Pacific National Lab's Surprising PHEV Study Released
Jan 17, 2007 (From the CalCars-News archive)

On December 11, we published the press release from Pacific National
Lab, "Energy Dept Says US Has Idle Capacity to Fuel PHEVs; Sees Wide
Benefits" http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/605.html>. This preview of the
report, with its conclusion that we could charge 84% of today's cars off-peak on
today's power grid, got unexpectedly wide media attention. A Google search for
the exact phrase, "plug-in hybrids will save the grid" shows over 10,000 links.
Many analysts, journalists and other observers were surprised to see a
refutation of their assumption that we'd need to build more power plants to
charge millions of cars -- and many also became excited about the future
potential of "vehicle-to-grid" connections. (Some day, a definitive report whose
assumptions everyone accepts will replace the multiple analyses that show
electricity's well-to-wheel emissions on the national power grid are lower than
gasoline, and we won't have to answer that one anymore either.)

Now you can download the full text of the technical paper on the
power impacts of high penetrations of PHEVs at
<http://www.pnl.gov/energy/eed/etd/pdfs/phev_feasibility_analysis_combined.pdf
(492KB).

The National Lab's latest announcement points to "an additional
number within the technical paper as it relates to the inclusion of
vans in the calculations of the technical potential of PHEVs. This
inclusion indicates that, as a nationwide average, 73 percent of U.S.
light duty vehicles could be powered by off-peak electricity,
including vans, if they were PHEVs as compared to 84 percent for
cars, pick-up trucks and SUVs."

This report contains far more information than was described in the
press release, including modeling scenarios based on San Diego and
Cincinnati utilities. Following are the summaries of the two sections
of the 39-page report.

IMPACTS ASSESSMENT OF PLUG-IN HYBRID VEHICLES ON ELECTRIC UTILITIES
AND REGIONAL U.S. POWER GRIDS
PART 1: TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
Michael Kintner-Meyer
Kevin Schneider
Robert Pratt
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by Battelle Memorial
Institute under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830

ABSTRACT
The U.S. electric power infrastructure is a strategic national asset
that is underutilized most of the time. With the proper changes in
the operational paradigm, it could generate and deliver the necessary
energy to fuel the majority of the U.S. light duty vehicle fleet. In
doing so, it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve the
economics of the electricity industry, and reduce the U.S. dependency
on foreign oil. Two companion papers investigate the technical
potential and economic impacts of using the existing idle capacity of
the electric infrastructure in conjunction with the emerging plug-in
hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) technology to meet the majority of the
daily energy needs of the U.S. LDV fleet.

This initial paper estimates the regional percentages of the energy
requirements for the U.S. LDV stock that could be supported by the
existing infrastructure, based on the 12 modified North American
Electric Reliability Council (NERC) regions, as of 2002, and taking
into account congestion in regional transmission and distribution
systems. For the United States as a whole, 84% of U.S. cars, pickup
trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) could be supported by the
existing infrastructure, although the local percentages vary by
region. Using the light duty vehicle fleet (LDV) classification, that
includes cars, pickup trucks, SUVs, and vans, the technical potential
is 73%. This has a gasoline displacement potential of 6.5 million
barrels of oil equivalent per day, or 52% of the nation's oil
imports. The paper also discusses the impact on overall emissions of
criteria gases and greenhouse gases as a result of shifting emissions
from millions of individual vehicles to a relatively few number of
power plants. Overall, PHEVs reduce greenhouse gas emissions with
regional variations dependent on the local generation mix. Total NOX
emissions may or may not increase, dependent on the utilization of
coal generation in the region. Total SOX emissions increase in all
but 3 regions. Particulate emissions increase in 8 of the 12 regions.
The emissions in urban areas are found to improve across all
pollutants and regions as the emission sources shift from million of
tailpipes to a small number of large power plants in less-populated
areas. This paper concludes with a discussion about grid impacts as a
result of the PHEV load as well as the likely impacts on the plant
and technology mix of future generation capacity expansions.

The second paper (Part II: Economic Assessment) discusses the
economics of the new PHEV load from the perspective of a load-serving
entity. It discusses the potential downward pressure on rates as
revenues increase in the absence of new investments for generation,
transmission, and distribution

IMPACTS ASSESSMENT OF PLUG-IN HYBRID VEHICLES ON ELECTRIC UTILITIES
AND REGIONAL U.S. POWER GRIDS: PART 2: ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT
Michael J. Scott
Michael Kintner-Meyer
Douglas B. Elliott
William M. Warwick
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

ABSTRACT
The current U.S. electric grid is underutilized and could generate
and deliver the necessary energy to power the majority of the U.S.
light-duty vehicle fleet. In so doing, it would reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, improve the economics of the electricity industry, and
reduce the U.S. dependency on foreign oil. Two companion papers
investigate this concept. The overall analysis frames the analysis
from a grid capability and economics point of view. The first paper
(Part 1) discusses the technical potential of plug-in hybrid electric
vehicles (PHEVs) without adding new electricity infrastructure. This
second paper (Part 2) provides an economic assessment of the impacts
of PHEV adoption on vehicle owners and on electric utilities. To
estimate vehicle owner impacts, the paper calculates the life cycle
cost (LCC) of private vehicle transportation for vehicle owners with
PHEVs and compares it with the LCC for conventional light-duty
vehicles. To calculate the impacts on electric utilities, the paper
provides estimates of the impacts of PHEVs on the revenue and cost
streams of two sample utilities, one with its own generating
resources, and one that is highly dependent on imported power ("wires
only"). The paper finds favorable impacts on the LCC of vehicle
owners and average costs of power for both types of utilities.