Electric vehicle
German company “betting” on China’s electric car market
“China will lead the development of electric cars, whose electric car market is bound to boost other countries’ development in the field,” said Portrait of Hanno D. Wentzler – President and CEO of Freudenberg Chemical Specialties, Regional Representative for China recently.
[Source & Read More: People's Daily Online]
Ask what EVs can do for the smart grid
It was barely a year ago that electric vehicles (EVs) were largely relegated to the novelty category by most in the utility industry. Now, one finds EVs prominently covered in virtually every utility smart grid conference program, and some utilities are even considering the launch of new EV charging businesses. In over 20 years of utility industry involvement, I have never seen utilities go through such a rapid shift in thinking.
Many factors contributed to the shift in utility perspectives toward EVs, but the turning point arguably would be the announcement of billions of dollars of federal stimulus funding to support alternative fuel vehicle programs in the U.S. and elsewhere. This has propelled auto manufacturers to announce planned production of at least 60 xEV (EV, PHEV, HEV) passenger and light duty plug-in vehicles by 2010, and at least 119 models of xEV passenger vehicles by 2015 (1). What does the arrival of all of these EVs mean for utilities?
[Source & Read More: Better Place]
Japan EV makers, utility plan battery-charge stations
Three Japanese EV makers teamed up with the country’s largest power company Wednesday to study ways to build a grid of battery charging stations for zero-emission EVs. The four companies hope “to popularise fast-speed charge stations, which are absolutely essential in promoting EVs in Japan.”
White House unveils $2.4 bn in grants
The US government will buy thousands of electric and hybrid vehicles. Government grants also would subsidize installation of electric-vehicle charging stations. The move reflects the belief that current lower oil prices won’t last: In its models for the future, as part of the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies, the president’s auto task force assumed that gas prices would rise above $4 a gallon by 2015.
Is there a potential for deploying car batteries as a “behind-the-meter” electricity storage source for utility grids
Any discussion of utility-scale energy storage inevitably must touch on the development of electric vehicles (including plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) and the potential to deploy car batteries as a “behind-the-meter” electricity storage source for utility grids. Folks in the electricity storage technology business who spoke with CCBJ tended to fall into two camps on the questionof how realistic this vision is. Those backing it sometimes act as if it’s just around the corner while those selling competing stationary battery technologies generally disparage it as not viable. “People talk enthusiastically about PHEVs as a way of doing storage, but the major utilities I see say that’s not the case,” said an executive with one firm. “”They want to provide energy to PHEVs, not buy it.”
Stephan Dolezalek, who runs the cleantech practice for VantagePoint Venture Partners, offered a more measured view. “First, we need to recognize that increasing our supply of renewable energy will require both utility-scale solutions like flow batteries and taking advantage of an increasingly electrified transport fleet. We will begin to see individual U.S.-based state and city programs over the next several years, but it is likely to take 10 years to implement a national vehicle-to-grid infrastructure in this country. On the other hand, I think we’ll see it much sooner than that in Europe and probably in China as well.” He noted that Better Place, a VantagePoint-backed company that positions itself as a “mobility operator” and aims to deploy a unique battery charging and battery-swapping model to alleviate the “range anxiety” associated with EVs, has secured commitments for projects in California, Israel, Australia, Denmark and most recently Hawaii.
Better Place’s project in Israel is the furthest ahead, with Denmark following closely behind. Danish utility Dong—looking for storage to deal with the highest wind energy penetration in the world—carmarker Renault-Nissan, lithium-ion battery maker NEC and Better Place plan to get 100,000 EVs on the road and hooked up to utility grids with bidirectional power controls for charging and discharging by 2011. “In Denmark there’s a huge tax on gasoline vehicles so any EV has a significant total cost of ownership preferential,” said Dolezalek.
Tax policies combined with high gasoline prices are driving interest in Better Place’s other developing markets, but in the United States, Dolezalek suggested that “either gasoline or carbon prices will need to rise and/or battery costs will have to further decline before it becomes abundantly clear to the American public that gasoline is not the way to go with regard to vehicle power. But interest among U.S. utilities is rising. “ey see it as a very attractive market opportunity and a number of them are ready to begin studying and piloting vehicle-to-grid programs.”
CCBJ will examine the emerging vehicle-to-grid technologies and markets in more depth in its upcoming edition on the Transport segment of the Climate Change Industry. Growth within the next year to 18 months will certainly be constrained by the recession. “We fully expect that the cleantech industry as a whole will see a slowdown and capital crunch through 2009 and into 2010,” said Dolezalek. “However, the Obama Administration and increasing numbers of political figures and pundits see cleantech as a significant part of how to grow this country out of the economic crisis. In the near term, that may mean energy retrofits, efficiency and wind projects, but within a year or two the focus will shift to solar, smart-grid, enhanced transmission and V-to-G implementations.”
“”This is a transitional time for electric energy storage,” concluded EPRI’s Rastler in his recent article. “A number of cost-effective systems and solutions exist while others will soon emerge. NAS and flow batteries are being adopted by electric utilities as a grid support asset. Advanced CAES system designs look attractive for bulk power energy storage, supporting renewable generation and reducing the sector’s carbon footprint.” “Li-ion batteries applied in PHEV and utility distributed energy storage systems could enable a transformation to more distributed power systems and a convergence of electric power and transportation. Developments in flow batteries, advanced batteries, and ultra-capacitors also continue. The ability to store electricity will become increasingly important, but much remains to be done for the cause. Current technology and products need to be integrated within the activities leading to advanced ‘smart grids.’”
“Additional R&D, including research in basic materials science, is needed, especially in advanced batteries. Current technology and that in the R&D pipeline will give a big boost to improving the efficiency of the electric enterprise in the years to come.”
Article courtesy of the Climate Business Journal.
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Hybrid boom to profit battery firms
Industry experts say that in the near future Li-Ion batteries will replace nickel hydrogen batteries, which today enjoy around 95 percent of the global market for use in hybrid electric cars. According to JP Morgan, the global EV market will expand from 740,000 units this year to around 12.9 million units by 2020.
Bosch JV to supply battery for BMW’s Megacity e-car
A joint venture between Bosch and Samsung SDI will supply Li-Ion battery cells for BMW’s Megacity project, an EV due in the first half of the next decade. BMW last week announced it would pull out of the F1 circuit at the end of this season, after management decided to focus its efforts on sustainability issues and reducing carbon emissions.
Nissan’s new Leaf: An EV and charging stations too
Recognizing that consumers won’t go for battery-powered vehicles if supplying them with juice isn’t cheap and convenient, the company is working with electric utilities, private organizations and all levels of government to set up networks of charging stations. The Leaf is expected to go on sale in the U.S., Europe and Japan late next year.
EV Li-ion batteries more reliable than in IT devices
A Japanese team succeeded in observing the interior of the lithium battery by using the MRI (Magneting Resonance Imaging) technique. Professor Kawamura answers questions about the importance of Li-Ion batteries as energy storage devices, safety risks and how MRI methods can help better understand and improve the technology.
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EV Li-Ion Battery Forum 2009 – Day One – 2 September
As all the delegates arrive from various parts of the world, the conference shall duly begin in earnest at exactly 8:30. After a short coffee & tea session, Mr Bonomi, the conference Content Strategy Director, will give a brief speech welcoming all present to the conference. Do make sure that you are there on time for the speed networking session at around 9:10 as an interesting method of delegate interaction will be used to help you get to know others.
The morning will contain four presentations of 30 minutes duration based around the topic of EV application results & feedback with a panel session held before lunch focusing on exactly what potential consumers of Li-ion vehicle batteries in Asia want and how batteries need to change in the future in order to accommodate these demands. Lunch will be conducted at 12:50 and delegates will have the opportunity to visit various exhibition booths present outside the conference hall.
In the afternoon, Li-Ion battery safety will be discussed with researchers from Toyota and LG Chem providing their knowledge on relevant matters. There will be three presentations in total followed by refreshments at around 4.
The final presentation will be about a case study from Rome & Lyon on the electric urban bus transport system (using Sodium/Nickelchloride batteries) used there. A panel session will end the day with the topic being “Marketing To End Users The Residual Value Of The Li-ion Battery Pack To Lower The Costs Of Electric Vehicles”.
After a long day of productive presentations and discussions, delegates and speakers will be invited to a special drinks reception with champagne and other premium drinks on offer. Speakers, panellists and delegates will come together to discuss the day’s topics in a more relaxed atmosphere. At this time we will also pick the winner of a gift. Make sure you remember to enter the raffle before the end of the last session.
Should you be interested in finding out more information and even earlier than the first day, you are welcome to attend the pre-conference workshops on 1 September. There will be 3 workshops in total focusing, chronologically, on business models for the industry, electric vehicle configurations and battery manufacturing topics. You can choose to register separately for just the workshops if you are not keen on attending the 3 day conference itself.
Please email me should you have any further queries or seek to obtain any further information. If you are interested in asking questions of the speakers then please do not hesitate to take this unique and rare opportunity to get to know them and do send me an email outlining your request.
Suhas Bhat
suhas@ev-li-ionbatteryforum.com
Media and Press Relations
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