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Energy in the News

From "Utilities, Plug-In Cars: Near Collision?"

May 2, 2008 — Rebecca Smith of the Wall Street Journal reports:

Automakers are preparing to introduce “plug-in” electric cars in 2010, but their success will depend on the electric utilities.
Plug-ins are a new generation of simpler, cheaper hybrid cars that can run 10-40 miles on batteries before they need a charge or have to tap their gasoline engines.
This gives them a 600 mile range on one tank of gas with no recharge and potentially thousands of miles with recharges.
To recharge, the driver just plugs into a standard wall socket.
This means that inexpensive, plentiful electricity must be available, making the utilities more important than the oil refineries.
If the utilities discourage the car’s proliferation by charging more for their electricity, the push to plug-in cars could falter.
The utilities want drivers to charge their cars at night when they have generation capacity to spare.
Utilities would then increase their electricity sales and make more efficient use of their existing power plants.
But if most divers drive and recharge during the day when demand is twice as high, utilities could have to make or buy electricity when it is much more costly.
They could even be forced to build new power plants.
An Oak Ridge Laboratory study agreed that plug-ins could “profoundly” influence power generating costs. Under some scenarios electricity costs could more than double.
Utilities also worry that power plant emissions could rise if they have to produce more electricity to power plug-ins.