August 12, 2008

Plug it In, Plug it In, Say West Coast Utilities

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ROSEMEAD, CA – West Coast utilities Southern California Edison (SCE), Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and Portland General Electric (PGE) have announced a few initiatives aimed at bringing electric vehicles closer to the road.

Photo courtesy Portland General Electric

Portland General Electric said it will focus on building out infrastructure for the electric vehicles through a network of charging stations throughout its service territory. Meanwhile, Mitsubishi signed agreements with both SCE and PG&E to test a handful of its i MiEV electric cars over a three-year period. Mitsubishi said the partnership will allow it to test its battery technology; utilities will get a chance to test out how the vehicles can be used to smooth electrical demand on the power grid.

Utilities are eager to speed the adoption of both electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, which could act as a kind of distributed, mobile power plant; when power demand goes up, instead of turning to expensive last-resort power plants, utilities could draw power from the batteries of plugged-in hybrid around their territory. Portland General Electric and the California utilities are all pairing their plug-in hybrid initiatives with investment in so-called "smart metering" technologies that will help regulate vehicle charging and discharging onto the grid.

Portland General Electric received approval earlier this year to implement a more than $130 million smart-metering project that will install 16,000 new meters during the six-month testing phase; additional meters will be installed through the end of 2010. When the project is complete, PGE estimates it will reap $18 million in annual operational savings. (PGE customers will foot the bill via an additional charge on their electric bill.)

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