Pilot Will Reward Vehicle Owners for Using Batteries to Help
Manage Electric Grid
SAN FRANCISCO -- (Business Wire)
Please replace the release with the following corrected version due to
revisions in the fourth and fifth paragraphs.
The corrected release reads:
PG&E AND BMW PARTNER TO EXTRACT GRID BENEFITS FROM ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Pilot Will Reward Vehicle Owners for Using Batteries to Help
Manage Electric Grid
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and automaker BMW are teaming up
to test the ability of electric vehicle batteries to provide valuable
services to the electric grid. If successful, the pilot program could
pave the way for significant utility payments that could stimulate
further customer purchases of electric vehicles.
PG&E selected BMW after a competitive solicitation to manage a minimum
of 100 kilowatts of electric demand on PG&E’s system, much as other
large industrial and commercial customers do today as part of the
utility’s demand
response programs. Those programs improve reliability, lower costs
and help the environment by incenting customers to cut usage during
periods of high peak demand.
Demand response programs can save money by delaying the need to upgrade
power lines, transformers and other equipment to handle infrequent peaks
in demand. They can reduce the need to buy expensive and polluting
fossil-fueled power to meet such spikes in demand. And, with further
refinement, they may help utilities manage and smooth out the
intermittent flow of energy from renewable sources such as wind and
solar generation.
BMW will help PG&E manage power demand on its grid in two ways. First,
the automaker will create a large energy storage unit at the BMW Group
Technology Office in Mountain View, using lithium-ion batteries that
were once installed in MINI E demonstration vehicles. Like other storage
systems, these “second life” batteries can absorb cheap surplus
electrical energy when demand is low and release it on request when
demand soars.
Second, BMW will enlist up to 100 customers of its new BMW i3 electric
vehicles to take part in the BMW
i ChargeForward Program. If PG&E needs to curb customer demand for
whatever reason, it will send BMW an alert over the Internet, indicating
how much load to cut and for how long. BMW then will signal the
telemetry equipment in each participating vehicle, telling it to halt
its charging for the duration of the event.
PG&E will pay BMW for these services, as it does other demand response
participants. However, BMW will leverage these payments to lower the
overall cost of ownership of owning an electric vehicle. BMW customers
participating in the program will receive an upfront incentive to enroll
and an ongoing incentive based on their performance in reducing load.
Each customer in the program will be able to track the value of the
ongoing incentive as well as opt-in/out for each event via a phone app
throughout the 18-month pilot.
PG&E hopes that this program, if successful, will pave the way for other
automakers and demand response partners to leverage the value of grid
services from electric vehicles, and similarly reward electric vehicle
customers.
“We have more than 60,000 electric vehicles in our service area,” said
Aaron Johnson, senior director of Customer Programs at PG&E.
“Collectively, they represent a huge and growing resource that we can
potentially tap to provide more flexible, lower cost, and cleaner energy
for our customers.”
Johnson said the pilot program will help determine if automakers are
able and willing to provide such managed grid services, evaluate the
benefit of putting vehicle batteries to work for PG&E customers, and
develop incentives to help grow the market for clean electric vehicles.
About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E
Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas
and electric utilities in the United States. Based in San Francisco,
with more than 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the
nation’s cleanest energy to nearly 16 million people in Northern and
Central California. For more information, visit www.pge.com/
and www.pge.com/en/about/newsroom/index.page.
Contacts:
PG&E
Jonathan Marshall, 415-973-5930
Source: PG&E
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