WASHINGTON--Where you see an electric car, your utility sees a battery on wheels.
Forward-looking utilities are gearing up to tap into the stored energy that plug-in electric vehicles can provide using smart-grid technology, said industry executives at consulting firm Kema's Utility of the Future conference here this week.
Car batteries can provide a buffer to lighten the load on the grid during peak times and potentially provide back-up power to homeowners. Down the line, old plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) batteries could be recycled as storage devices, they said.
"I think PHEVs will be the killer application for the smart grid," said David Mohler, the chief technology officer of Duke Energy. "They are able to both consume and provide energy like no other device can and can really change storage."
A number of plug-in electric vehicles aimed at mainstream buyers will become available over the next two years. Although there's no standard storage capacity, Mohler estimated that four of them could power a house, at least for a short time.
In the near term, the most promising marriage of the grid and car batteries is providing what the power industry calls "frequency regulation." It's an arrangement that could save utilities money, reduce pollution, and potentially save consumers money, advocates of the approach said.
Utilities routinely pay for frequency regulation services to ensure that the supply of electricity matches the demand. When an imbalance between supply and demand causes a change in signal frequency, power generators crank up to adjust the flow of electricity.
But a network of plugged-in electric vehicles could effectively perform the same function by taking a break--even for a few minutes--from charging their batteries. Charging cars in bursts--all while ensuring they're topped off when the drivers needs them--could be done with millions of cars, said Alec Brooks, a renewable energy engineer at Google.
Google has developed proof-of-concept "smart charging" software with algorithms that monitor the electricity supply and very precisely control when cars get charged, he said during a presentation where he showed simulation data. "You figure out which ones you need to dispatch (electricity) to be full when they say they need to be full," Brooks said.
Using car batteries for frequency regulation--already a billion-dollar market--is more cost-effective and would allow power generators to take better advantage of wind and solar power, which are variable, Brooks said. Google is testing the software on its fleet of eight converted plug-in hybrid Priuses.
"You can shape the load to match renewable energy, which can be very different even within one day...So you have a system where you move the load around rather than the generation," he explained.
Saving money on the Chevy Volt
It's not just software engineers at Google who are tooling around with PHEVs and frequency regulation. When the Chevy Volt is released at the end of next year, the car will have smart charging built into it using the OnStar service.
In a Department of Energy research project, General Motors is working with 50 utilities to see how the Chevy Volt can interface with utilities. Providing grid services, such as frequency regulation, will lower the cost of owning the Volt, said Keith Cole, GM's director of advanced vehicle strategies and legislative affairs.
"If a customer can sign up and say they are willing to have their charging interrupted for 140 seconds and the utility will pay them to do it via a credit, it would cut the cost of charging the Volt," Cole said. "So instead of costing 7 or 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, it might cost 5 or 3 because of the service."
Although this will be technically possible when the Volt is first released, don't expect it to be available for a while. The business models for these types of services have yet to be worked out.
Still, cutting electricity demand for frequency regulation makes sense for utilities because the power purchased for this job is relatively expensive, Cole said, adding that a utility would only be interested if it could get large numbers of cars under management.
Farther out, utilities could potentially pull stored electricity in car batteries to lighten the load on the grid, rather than fire up an expensive and dirty auxiliary power plant during peak times. But that two-way power flow, called vehicle-to-grid, is technically challenging and puts added strain on the battery.
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The Qatar Investment Authority could acquire more shares in ailing German sports car maker Porsche SE than previously thought, German magazine Focus said.
In an advance copy of an article due to be published on June 22, the magazine referred to details of a paper outlining the future ownership structure that it said Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking had presented to the Porsche and Piech families.
It said there had been a provision for an external investor to hold 29.9 percent, when so far only a 25 percent share had been mentioned. However, there was no direct mention of Qatar.
Qatar has been discussing the possible size of a stake with Porsche and is due to reveal the outcome in two to three weeks, according to media reports.
Focus also said a Qatari delegation would discuss possible details with the state of Lower Saxony, which is home to Volkswagen. The state owns just over 20 percent of VW and has to approve any deals related to Porsche and VW.
Porsche amassed a 9 billion euro ($12.5 billion) net debt pile in its aborted attempt to acquire 75 percent of Volkswagen AG votes and has looked to rescue itself by uniting with its cash-rich subsidiary, which is Europe's largest carmaker.
Volkswagen CEO Ferdinand Piech is a member of the family that controls Porsche.
German car maker Daimler is also in advanced talks to buy a stake in Porsche, German magazine manager magazin reported on Friday on its website, citing financial sources.
Automaker Volkswagen will temporarily shut parts of its plant in central Mexico from next week until early August but exports of the popular New Beetle should not be affected, a union spokesman said on Saturday.
The partial closure, starting Wednesday, will be the latest in a series of temporary shutdowns at the plant in recent months as the global slowdown hurts demand for new cars.
Union spokesman Arturo Monter said by idling some operations at the plant in the city of Puebla, the German auto maker hoped to save jobs while also taking advantage of the drop in orders to make adjustments to assembly lines.
He said about one-third of union workers on assembly lines for the Bora and Bora Variant models would be off work for 14 days. For 10 of those days, their pay would be cut by 50 percent.
The Puebla plant is Volkswagen's only factory in North America and most of the cars it produces are shipped to the United States, Canada and Europe.
About 70 percent of cars produced across Mexico are destined for the U.S. market, which is suffering its worst downturn in almost 30 years.
Mexico is the world's No. 10 producer of autos but output fell 39.4 percent in May year-on-year, hit by slumping U.S. demand. The country's plants assembled 108,162 automobiles in May and exported 83,910, industry group AMIA said.
U.S. automaker Chrysler LLC won interim court approval on Monday to access a $4.5 billion bankruptcy loan from the U.S. and Canadian governments, pushing it further along toward its planned sale to Italy's Fiat SPA.
Chrysler asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Monday for a swift hearing into its planned sale, eliciting immediate objections from some secured lenders.
Chrysler filed for bankruptcy on Thursday, planning an emergence from court protection in as little as 30 days under the guidance of Obama administration officials. It has asked for the sale to be completed as soon as May 21.
The company plans to sell its best assets into a new company owned by its union, Fiat and the government. United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said on Monday the union's healthcare trust would expect to sell its stock interest in Chrysler as quickly as possible.
The Chrysler bankruptcy, one of the biggest U.S. public company bankruptcies ever, is widely seen as almost a dry run for a potential General Motors Corp reorganization as GM faces its own restructuring deadline on June 1.
The bankruptcy came after some secured lenders to Chrysler declined to restructure its debt at a deep discount, which made them a target for criticism, though the automaker lost $16.8 billion in 2008 and expects to lose $4.7 billion in 2009.
A lawyer representing the dissenting lenders, told a packed courtroom on Monday that some of the lenders who were publicly identified have received death threats. Those dissenters also have objected to the sale and government bankruptcy financing.
Chrysler asked Judge Arthur Gonzalez to set a hearing as soon as May 21 to approve a $2 billion sale of most of its assets out of bankruptcy that would clear the way for a merger with Fiat, according to documents filed with the court.
Gonzalez approved Chrysler's request to access the funds, known as debtor-in-possession financing, as well as requests for the company to pay essential suppliers, dealers and its taxes. Gonzalez adjourned a hearing into Chrysler's requested sale procedures until 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT) on Tuesday.
"We still have a very fragile coalition to get from here to there," Corinne Ball, Chrysler's bankruptcy lawyer, said near the start of a court hearing on Monday.
Fiat would start with a 20 percent stake in the new Chrysler, which would grow quickly to 35 percent.
Fiat Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne is expected to run the merged operations.
In court documents, Chrysler also asked the Bankruptcy Court to approve a $35 million breakup fee for Fiat if the sale deal falls apart.
The automaker has shut down all of its plants for the reorganization and the longer Chrysler lingers in Bankruptcy Court, the greater the damage to the surviving operation.
"Absent a prompt sale, approved in the coming weeks, the value of the debtors' assets will rapidly decline and the ability to achieve a going concern sale will be lost," Chrysler said in court documents supporting the sale to Fiat.
Even without an extended shutdown, Chrysler expects delays of up to six months in the launch of a redesigned Jeep Grand Cherokee for the 2011 model year. It expects the availability of replacement parts to be restricted within weeks as well.
Chrysler salaried employees are being required to take two weeks of unpaid vacation.
"I think that it is very realistic to sell assets and get that done in a very short period of time, but that won't solve the bankruptcy case entirely," Sheryl Toby, an attorney with Dykema Gossett in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, told Reuters on the sidelines of an event in New York.
Toby, who has worked on auto industry cases for 20 years, said other issues such as those surrounding dealers and suppliers will be discussed for extended periods.