The California Independent System Operator Corporation (ISO) has released an updated roadmap that will help guide electric vehicle integration into the power grid as well as support California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s 2012 executive order to get 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on California roads by 2025.
The California Vehicle-Grid Integration Roadmap: Enabling Vehicle-Based Grid Services is among one of the first strategies outlined in the Governor’s ZEV action plan published in March 2012. This strategy along with others in the action plan will be featured at the upcoming Governor’s Office Summit on Zero Emission Vehicles.
The invitation only event on March 7 at the CalEPA headquarters in Sacramento brings together regulators, and energy and electric vehicle experts to understand the progress being made and to further brainstorm on actions needed to meet the Governor’s targets. Bob Foster, Chairman of the ISO Board of Governors, will co-lead the discussion on how to unlock the value in electric vehicles that benefit consumers directly while at a minimum not contributing to reliability concern. This ultimately creates opportunities to leverage the stored energy in EVs to help manage the power grid.
“Unleashing the power of aggregating electric vehicles includes creating the means for consumers to realize value that shows up in their wallets as well as providing an energy product that aggregators can bring to wholesale power market and sell,” Chairman Foster said. “The ISO is leading the effort in coming up with innovative ways to make that happen; it just now needs a lot of elbow grease.”
The ISO roadmap outlines the strategies that lead to implementing the technologies and policies that would support electric vehicles providing valuable services that contribute to the reliable operation of the power grid. This includes policies that promote smart charging and vehicle-to-grid integration. Smart charging involves one-way communication and power flow from the grid to the vehicle and occurs when customers choose when to charge their vehicle based on price or other signals. Vehicle-to-grid integration involves two-way communication as electricity flows from the grid to the EV battery and from the EV back to the grid.
The roadmap points out some near-term wins, such as using smart charging strategies that align with grid conditions so electric vehicle owners, individuals and fleet owners can keep their batteries full while not increasing peak load. This will help avoid the need to build additional generation and transmission costing millions of dollars.
Read the roadmap here in pdf.
