Today the FBI and the US-CERT (United States Cybersecurity Emergency Readiness Team) issued a warning that Russian Government hacking groups are not only attacking US energy sector facilities, but that they are INSIDE the systems. That is, the attackers began by infiltrating networks of 3rd party organizations who had lax…
Electric vehicle charging stations with WiFi support could become commonplace. Texas Instruments, a.k.a. TI, has just published an EVSE (a.k.a. electric vehicle service equipment) reference design that includes WiFi support and an ARM-based processor. I believe many companies use these published reference designs as the starting point for products, sometimes…
A slide deck from June 28, 2012, covering this agenda: NREL Electric Vehicle Grid Integration (EVGI) Background SPIDERS and Military Microgrids Proposed Messaging for bi-directional vehicle charging (V2x) Power Line Communications (PLC) Hardware Implementation Lessons Learned Next Steps Original: http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/PublicMeetingMaterials/0712/D2-4.pdf
Tonight Tesla Motors announced what we’ve expected, but it’s a bigger deal than expected. Specifically, Tesla Motors is launching what’s essentially a new business unit, Tesla Energy, and positioning itself not as an automaker but as an “energy innovation company”. Tesla Energy’s product line is, initially, grid-tied energy storage units…
At the intersection of smart grid services, on-site renewable energy generation, on-site grid energy storage, and electric cars, is the new energy energy model. I’ve recently written a few posts about the stone age energy model, where we burn things to create heat, motion or light. Most cars, trucks, etc…
Will electric car charging always look as it does today – a few charging stations here and there? When there are hundreds of thousands of electric cars sold per year, won’t the current electric vehicle charging model be swamped? Maybe a company needs to reconceptualize the whole model? The rise…
A few days ago we looked at how some in the Oil industry are protecting their position – by feeding us education (propaganda?) saying that fracking is okay. Today, I have found a Coal/Electricity industry CEO, FirstEnergy Corp. President and CEO Anthony Alexander, crying that “electricity is under attack,” that…
A significant demonstration of electric vehicles at a charging station interacting with smart grid protocols was just made, showing significant vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capabilities. First – it’s talking about a new DC fast charging station that uses the SAE Combo Charging system a.k.a. SAE DC Fast charge. This is the newer…
A couple days ago GM and Google announced a joint project to explore using smart grid technologies to let Volt owners get the semblance of sourcing their electricity from renewable energy resources. The technology appears to the user via OnStar, and shows the percentage of available renewable energy on the…
After ten years in an electric car like the Nissan Leaf, its battery pack might still have 70% of its original capacity, theoretically making it reusable in the smart grid. One of the questions related to electric vehicles is the disposition of the battery packs after a few years when…
Ford Motor Company has announced an intelligent vehicle-to-grid communications and control system for its plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The system is meant to exchange data with the electric grid in the “smart grid” future. The data exchange is meant to help recharge the onboard battery pack without strain on the…
There is a chicken and egg situation with large scale adoption of electric vehicles. Electricity is everywhere (more or less) meaning electric vehicles could theoretically be recharged pretty much anywhere. All that’s required is to install appropriate electrical outlets for electric vehicles to plug into. That requires an investment of…
A fear over expanding use of electric vehicles is whether the increased electric demand would swamp the electric grid. The electric grid is those high power transmission lines criss-crossing the country. The claim is the electric grid wasn’t designed well and might not handle the extra load from electric cars.…
