Nobrainer’s Think Tank

In my last post, written after attending a 7-hour grid-reliability conference, I wrote “If anyone ever tells you anything about the electrical grid, they are probably wrong.” You’ve heard of Google? Well they’re telling people things about the grid. And they’re probably wrong. I could write a huge post on this, but I’ll settle for short, short version.

One of their initiatives is to push plug-in hybrids. That’s fine. I don’t have any issues with that. I do take issue with their claims.

In their FAQs they say

4. Will plug-in hybrids require the construction of new power plants?
Actually, studies have shown that our current electricity grid could power three quarters of the nation’s 217 million passenger vehicles.

They took that number from a paper titled “Impacts Assessment of Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles [PHEVs] on Electric Utilities And Regional U.S. Power Grids Part I: Technical Analysis.”

Let’s look to the paper. In the last paragraph of the Discussion of Results section they say [emphasis mine]:

In the short run, the expected increased utilization scenario will affect wholesale electricity markets as supplies of generation resources remain tight over longer periods. One result could be an upward pressure on wholesale electricity prices, although the persistence of higher prices will induce investments in new generation and transmission capacity. In the long-term, the supply will follow the load to meet the growing demand. The development of a new transportation load may facilitate financing of low cost base load generation and renewables that is currently lacking in the marketplace. The potential for short-term price increases and longer-term price and rate decreases needs to be analyzed further and considered as part of the public policy debate. A fuller discussion of the economic assessment of PHEVs is in the companion paper (Part II: Economic Assessment), which examines impacts to the revenue requirements and the electric rates in a fully regulated utility environment.

In other words the answer to the FAQ is “New plants aren’t required, but you’d be a complete dolt to not build them.”