclined to pursue efficiency but have yet to do so in any big way. They may enter the market in the next 12 months.
• EE Uncommitteds represent about a quarter of consumers. This group is interested but not ready to commit. E Source thinks they may respond to low-cost and no-cost approaches to energy savings.
• EE Indifferents, fortunately for the EE industry, represent only about 37%. Even if efficiency saves them money, they’re not motivated.

More details are available at E Source: http://www.esource.com/public/default.asp.

Meanwhile, the Electric Power Research Institute and Southern California Edison surveyed southern California residents to uncover their expectations when it comes to electric cars. It turns out that potential electric car owners are much like Internet users. They like speed. Survey participants do not want to wait around for their cars to be charged, and they’re willing to pay a premium to speed up the process.

“Public fast-charging availability (for example, a 10-15 minute charge facility) may have a strong influence on PHEV adoption, as two in five hybrid owners and one in three non-hybrid owners say the capability will ‘definitely’ influence their buying decision. About 75% said they would pay a 33% premium (over the slower, at-home rate) to fast charge. That percentage drops to 30% if the relative cost of fast charging is double that of slow charging,” says EPRI.

The EPRI report is available for free download here:http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?Abstract_id=000000000001021285

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Electrifying vehicles: A car and its drama

By Elisa Wood

July 15, 2010

Who will play the lead character in Who Revived the Electric Car?, the sequel that is bound to be made to the famous documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com/. Many are vying for the role: car manufacturers, battery producers, scientists and now the Obama Administration.

The White House issued a report July 14 that credits federal stimulus money for the rapid drop in costs for electric cars.http://www.whitehouse.gov/files/documents/Battery-and-Electric-Vehicle-Report-FINAL.pdf. Once written off as a technological mishap, the electric car now appears nearly road ready for American consumers. The price tag is dropping rapidly, in part because of the $12 billion the federal government has pumped into alternative vehicles, according to the report. Of that $5 billion went to electrifying the US transportation fleet.

Electric cars will cost between $25,000 and $35,000, after tax credits, by the end of this year, says the White House. That’s down from $100,000 before passage of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Electric cars are dropping in price because stimulus-funded manufacturers are producing batteries more cheaply.

Not long ago, it cost $33,000 for the battery of an electric vehicle with a 100-mile range. The Department of Energy expects the cost to drop by half between 2009 and 2013. By the end of 2015 some batteries should cost $10,000. The price of batteries for plug-in hybrid vehicles, or PHEVs, is falling quickly too. PHEVs can travel 40 miles on electricity and then automatically shift to gasoline. Priced at about $13,000 in 2009, the PHEV batteries are expected to cost only $6,700 in 2013 and $4,000 in 2015, according to the DOE.

The new electric car is seen as a way to reduce reliance on oil, which now supplies 95% of our transportation fuel. But the electric car has several interesting side stories as well.

Electricity is cheaper than gasoline. So, consumers should find themselves paying the equivalent of only $1/gallon to fuel electric cars, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy07osti/41410.pdf. In coming up with that figure, NREL assumed it will take 9-10 kWh per gallon to operate a typical mid-size car, with vehicle efficiency of 2.9 mile/kWh. Researchers also assumed an electricity cost of 9.4 cents/kWh as the cost of electricity. While that is a fair average, the truth is that the price of electricity varies significantly nationally, and the cost of driving an electric car will vary accordingly. For example, in North Dakota electric rates run about 7 cents/kWh, while in Connecticut they are 19 cents/kWh.

Keeping operating costs low will depend on wide-spread implementation by utilities of time-of-use pricing, and of consumer willingness to take advantage of electricity at bargain times. Prices for electricity fall at night when demand diminishes. Electric grid planners are hoping consumers will charge their cars at night. Otherwise we may have to build more power plants to accommodate the cars, and that will negate some of their environmental and cost savings. Time-of-use pricing, which reflects lower night-time costs, should help encourage consumers to plug in at night. But consumer behavior is hard to predict.

Another side story is that the electric vehicle gives consumers a chance to act as power producers. The car batteries can store power which consumers can sell back to their local utility, possibly at high prices if done when the grid is in short supply.

And finally, it looks like the electric car will help the US create manufacturing jobs. The White House report says that in 2009, we had only two factories manufacturing advanced vehicle batteries. Those factories produced less than two percent of the world’s advanced vehicle batteries. By 2012, the US should have 30 factories with a 20 percent market share and by 2015 a 40 percent market share.

Should all this come to be, it is hard to say who will get the credit. What’s clear is that the story offers lots of happy endings to today’s energy woes. Here’s hoping it is a tale told true.

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The plug instead of the pump: Will the electric car put money in your pocket?

By Elisa Wood

April 15, 2010

For consumers, discussion of electric cars tends to focus on how long the vehicle travels before needing a recharge and what it will cost to buy. But a new report backed by several large corporations takes a broader view of what the electric car will mean to our overall finances.

And the news is good.

Fueling our cars with electricity instead of gasoline – this one change – could avert a lot of economic pain, according to “Economic Impact of the Electrification Roadmap” by the Electrification Council.

The council, which includes NRG Energy, CISCO, PG&E, Nissan Motor, Fedex and other major companies, wants to see us drive electric cars by 2040 for 75 percent of the miles we travel.

In pursing this target, we could reduce our federal debt by $336 million, increase cumulative household income $4.6 trillion, improve our trade balance by $127 billion and add 1.9 million jobs by 2030, says the report.

How can an electric car do all of this? Our use of oil would fall dramatically, and we’d be spared the sharp financial blows we now experience when oil prices spike.

“Probably the single most important conclusion of the study is that by substantially reducing America’s oil dependence, the economy will be much better prepared to withstand a future oil shock such as those that contributed to recessions in 1973–74, 1980–81, 1991, 2000–01 and 2007–09. That is, the policy package can be thought of as a self-financing insurance policy that will make the economy more robust in good times and more resilient when subjected to energy shocks,” says a letter introducing the report by Robert Wescott, president, Keybridge Research and Jeffrey Werling of the University of Maryland’s Department of Economics.

The report envisions electric vehicle use reducing US foreign oil imports by 11.9 billion between 2010 and 2030. To put this number in perspective, the nation’s total proved reserves are slightly less than 30 billion barrels.

World demand for oil would fall, leading to lower oil prices, putting more money in our pockets. It’s also a lot cheaper to run a car on electricity than gasoline, about 2.5 cents/mile for an electric vehicle compared with 10 cents/mile for a combustion engine, says the report.

David Crane, NRG Energy president and CEO, says the electric vehicle represents the “next great tectonic shift in our economy, one that will transform the way we use energy both in our homes and on the road.”

The report doesn’t bring up the bad news. Bad news, that is, if the goal is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The US now gets about 50% of its electricity from coal, and the US Energy Information Administration does not forecast much change in coal’s dominant position over the next two decades, even with today’s rapid injection of renewable energy into the system.

The full report is available at http://electrificationcoalition.org/.

Visit Elisa Wood at http://www.realenergywriters.com/ and pick up her free Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

Is green energy our new plastics industry?

By Elisa Wood

December 17, 2009

If The Graduate were written today, Mr. McGuire’s career tip to Benjamin probably would have been “green,” rather than “plastics.” But it’s likely Benjamin would have responded in the same quizzical way: “Just how do you mean that, sir?”

It was difficult to envision the vast number of new products, businesses and careers that would emerge from the plastics industry following World War II. The same is true for the green energy industry today. A report issued December 16 by PricewaterhouseCoopers sheds some light.http://www.pwc.com/us/cleantechrevolution

To know where the business opportunities will be, watch the unusual alliances forming among industries, according to “Cleantech Revolution: Building Smart Infrastructures.” We see hints already as automakers, utilities, battery makers and communications providers ally in preparation for an expected $165 billion smart grid build-out. The report cites several examples, among them:

• Nissan’s partnership with San Diego Gas & Electric to build electric vehicle charging stations
• Echelon and T-Mobile’s deal to create wireless networks connecting utilities to smart meters
• Cisco assisting Duke Energy in building a smart grid

“As the build-out gains traction, it has the potential to support a proliferation of new businesses across sectors, much like the evolution of both the semiconductor industry and the Internet,” says Tim Carey, PWC U.S. clean technology leader.

Don’t be surprised, says the report, to see a national retail store chain partner with an electric battery maker to install charging stations nationwide for plug-in electric vehicles. A new wave of corporate mergers and acquisitions also could be in the cards. The opportunities are vast, especially when you consider the size of the smart grid. The US has 160 million households awaiting installation of smart meters. These new devices will require changes in the way we operate our electrical infrastructure, which encompasses 3,100 utilities, 10,000 power plants, 5,600 distributed energy facilities and 157,000 miles of high voltage transmission wires, says the report. How many better mousetraps can a system of this size support? More than we can imagine.

The clean technology, boom, however, depends heavily on consumer acceptance. If consumers find smart meters too complicated or plug-in hybrids unreliable, the game is over. To avoid this problem, organizations like the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy are focusing on understanding customer motivation.http://www.aceee.org/conf/09becc/09beccindex.htm.

Use of smart grid technologies must become “pervasive and ingrained,” says the PWC report. Sunil Sharan, of the Center for American Progress, sees the smart meter becoming like the Blackberry, “with all sorts of applications.” Indeed, energy industry insiders often describe the next game changer – whatever it will be – as the cell phone of energy. But given how integral electricity is to our everyday lives, clean technologies need to become everyman products. Out of the corporate alliances, the mergers, the breakthroughs and the investment deals, maybe it’s not energy’s cell phone that will make fortunes, but its plastic wrap.

Visit Elisa Wood at http://www.realenergywriters.com/ and pick up her free Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

Mr. Pickens, What About Plug-In Hybrids?

By Elisa Wood

July 17, 2008

T. Boone Pickens deserves kudos for his attention-grabbing television campaign aimed at helping America kick the oil habit. The billionaire energy fund manager can stop the most dedicated channel surfer mid-click when he proclaims that our spending on foreign oil could soon become the largest transfer of wealth in human history.

Pickens’ plan has two parts www.pickensplan.com. The first calls for more use of wind power. No surprise there. Few forward-thinking energy plans do not put wind generation front and center.

But we’re stumped by the second part of his plan, which is that we use the wind power to replace natural gas-fired power plants and then use the left over natural gas for cars. On the surface the equation seems to make sense: it cuts back on our use of gasoline. But scratch a little, and Pickens’ idea doesn’t seem to add up.

Consider what has happened to the power generation industry this decade. We have seen a proliferation of new natural gas-fired plants because gas is a relatively clean fuel, and the plants can be built quickly and easily. As the nation moves toward regulating carbon dioxide emissions, public policy (intentionally or not) encourages even more of their construction. This is because gas-fired plants do not emit as much carbon dioxide as the coal-fired plants that provide about half of our electric power.

Unfortunately, as we’ve built more gas-fired plants, demand for natural gas has increased and its costs have skyrocketed. Gas prices are largely blamed for the tripling of electricity rates over the last eight years in places like New England.

The Pickens plan wants to replace one expensive fuel with another to power our cars.

Given this reality, wouldn’t the Pickens plan make more sense if it pushed plug-in hybrid electric cars? www.pluginpartners.org Plug-in cars appear to be a natural companion to wind power. Presumably car owners would plug their vehicles in at night to recharge. Evening is typically a windy time, so turbines would whir, pushing power into the grid to feed the cars. We won’t run out of wind as we could natural gas, and it is essentially a free fuel. On top of that, plug-ins are nearing commercial operation and do not require massive building of fueling stations, as natural gas-fired vehicles do.

Obviously, our electric grid will never be powered only by wind. But it seems we could avoid much of the massive transfer of wealth Mr. Pickens warns about by trying to push the wind/plug-in car relationship. So, Mr. Pickens, what about the plug-in hybrid?

Visit energy writer Elisa Wood at www.realenergywriters.com and pick up her free Energy Efficiency Markets newsletter and podcast

Think Gas Prices Are High? Electricity is Next.

By Elisa Wood

Today’s interest in energy efficiency may be nothing compared to tomorrow’s, if power prices rise as much as expected.

One of the biggest price drivers, at this point, appears to be greenhouse gas restrictions, which Congress is expected to enact. It’s not clear yet exactly what the rules will be. But a federal analysis of a leading proposal shows electricity prices rising 5% to 27% by 2020 and as much as 64% by 2030. http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/s2191/index.html

And greenhouse gas restrictions are only one factor pushing up electricity prices. Industry insiders cite additional pressure from rising fuel costs, higher component costs, and new transmission investments.

And then there is demand for power. Many of us think the US finished its electrification when the country finally connected all of rural America to the grid during the 1950s. http://www.greatachievements.org/?id=2990. But in some sense, it appears that was only the beginning of electrification. We did not anticipate the kind of second round, now occurring, as many everyday tools become electricity-driven, most notably the pen and paper’s transformation into the computer. Another major step in electrification is likely as the plug-in hybrid car becomes available to consumers in just two years. By 2030, these cars – which we fuel by plugging into a typical household electrical outlet – are expected to make up 30% of car sales, according to the Electric Power Research Institute.

Computers, plug-in cars, and other electric devices will boost our electricity needs dramatically. The US Energy Information Administration, often conservative in its forecasts, expects demand for electricity to grow 40% by 2030. To meet that need, the US must construct 250 to 500 new power plants – and power plants are not cheap. The EIA estimates the cost will be $412 billion. http://www.eei.org/industry_issues/electricity_policy/state_and_local_policies/rising_electricity_costs/causes.htm

This week the Long Island Power Authority said it plans to offer customers $924 million in efficiency products and services over the next 10 years. It is a lot of money, but cheaper, says LIPA, than building new power plants. Customers will pay about $40 per year to cover the cost. But they can recoup the charge – and more – by taking advantage of efficiency products offered through the program. A typical residential customer can recoup the money in a few months and save $90 annually on electricity costs by replacing six incandescent bulbs with compact florescent bulbs, tuning up a household air conditioner and sealing ducts, according to LIPA.

Because of such savings, hardly a week goes by now without a governor, mayor or utility in the US announcing a new efficiency goal. They are bracing for higher electricity prices and looking to energy efficiency as the only sure-fire, short-term way to ease consumer costs.

Visit energy writer Elisa Wood and subscribe to her free Energy Efficiency Markets newsletter and podcast at www.realenergywriters.com.