Plug-in 2008 Conference

Plug-In 2008 was a three-day international conference that showcased the latest technological advances, market research, and policy initiatives shaping the future of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).

More so than  many other conferences I attended, the speakers were informative and interesting. I attended the tracks that focused on utility considerations, consumer adoption, battery technology and impact on society rather than on the exact mechanics and demonstrations of current PHEV systems.

Attendance

About 650 people were registered, over 100 registered media covered the show, there were 34 exhibitors. On public night, over 1000 people attended.

Exhibitors

Some of the exhibitors that I found interesting were Coulomb Technologies that are developing a charging infrastructure, HEVT which converts existing trucks to hybrid electric operation and V2Green that is developing smart grid technology.

Highlights

Highlights of the things I learned were:

• If batteries are at different temperatures, they age differently and then will become out of balance
• Cost of Li-ion should hit $500/kWh by 2012
• No big manufacturers are developing full performance EV batteries with 100 to 150 mile range
• Li-ion batteries are achieving 3,000 cycles and many are 4,000 and above. A123 can do 10,000 cycles
• NRDC and EPRI says that even if coal is used to run a plug-in with 20 miles of range, CO2 will be 25% lower on a well-to-wheels basis than ICE car
• CARB board felt ZEV program was too soft and complicated and next year expect to simply and strenghten the requirement, maybe by an order of magnitude by 2015.
• V2G is a long way off. A lot of grid control needs to be implemented before it will work everywhere
• Andy Grove wants 10M converted PHEV on the road in 4 years
• How many PHEV can the grid handle? Who knows and it might not matter. Residential usage grows about 2.3% per year for the last 10 years, this is about 15 million PHEV
• One PHEV per household would require 6% more electricity than forecast, even if all all vehicle miles were electric it would only require 15% more electricity
• If charging were not "smart" but simply delayed to offpeak time, then load would not have much affect on grid
• Price will not be the decider for EVs – the decider will be everything else, the "flash"
• 50% of population is with 25 feet of recharging outlet each day
• Recharge time: highest at night 50%, lowest during the day 20%
• 20 EV miles = 41% of drivers, 40 miles = 63% drivers.
• $500 billion dollars per year leave the US to pay for transportation oil. Total Federal budget to run all agencies except defense is $365 billion We pay more for oil for transportation each year than we do to run the entire government (except defense)
• Assumptions PHEV penetration of 40% by 2030, all electric 16 - 20%. Sacramento: 170 Million gallons displaced, 1,240 GWh/yr increased electric usage, $250-460 million savings per year. Sacramento: Net increase in economic activity $110-250 million/yr, 860-870 jobs
• If everyone owned a PHEV-20 and charged once a day, 31-39% miles would be saved
• Can achieve zero CO2 at a lower cost than any other alternative
• In Colorado, a lot of wind is wasted at night? Answer: Steven didn't see this problem in his region but storage would certainly help smooth out variability of wind. However some else noted that in Colorado this is a big problem.
• US uses oil for a lot of things, much of it very efficient. However, US is addicted to gasoline and we use gas very inefficiently. Electricity best substitute for gas, lots of off peak, can be sustainable
• Early lead-acid electric vehicles cost about $0.15 per mile for battery cost
• Battery cost is 40c /mile assuming $24k for 35 kWh pack and a life of 60,000 miles, If battery cost comes down to $18k and life is 120,000 miles would be 15c per mile
• Regulation services value: 80% availability, regulation price $40mW-h, 15kW connection,  Gross Present Value (GPV) is almost $30,000
• EV most efficient wells-to-wheel, lowest CO2, lowest per mile cost, minimizes noise pollution