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.

Tags: Better Place, Denmark, Electric vehicle, Israel, Lithium-ion battery, Plug-in hybrid, United States, VantagePoint Venture Partners