Australia Developing Massive Electric Vehicle Grid

blairerickson writes "A US firm Thursday unveiled plans to build a massive one-billion-dollar charging network to power electric cars in Australia as it seeks cleaner and cheaper options to petrol. Better Place, which has built plug-in stations for electric vehicles in Israel and Denmark, has joined forces with Australian power company AGL and finance group Macquarie Capital to create an Australian network. Under the plan, the three cities will each have a network of between 200,000 and 250,000 charge stations by 2012 where drivers can plug in and power up their electric cars. The points would probably be at homes and businesses, car parks and shopping centres. In addition, 150 switch stations will be built in each city and on major freeways, where electric batteries can be automatically replaced in drive-in stations similar to a car wash." I hope they're talking to the car companies about the necessary standardization it would take to make this work, too.

Comments

Where are they getting the power?

[thogard]

Is this the same grid who's owners are claiming there will be rolling blackouts again this summer because they don't have enough capacity?

Re:Where are they getting the power?

[sgt_doofey]

Not to mention the fact that nearly all electricity in Australia is generated by coal burning power stations. Not gonna be a clean mode of transport if you factor in where the electricity is generated from.

Re:Where are they getting the power?

[erikina]

Which is a crying shame considering how much uranium and easy disposal options we have. Fear trumps reason again. Cue: 30 year outdated arguments..

Re:Where are they getting the power?

[erikina]

Indeed. The summer air condition puts too much strain on the system. It's not uncommon for the hottest days to be without power (at least where I live in Brisbane)

Re:Where are they getting the power?

[erikina]

Good point (about being able to painlessly shift). As for the Greens, I've stopped believing they are pro-environment but are anti-development.

Re:Where are they getting the power?

[kaos07]

Sigh, from the article:

"AGL will power the system with renewable energy."

Re:Where are they getting the power?

[Firrenzi]

In Brisbane:

This is why ripple controllers are being installed on air conditioners by Energex to alleviate the transformer load. It will be interesting to see what effect turning off an airconditioner for 15 minutes will make on the network.

  Things have changed since 2004 from a management perspective. It used to be cost cut as much as possible. Now tranny upgrades are occurring as a preventative maintenance meausre. If a maximum demand indicator gets close to the limit, it gets upgraded, not left to the last minute when it falls over. Of course spending (or not spending) on the network can be a political thing aswell. Having said that the network is still under significant load during summer. Hopefully the firies won't be hosing down pole transformers to keep them cool this summer. At least it's not the Joe Bjelke-Peterson days that it used to be.

Re:Where are they getting the power?

[Anonymous Coward]

As somebody who works in the industry, there's plenty of capacity. The reason for the rolling blackouts last summer was because our redundant lines (in Victoria) were taken out by bushfire. There was no way to prevent it.

Posted anonymous because I don't recall my login (not at home PC).

Re:Where are they getting the power?

[Dogsballz]

I agree - however its a shame a smart aussie David Mills had to travel to the US to implement his solar technolgy. Schwarzenegger this week opened on a 5-megawatt Ausra (Australian technology) solar thermal plant near Bakersfield, California. However Ausra has also built a 1.5MW solar plant to add to the Macquarie Energy Liddell coal power station in the New South Wales Hunter Valley that has just been commissioned. Apparently there are plans to build 175MW plants in the US However given the huge uranium resources we have and how anal Australia is with regulation and safety I am still frustrated that we do not use nuclear power - it always comes down to an election issue praying on misinformed and emotionally charged voters. But hey we have millions of square kms or miles of red dirt perfect for solar plants but it all comes down to $$$ As for the electric car charging idea - I havent heard shite about that.

Re:Where are they getting the power?

[TapeCutter]

"Which is a crying shame considering how much uranium and easy disposal options we have. Fear trumps reason again. Cue: 30 year outdated arguments.."

The point is mute because as others have pointed out TFA claims that AGL will use renewables, however I have to object to your implied conclusion that Australia should build reactors.

Australia has both huge uranium reserves AND huge renewable potential (enough to power most of SE Asia), why not sell the uranium and disposal services to other nations that don't have such an embarrasing wealth and under-utilisation of renewables? Personally I think the shame I cry over the most is how we consitently sell taxpayer funded IP for pennies, as in the case of The Sun King. IMHO we should be selling uranium and keeping ideas, not the other way around.

The meat from the link:
"The new technology Dr Shi helped develop has now been put into commercial production at this factory near Leipzig, in Germany. But it is protected by patent - he might have helped develop it but the Sun King can't use it. Indeed the failure by Pacific Solar to commercialise the technology so disheartened Dr Shi at the time that he considered giving away research altogether and starting a restaurant or a supermarket in Sydney...[snip: but he went back home to China]...Six years later Dr Shi and his wife have transformed $6 million in seed capital into a $6 billion company. Oh, not only did we sell his invention, we even built the factory for the Germans who are now pumping about a gigawatt of EXCESS back into the grid from rooftop PV - quite an achivement considering "sunshine" is not the first thing that comes to one's mind when they think about German weather.

And while we are at it, why do we ship ore to China to smelt with coal, why not refine the metal where it is dug up using solar thermal and "value add" to our product? Even the small quantity we smelt is done with horrendous inefficiency and still makes a profit, eg: Aluminium in the south using a purpose built coal plant but the ore is dug up under the sweltering sun in the north. To get the ore from north to south there's all this infrastructure of railraods, ports and ships. If we can automate the world's largest diamond mine to operate with a dozen staff why can't we build intergrated mine/refine/power stations that take maybe 100 people to run? Plonk it on the ore deposit and away you go.

If I had my tinfoil hat on I might think that a lot of the insanity in the economy is nothing more than a "full employment" scheme for western society.

Politics: The Greens have two problems, first their nuclear dogma directly contradicts their platform of "science based policy". Second their leader is as boring as dogshit. I'm an old fart who was an adult during the Franklin thing and I admire Brown for what he did back then, I also admire him for standing up for the rule of law in the Hicks case even though Howard neutered him by branding him a "Hick's supporter". I really DO want to hear what he has to say but his voice and his predictable dogma are like auditory valium, two sentances and I'm asleep. The last time I remember him doing anything effective was the time he got the Greens locked out of parliment while the Chineese were visting, and when I say effective I mean he was effective in convincing the nation that he's a wack-job. (Not that different to how McCain has "lost his way", once that happens your credibility is dead to the casual observer and the one-eyed dogmatists are drawn to you like flies are drawn to a turd.)

Re:Where are they getting the power?

[Dogsballz]

So offloading global warming thru buring fossils fuels is ok? Thats 99.9% probable. I'll take the 99.9% on nuclear anyday.

Re:Where are they getting the power?

[Dun Malg]

They don't make a profit in their lifetime?

That's not inherent to nuclear, but to the one-off nature of all the early nuclear plants. Standardized designs, pre-approved by the appropriate regulatory agencies, can be cheap and reliable. Look at France. Their reactors are so cheap and reliable they're a net exporter of electricity, and they make quite a bit of cash from it. The trouble with all the reactors built in the 60's we have now is that each one was scratch built at a time when no one really knew the best way to build one. They're all basically experimental.

Re:Where are they getting the power?

[Vexar]

Nuclear power plants have an ROI timeline, unburdened by government perks, of about 18 months. Furthermore, the power they generate can be slightly cheaper than coal, per kilowatt-hour, depending on how cheap the coal is in the area. Newer reactor designs (Gen IV) have higher operational efficiencies, which mean cheaper power than ever. Meanwhile, newer coal plants require greater environmental tooling, and so they are consequently less efficient and more expensive. Go Australia! Show America how to do things, like you did with the SCRAM engine!

Shai Agassi

[PCM2]

This is the electric-car effort spearheaded by Shai Agassi, formerly of SAP. He was profiled in Wired a couple of issues back.

The gist of it is that the cars are all-electric (not hybrid), the energy companies sell the power, and the cars are basically free (or close to it). To get around the runtime problems of current electric cars, he envisions filling stations where you pull up in your electric car and instead of waiting for your battery to fully charge, the company swaps out your drained batter with a brand-new, prefilled one, and off you go. This is possible because they own the batteries anyway.

In short, the idea is to move away from the Gillette razor model for cars, toward the cell phone model.

Re:Shai Agassi

[Xtense]

I think I'm going to need an easier, car-based analogy to fully understand this.

Re:Shai Agassi

[mcrbids]

The gist of it is that the cars are all-electric (not hybrid), the energy companies sell the power, and the cars are basically free (or close to it). To get around the runtime problems of current electric cars, he envisions filling stations where you pull up in your electric car and instead of waiting for your battery to fully charge, the company swaps out your drained batter with a brand-new, prefilled one, and off you go. This is possible because they own the batteries anyway.

This is perhaps the "elevator pitch" but in reality there is much, much more to it than just this.

1) Other comments have posted about rolling power outages - these electric cars will help *prevent* rolling power outages! The truth is that the power grid is massively overbuilt. There is about 25% of the grid built to handle perhaps 12 hours of usage per year - the dreaded mid-summer air conditioning spike. These cars "talk" to the grid. They charge when power is plentiful (eg: at night) and can even backfeed into the grid if there's a shortage. The result is that they make better, more consistent, and more even use of the grid 24x7, while also providing embedded resiliency.

2) The cars are rented. You pay for usage. Yeah, much like the cell phone model. But because of this, you don't have to worry about batteries, you don't have to worry about mechanic bills, and the cost for usage (per mile) is less than your existing car, anyway. Since nearly all cars are either financed or leased nowadays, anyway, the effect on the consumer is negligible. Day-to-day, you wouldn't notice the difference!

3) The reason why electric cars bomb is the dreaded long trip. Even with 250 or so miles per charge, roughly equivalent to most cars' "full tank" range, the electric cars to date are utter fail for trips that are farther. You have to find a place to charge. You have to wait 4-8 hours. Etc. But with these electric cars, you can swap batteries in less time than it would take to fill the tank on your existing car. The problem of replacing batteries just.... goes away.

I'm not just sold on this plan. I'm sold and sold and sold. I wish California would jump on board - I'd finally have a good reason to replace my aging (but perfectly operational) 10 year old 200,000 mile Saturn SL2!

Cars on the Grid is cleaner than Cars on the Pump

[ciroknight]

Yeah, but as has been said a billion times by now, the electrical grid is cheaper and cleaner than a half billion cars driving around burning hydrocarbons. Power plants make it a point to be as efficient as possible, whereas cars make almost the inverse point with IC engines.

Looking forward, the grid is a lot easier to update to cleaner technologies as they come available. It is extremely tough to get anyone to put a new engine in their car because it might improve their gas mileage.

the child in me...

[RuBLed]

envisioned that as a massive electric bump car grid.

Works fine in Australia

[eebra82]

One of the main reasons this might work in Australia is because it is an island. Cars don't get on and off this country, so buying a car and worrying about going to "non-compatible" countries won't be a problem.

This is why their initiative may have a bigger effect than, say, a European country surrounded by differently positioned countries.

Now that I think about it...

[PCM2]

Actually, now that I think about it, Gillette is the wrong model. The current car model is the PC model: Pay a bunch of money up front for the computer, pay for software and support on an ongoing basis, eventually send the computer to the junkyard. Agassi's model is the cell phone model: Pay next to nothing up front, pay the service provider regular installments, replace or upgrade the hardware as needed for a nominal fee, but the hardware is all tied to the service provider. What you're paying for is not a car, but transportation.

It's an intriguing concept, but it's hard to see it taking off in the U.S., where the automobile probably ranks ahead of diamond jewelry as a universally-recognized status symbol. Even Prius owners are making a statement about their lifestyle.

But what do I know? I ride the bus.

Re:Cars on the Grid is cleaner than Cars on the Pu

[Hucko]

You could always try steering out of the road. Why do you *have* to be in front? Are you going to get there significantly faster than the car behind you? My anecdotal tests have convinced me I can let 10 - 20 cars over take me and still not lose any noticeable time getting where I want to go.

You'd need a LOT more plugs than gas pumps.

[plasmacutter]

Because of the time required to charge vehicles, we'd need a cord station at pretty much every parking space everywhere for widespread use of pure electrics to be tenable.
(even if we implemented amazing recharge rates through capacitors, we wouldn't be able to utilize them because, without a completely separate, ultra-capacity utility network, the grid would overload)

How expensive is this per capita vs a carbon trapping device from the government for everyone and a massive fuel subsidy program?

In the long term they're financially better off rolling out a complete rebuild of the power grid to support "burst charging" of ultra-capacitors so cars can be charged in a couple minutes at "stations", the same way we do now with gas.

Proprietary networks are bad

[Grue]

I hope they're talking to the car companies about the necessary standardization it would take to make this work, too.

For all the press Better Place has been getting lately, I haven't seen an in-depth analysis of their business model, specifically as it relates to standardization of the infrastructure, including plugs and sockets.

I have a feeling their charging plugs, sockets and protocols are proprietary. Anyone who attempts to produce a compatible charger/socket is going to find themselves on the end of a very aggressive lawsuit. Unless of course they've licensed the technology from Better Place.

Our current gasoline-based system is deeply flawed, but at least it's open. We're replacing it with a marginally better system, but we're giving up that openness for a closed system owned by a single company.

And then there's the conflict of interest issue. What incentive does a company have to reduce power consumption on a car when it's getting a cut of every charge?

Shai Agassi is a smart and charismatic man, but who can really say they're happy with the cell phone business model? Most consumers aren't, but the cellular networks are making quite a profit.

Re:I'd prefer a water-powered car!

[Carbon016]

The notion of a "water-powered car" is stupid conspiracy theory touted by those who never took a introductory chemistry course because electrolysis consumes energy. It might be novel (which is its only real value) but inside all those cars are batteries which are doing electrolysis and then the resulting mixture is burned, which is vastly less efficient than using that power to drive the car or using hydrogen created by wind or solar.

Hydrogen is not an energy source.

Hence the reason for the buildout.

[ciroknight]

Because of the time required to charge vehicles, we'd need a cord station at pretty much every parking space everywhere for widespread use of pure electrics to be tenable.

Surprise, that's exactly why they're starting the buildout now. You build it once, and you're done, you don't keep building it again and again, as you do with cars.

I'm not saying that we have to immediately switch over to everyone on electric either. I'm not even saying that petrol should go the way of the dinosaur (in this case, literally). But for most drivers, electric is more than enough for every day life. And even "slow" charging batteries are just fine, because most of us spend most of our days inside, whilst our cars sit outside doing nothing but collecting heat.

One billion...

[the_other_chewey]

...plans to build a massive one-billion-dollar charging network

Sounds pretty useless. How many australians can be charged one billion dollars?

Re:Cars on the Grid is cleaner than Cars on the Pu

[Psychotria]

Come off it. Yesterday I was in the left hand lane that was practically stopped. I could see the reason it was stopped... about 1.5km up the road the traffic was also stopped (because of an accident). The left land was slow because lots of people were trying to exit the motorway to avoid the congestion.

When a small opportunity arose, I changed into another lane. I did not accelerate to 110km/hr because I could see that 1.5 km further on I'd be stuck anyway. What happened? I got wankers on their horns 'cause I did not go 110km/hr for the next 1.5km... This is the problem on the road: people somehow cannot see more than one car ahead. This is how I judge people. A LOT of people cannot think mid- to long-term. A lot of these same people make critical business decisions. No WONDER the economies of the world are in bad shape.

Just for the record, I ended up further along the road than those fools behind me,giving me grief, dodging in-and-out of traffic, and not thinking beyond the next 2 seconds. If more people thought ahead things would BE BETTER. But, alas, the first car in front (for these fools) is always the one at fault. And they extend this stupid mentanility to all aspects of their life. The hare and the tortoise. We need more turtles

Re:Cars on the Grid is cleaner than Cars on the Pu

[theaveng]

I have an Insight, and even though it only has a 70hp engine, it can accelerate just fine. In fact I've had it up over 100 mph while cruising across the American continent. At no point have I ever felt the need for more power, and I drive the four-lane-wide I-95 every day with thousands of other cars and trucks.

The key is to learn how to go with the *merge* with the flow of traffic, rather than be an obstacle that jumps in front of massive trucks.

Re:Cars on the Grid is cleaner than Cars on the Pu

[GrahamCox]

I'm with you. One time in Germany I was crawling through roadworks which caused a lot of delay as everyone was forced into one lane. Once the first set of roadworks ended and we were back to three lanes but I could see it was only going to be for about 2km before another set of roadworks, so I didn't bother speeding up too much (maybe to 80km/h) or changing lanes (because the lane I was in was the one we'd all be in in 2km). Of course the bozo behind in a (what else) BMW 735i was 2 inches off my bumper flashing his headlights and tooting his horn. He got the finger repeatedly. I was in a UK-registered car, right hand drive, and with GB plate, so that probably wound him up even more. I feared for his heart as he was clearly going purple with rage. Eventually, fearing a ramming, I let him past. He accelerated excessively past me, expending a great deal of effort and attention on gesticulating at me. He didn't notice the traffic was slowing down again and was stopped up ahead, but realised just in time and just about managed to stop. Llucky he had ABS. I tucked in behind him and followed him for another 10km at a slow crawl through the roadworks. As they ended, he pulled off into a Rasthof as I tootled past... You have to wonder why he felt it so necessary to get in front of me for no good reason (except it *was* a BMW, so that does go with the territory). Maybe his pa was shot down in the war and couldn't stand a British car in front. He was extremely lucky he didn't cause an accident.