Felix Kramer of Calcars thinks 2010 will be the year of the plug-in car.  He’s got a good case: After years of advocacy and technology development, 2010 is the year that major manufacturers will finally make plug-ins broadly available, and rapidly decreasing battery costs are helping the conversion industry reach new customers and help retrofit the existing fleet at scale.  After years of work and promise, 2010 is the payoff year.

I see a similar trend in solar in California, where years of policy and business development are all coming together to make 2010 an extraordinary year for solar development.

There are four major market drivers:

1. The California RPS
California’s renewable portfolio statute requires the state’s utilities to include 20% renewables in their portfolio by 2010, and last year Governor Schwarzenegger issued an Executive Order increasing the requirement to 33%.  To date, California investor-owned utilities have signed over 7 GW of contracts with solar companies, of which 4.9 GW are at prices below the Market Price Referent (that’s the 20-year levelized cost of energy for a combined cycle gas turbine, a proxy for the fossil fuel alternative).  An Excel spreadsheet of the contracts, modified from the one found on the CPUC’s website, here.  This list will be expanding rapidly; by all accounts, the 2009 RPS solicitation garnered a tremendous response from solar (especially photovoltaic) developers, and as the utilities send contracts to the CPUC for approval, we are likely to see contracts for gigawatts more of mid-sized wholesale PV projects in the coming months.  That’s what happens when solar gets cheap.

2. Utility Wholesale Distributed Generation Programs
California’s investor-owned utilities have all applied for significant investments in utility-owned solar projects, and 2010 is when these programs hit the street (or rooftop).  Southern California Edison (SCE) wants to develop 250 MW of primarily rooftop solar projects; as a condition for approval, the California Public Utilities Commission is requiring SCE to buy an equivalent amount of solar, in 1-2 MW increments (90% of which have to be rooftop) from independent power producers through competitively-bid power purchase agreements.  The details of how the auction mechanism is to work (including standard terms and conditions of the contract) were the subject of a workshop process last fall, and are to come before the CPUC for approval on Jan 21.  Assuming approval, the first auction for PPAs could take place the following month or so.  Details of the proceeding here and here.

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has applied for a similar program: 250 MW of utility-owned generation (systems sized from 1-20 MW), and an equivalent amount to be purchased from independent power producers.  For the IPP portion, PG&E’s initial application proposed to offer standard contracts at PG&E’s cost of development (initially estimated to be 29.5 cents/kWh, but would reset based on actual costs); this issue is being litigated before the CPUC, with resolution expected around February.  As the CPUC forced SCE to competitively bid their IPP portion, it would be a good bet to speculate that they will decide on a similar requirement for PG&E, but who knows?

Combined, these utility programs represent a gigawatt of wholesale distributed generation solar over the next 5 years.

3. Feed-in Tariff Programs
California has two feed-in tariff programs under development.  The first is a proposed 1 GW market-based feed-in tariff, which would require the state’s investor-owned utilities to conduct multiple annual solicitations for 1-10 MW renewable projects.  It’s different from a traditional feed-in tariff in that instead of guaranteeing a price, it guarantees a market and lets project developers set their own price.  The proceeding to establish this program is inches from the goal-line–after over a year of work, we we are currently waiting on the Administrative Law Judge to issue a proposed resolution. We expect the process to be concluded in the next few months (knock wood), and the first auctions to begin before summer.  The pilot program totals 1 GW over 4 years, though once the process gets moving and proves successful, it could easily be expanded.  I believe that this program hits a sweet spot on several levels: 1) the 1-10 MW size targets projects that don’t need new transmission, and can thusly come on line quickly, and 2) the competitive pricing element, combined with solar’s dramatically lower costs, will finally bring on massive amounts of solar at politically palatable price-points.

The second is SB 32, passed by the legislature last year.  SB 32 requires the CPUC to develop a must-take standard-offer price for renewable contracts–essentially based on avoided cost.  More details here, but as rulemaking will take awhile, it is unlikely that this program will be available in 2010.

4. Customer-Side of the Meter
The California Solar Initiative is the program that provides incentives for behind-the-meter generation–the owner of the system uses the production to offset purchases from the utility and reduce electric bills.  Over 135 MW of photovoltaics, both residential and non-residential, were installed in 2009.  We still have to raise the 2.5 % net metering cap, but if that’s accomplished, Jigar Shah (founder of SunEdison) told me he has a standing bet that the remaining incentives (all 1303 MW) will be reserved in 2010.  Here’s hoping he’s right.  Also of note, just about every property owner in California will have access to a PACE financing program by the end of the year.  As financing the high up-front costs of solar and energy efficiency is a long-standing hurdle to greater adoption, these new programs should help drive demand considerably.

All told, we are looking at tremendous amounts of new solar development in the state.  Here’s to more solar gen in two-thousand and ten…

Adam Browning is the Executive Director of Vote Solar, a non-profit grassroots organization working to combat climate change and foster economic development by bringing solar energy into the mainstream.

photo: Flickr

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Some heavyweights who know a thing or two about transportation are having a pointed online debate about whether or not electric vehicles should receive support from the federal government.

Terry Tamminen, who was Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency under Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, threw down the gauntlet last month in an editorial in which he stated that “it’s time to dump the battery-powered car in the same policy landfill as corn-based ethanol.”

Tamminen went on to make several arguments as to why batteries are not the answer for clean transportation. This elicited a point by point response from CalCars founder Felix Kramer.

Here, we put their arguments back to back to contrast their opposing positions.

TT: First, (Energy Secretary) Chu admitted to Congress that it would take billions of R&D funding and many years to develop batteries that are practical for cars in everyday use. He was being optimistic, given the laws of physics – - there’s only so much you can reduce the weight and charging times for batteries, not to mention the scarce and toxic materials needed to produce them. And car engineers spend lifetimes taking a few pounds out of a car to make it more fuel efficient, regardless of how it is powered. Why would we want a fleet of inefficient cars that carry around half a ton of excess luggage?

FK: 1. Batteries will always be too heavy; materials are scarce and toxic. This sounds like a comment from before 2006. Batteries are improving steadily in “energy density” and cost — by 7-15% a year, with occasional faster leaps as technologies shift. Automaker and battery makers have concluded that the supposed “lithium shortage” doesn’t exist. Nickel-metal hydride and lithium batteries are approved for landfill (not toxic) and can be recycled. The battery and motor of an EV is not always heavier than the larger engine and gas tank while you benefit from up to four times greater efficiency of an electric motor over and internal combustion engine.

TT: Second, this notion that battery cars require no new infrastructure is nonsense. A recent article in Science magazine highlighted the need for more powerplants, transmission lines, and home/office chargers to serve even a small % of the transportation fleet, if it was dependent on battery recharging. As an example, the Tesla battery sports car takes 37 hours to recharge with normal household current and 8 hours if you install a special high-voltage charger that costs thousands of dollars. Moreover, on a hot July day in California, if even a few hundred thousand of the state’s 30 million vehicles were attached to the grid, the overloaded system would routinely blackout unless it was upgraded at the cost of billions. Battery car enthusiast Shai Agassi announced he intends to bring his battery cars to San Francisco and would build 250,000 charging stations around the Bay Area alone – - does that sound like new infrastructure to you?

2. We’ll need a giant new infrastructure; charging takes too long; we’ll get overloads and blackouts unless we spend billions of dollars to upgrade the power grid. Plug-in hybrids need no new infrastructure. According to a study from the Pacific National Lab, today’s grid has capacity to recharge 84% of today’s cars if they all plugged at night. This applies to all-electric vehicles charging at night as well, which will be true for most vehicles used as families’ second cars. Price signals will disincentivize daytime charging on late summer afternoons when the grid is at capacity. And the Tesla Roadster’s high-power charger takes under four, not eight hours to recharge (see http://www.teslamotors.com/learn_more/faqs.php).

TT: Third, range matters. Yes the average commuter may only need 30 or 40 miles a day, something they can get from batteries today, but many people live in multi-family apartments and have no access to a charger on a daily basis. Many more can only afford one car and want one that can go longer distances when needed. I recently drove 150 miles to Palm Springs from Los Angeles in my hydrogen powered electric car (the hydrogen is converted to electricity by the fuel cell, which powers the same electric motor as a Tesla or any other electric car). I refueled in 7 minutes and was ready to return that afternoon. The Tesla or any other battery car available today would still be at the recharging station 30 miles short of Palm Springs, not to mention the problem of getting back in the same day.

Battery enthusiasts say we will have swapping stations, so in a few minutes you can drop off discharged batteries and pick up full charged ones. Maybe, but then every car will essentially have to have multiple sets of batteries made for it, so there are enough to go around at swapping stations awaiting the need. What does that take in terms of resources and greenhouse gas pollution in the manufacture (and ultimate disposal) of all of those batteries?

FK: 3. Range matters: yes, most average commutes are 30-40 miles/day, but cars need to be able to drive 300 miles between refills. And people who live in apartments don’t have access to a charger. PHEVS l have that range by definition: when the battery is depleted the engine powers the car for hundreds of miles. The forthcoming Chevy Volt 40-mile electric range matches the drive cycle of 78% of vehicles. Tamminen has forgotten his approving quotation (page 152 of Lives Per Gallon) of Ed Begley, Jr. saying “The detractors of electric vehicles are right. Given their limited range, they can only meet the needs of 90 percent of the population.” The first buyers of plug-in cars may be drivers with garages, but the charging infrastructure is starting to arrive: The New York Times Real Estate Section reports that building management company executives say they want to be ready for the coming wave of customer demand to charge in their high-rise apartments: (see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/realestate/30posting.html).

TT: Fourth, size matters. There’s a reason that battery cars so far are all small. Tesla chose the sports car because it was cool and would brand their company, but also because it is small and light which helps with range (even so, the range is far less than 200 miles). Other car companies toying with battery cars are focused on very small sedans for the same reason. Anyone who needs a larger car or truck will have a very long wait to get one powered by batteries.

FK: 4. Only small, light cars can be battery powered. While it is true that until recently, most EVs were small and underpowered, the coming wave of luxury sports cars has proven that EVs can outperform gasoline cars. The vehicles continue to be designed to be as aerodynamic as possible because that makes sense for any vehicle however it’s powered. And Tamminen gets the size issue exactly wrong. The larger vehicles have plenty of room for batteries and, and they’re the gas-gulpers. IF you switch around the usual way of looking at miles per gallon into gallons per mile, this becomes obvious. Our 50 MPG Priuses converted to 100 MPG PHEVS use 1 gallon per hundred miles instead of 2–saving 1 gallon. A 15 MPG truck that becomes a 45 MPG PHEV saves over 5 gallons per hundred miles. That’s why CalCars is now focusing largely on pickups, SUVs and trucks, including conversions of already-built vehicles.

TT: Finally, how the electricity is produced will determine how clean battery power is, which is also true of hydrogen production. The need to build all of the new infrastructure, batteries (maybe multiple sets), and charging stations has to be added into that lifecycle analysis, otherwise we’re making the same mistakes we made with ethanol – - a mirage of sustainability by looking only at the end use.

FK: 5. Plug-in cars are only as clean as the electricity they run on. This is true, but on today’s national grid (50% coal), an electric mile produces only half the CO2 of a gasoline mile. Tamminen acknowledges this is true for hydrogen as well…not entirely, since some hydrogen (an energy carrier, not a source) comes from reforming natural gas, which is still high in CO2. For hydrogen made electrically from water, multiple studies have shown the original electricity used to make the fuel carries a vehicle three to four times further if it’s put directly into a battery rather than cycled through hydrolysis, fuel transportation, compression, and fuel cells before they get to the electric motor that powers the car. If we ever get hydrogen created directly from the sun and algae, we’ll still be decades away from having a full infrastructure for its use.6. Plug-in advocates aren’t looking at the cost of the entire infrastructure, just at the end use. Tamminen forgets about the ability of PHEVs and many EVs to come to the market with no new infrastructure. In contrast to this, all the hydrogen vehicles he so strongly supports need a new infrastructure, and it’s largely because of that fact that Energy Secretary Steve Chu and may others have concluded that even if multiple technical and cost issues involving hydrogen and fuel cells are solved, other solutions that are much closer are more deserving of support and incentives. Some day we might have hydrogen providing the range extension fuel for PHEVs, but even cellulosic ethanol is generally seen as arriving far sooner than hydrogen.The biggest refutation of Tamminen comes from the growing stampede among national governments and automakers to bring plug-in cars to market. They are starting with substantial tax incentives until costs decline with economies of scale — but the gap needed to bridge is in the $5-$10,000 range, one-tenth or less the amount needed to subsidize Tamminen’s preferred hydrogen cars.

You can read more about CalCars’ new ICE conversion initiative. For more on the pro-EV side of the argument, check out the response of Paul Scott of Plug-in America.

Article appearing courtesy of the Matter Network.

[photo credit: Elsa Wenzel, jurvetson]

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Converting hybrid vehicles — particularly the Prius and Ford Escape — into plug-in hybrids has become a profitable niche industry for a few specialty companies. But the net impact of this new mini-industry has been much greater by influencing consumer and industry opinions.

Promoting the technical feasibility of PHEVs has been a significant factor in the auto manufacturers’ decision to develop the dozens of plug-in and all-electric vehicles now scheduled for delivery in the next five years.

But the earliest and strongest voice promoting PHEVs isn’t happy with that limited success. Felix Kramer, the founder of CalCars.org, says that getting to a million electrified vehicles by 2015 won’t do nearly enough to address climate change and energy independence, and now he’s setting his sights on electrifying internal combustion engine vehicles. He’s clearly on to something.

CalCar’s new “Big Fix” initiative wants to electrify some of the biggest emitters and gas-wasters — pickup trucks, SUVs and vans (PSVs). When used in delivery routes that are often well under 40 miles per day, they spend much of their time starting, stopping, and idling, and get among the worst MPG ratings around. Converting one of these vehicles to a PHEV or EV will reduce fuel consumption and emissions to a much greater degree than trading in a Sebring for a Prius.

SPVs, most notably the Ford F-150, have been among the top sellers for more than a decade, creating an inventory of millions of vehicles that could be converted. They also have much more space for battery packs, which makes for a simpler conversion than a compact car. Former Intel CEO Andy Grove and electric vehicle guru Andy Frank are fully on board, lending their considerable credibility to the idea.

The Japanese postal service has already begun converting its fleet of vehicles to EVs, and the U.S. Postal Service wants to do the same with more than 140,000 of its delivery vehicles. The cash-starved agency could save millions per year if the federal government decides to provide assistance, which would be more sustainable than a bailout.

The biggest impediments are the cost and potential resistance from the auto industry. The battery cost can be upwards of $20,000, making for a slow payback period if gasoline stays around $3 a gallon. The economics will improve over time, especially if conversion kits are produced in volume and battery manufacturing ramps up as the technology evolves.

But the harder sell will be convincing the auto industry that keeping vehicles on the road instead of buying new vehicles is a good thing, and that they should be a part of that business. Upgrading existing SPVs could be a multi-billion dollar business, extending the life of vehicles and preserving the energy cost sunk into building them. While Ford, GM and Chrylsler are best-suited to engineer conversions, this mass rethinking of the company would be an even bigger shift than the current change to becoming manufacturers of PHEVs and EVs.

Convincing fleet operators to convert will likely be easier than the consumers, legislators and car companies needed to make it happen. It’s not impossible, but it will take an extensive and well-orchestrated effort.

Appearing courtesy of Matter Network.

[photo credit: Flickr]

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