Electric vehicles will ultimately reduce the nation’s dependency on oil. While the new vehicles will serve as an additional source of power demand, they also could contribute to an even “smarter” grid if equipped with controller technology.

“If a million owners plug in their vehicles to recharge after work, it could cause a major strain on the grid,” said PNNL engineer Michael Kintner-Meyer. “The Smart Charger Controller could prevent those peaks in demand from plug-in vehicles and enable our existing grid to be used more evenly.”

That efficiency translates to a more stable grid and cheaper power.

“Using the device could save up to $150 a year for electric vehicle owners who pay based on when they charge their vehicle,” Kintner-Meyer said.

How it Works

Electric vehicles will become widely available starting in 2011. The current Administration supports a goal of one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. A previous PNNL study showed that America’s existing power grid could meet the needs of about 70 percent of all U.S. light-duty vehicles if battery charging was managed to avoid new peaks in electricity demand.

The Smart Charger Controller does just that. Owners program the controller to charge at a specific time of day or night or at a set price point. The controller uses a low-range wireless technology to communicate with the power grid and determine the best and cheapest time to recharge vehicles. By charging vehicles during off-peak times, the controller saves consumers money.

Previous PNNL studies with household appliances show that “smart” technologies also save the grid from brown-outs with little impact to the consumer. Grid Friendly™ technology inside the Smart Charger Controller senses stress conditions on the grid. When the grid says more power is needed, the controller can temporarily stop charging the vehicle until the stress subsides.

This instant reduction in charging load, multiplied on a large scale with many vehicles, could serve as a shock absorber for the grid. The technology would relieve load instantly and give grid operators time to bring new power generation sources on line to stabilize the grid – a process that usually takes several minutes.

The Road Ahead is Now

With more electric vehicles on the horizon, road-ready, smart charging technology can be used now, according to Kintner-Meyer. Advancing technologies like the Smart Charger Controller today will enable the new generation of electric vehicles to be “smarter” once they’re available commercially, he noted.

Video: Managing Demand for ElectricityVideo: Smart Charger Controller: What a user will see during a charging cycle

Anne M. “Annie” Haas works in the media relations department at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

WASHINGTON — Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, once hailed by President George W. Bush as a pollution-free solution for reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, will not be practical over the next 10 to 20 years, the energy secretary said Thursday, and the government will cut off funds for the vehicles’ development.

Developing those cells and coming up with a way to transport the hydrogen is a big challenge, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in releasing energy-related details of the administration’s budget for the year beginning Oct. 1. Dr. Chu said the government preferred to focus on projects that would bear fruit more quickly.

The retreat from cars powered by fuel cells counters Mr. Bush’s prediction in 2003 that “the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free.” The Energy Department will continue to pay for research into stationary fuel cells, which Dr. Chu said could be used like batteries on the power grid and do not require compact storage of hydrogen.

The Obama administration will also establish eight “energy innovation hubs,” small centers for basic research that Dr. Chu referred to as “Bell Lablettes.” These will be financed for five years at a time to lure more scientists into the energy area.

“We’re very devoted to delivering solutions — not just science papers, but solutions — but it will require some basic science,” Dr. Chu, who won a Nobel Prize for his work in physics, said at a news conference.

He said he would probably reverse another Bush administration decision and restore funds for FutureGen, a program to build a power plant prototype. The plant would turn coal into gas, separate out the carbon dioxide — a major contributor to the greenhouse gases that cause global warming — and pump it underground. Then it would burn the hydrogen, which is nearly pollution-free.

An international partnership had selected a site in Mattoon, Ill., for construction of the plant, but the Bush administration decided that the costs were too high and that the money should be spread among more projects.

The Obama administration will also drop spending for research on the exploration of oil and gas deposits because the industry itself has ample resources for that, Dr. Chu said.

While the budget request for the Energy Department is $26.4 billion, an increase of less than 1 percent, actual spending will actually be far higher because some projects will be financed by the economic stimulus package, said Steve Isakowitz, the department’s chief financial officer.

While Dr. Chu emphasized the allocations for research, a former Energy Department official, Robert Alvarez, pointed out that the budget still includes $6.4 billion for nuclear weapons and $4.4 billion for naval reactors, nuclear nonproliferation activity and safe storage of surplus plutonium. “Weapons still make up the largest single expenditure,” he said.