Open-Source, Open-Architecture SoftwarePlatform for Plug-InElectric Vehicle SmartCharging in California

This interdisciplinary eXtensible Building Operating System–Vehicles project focuses on controlling plug-in electric vehicle charging at residential and small commercial settings using a novel and flexible open-source, open-architecture charge communication and control platform. The platform provides smart charging functionalities and benefits to the utility, homes, and businesses.This project investigates four important areas of vehicle-grid integration research, integrating technical as well as social and behavioral dimensions: smart charging user needs assessment, advanced load control platform development and testing, smart charging impacts, benefits to the power grid, and smart charging ratepayer benefits

Eras of electric vehicles: electric mobility on the Verge. Focus Attention Scale

Daily or casual passenger vehicles in cities have negative burden on our finite world. Transport sector has been one of the main contributors to air pollution and energy depletion. Providing alternative means of transport is a promising strategy perceived by motor manufacturers and researchers. The paper presents the battery electric vehicles-BEVs bibliography that starts with the early eras of invention up till 2015 outlook. It gives a broad overview of BEV market and its technology in a chronological classification while sheds light on the stakeholders’ focus attentions in each stage, the so called, Focus-Attention-Scale-FAS. The attention given in each era is projected and parsed in a scale graph, which varies between micro, meso, and macro-scale. BEV-system is on the verge of experiencing massive growth; however, the system entails a variety of substantial challenges. Observations show the main issues of BEVsystem that require more attention followed by the authors’ recommendations towards an emerging market

A review of microgrid development in the United States – A decade of progress on policies, demonstrations, controls, and software tools

Microgrids have become increasingly popular in the United States. Supported by favorable federal and local policies, microgrid projects can provide greater energy stability and resilience within a project site or community. This paper reviews major federal, state, and utility-level policies driving microgrid development in the United States. Representative U.S. demonstration projects are selected and their technical characteristics and non-technical features are introduced. The paper discusses trends in the technology development of microgrid systems as well as microgrid control methods and interactions within the electricity market. Software tools for microgrid design, planning, and performance analysis are illustrated with each tool's core capability. Finally, the paper summarizes the successes and lessons learned during the recent expansion of the U.S. microgrid industry that may serve as a reference for other countries developing their own microgrid industries

Understanding consumer demand for new transport technologies and services, and implications for the future of mobility

The transport sector is witnessing unprecedented levels of disruption. Privately owned cars that operate on internal combustion engines have been the dominant modes of passenger transport for much of the last century. However, recent advances in transport technologies and services, such as the development of autonomous vehicles, the emergence of shared mobility services, and the commercialization of alternative fuel vehicle technologies, promise to revolutionise how humans travel. The implications are profound: some have predicted the end of private car dependent Western societies, others have portended greater suburbanization than has ever been observed before. If transport systems are to fulfil current and future needs of different subpopulations, and satisfy short and long-term societal objectives, it is imperative that we comprehend the many factors that shape individual behaviour. This chapter introduces the technologies and services most likely to disrupt prevailing practices in the transport sector. We review past studies that have examined current and future demand for these new technologies and services, and their likely short and long-term impacts on extant mobility patterns. We conclude with a summary of what these new technologies and services might mean for the future of mobility.Comment: 15 pages, 0 figures, book chapte

Quantifying the Economic Value of Vehicle-Grid Integration: A Case Study of Dynamic Pricing in the Sacramento Municipal Utility District

This study develops a stochastic-systems approach in modeling vehicle-grid integration (VGI), where load management strategies can be compared in terms of their economic value to plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) consumers and their local utility companies. The proposed methodology is demonstrated in an assessment of VGI for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) in California. Monte-Carlo simulations have been performed to randomly assign PEV charging characteristics of the households based on given statistical distributions. Consumer adoption of time-of-use (TOU) rates is modeled as an optimization problem where consumers seek the earliest PEV charge start time among the charge schedules resulting lowest cost and satisfying their transportation needs. The preliminary results show that, considering today’s grid system, the deployment of 60,000 PEVs in Sacramento Region will have significant but manageable impacts. These impacts included increasing annual peak demand by 86MWs (5%), and overloading up to 101 neighborhood transformers in the distribution system. On the other hand, adopting proper TOU rates presents a high potential for minimizing these negative impacts of widespread PEV deployment on the grid. The proposed methodology provided several improvements to the VGI modeling literature. These improvements included combining assessments for generation and distribution systems in the same model, and advancing uncertainty analysis for the PEV consumer behavior with considering real world data sets

Insurer Climate Risk Disclosure Survey: 2012 Findings and Recommendations

2012 was the warmest year on record in the Lower 48 states and the second most extreme weather year in U.S. history. This is not a coincidence. Extreme weather -- stronger, more damaging storms, unprecedented drought and heat in some regions and unprecedented rainfall and flooding in others -- are the predictable consequences of rising global temperatures.Eleven extreme weather events each caused at least a billion dollars in losses last year in the United States. A single event, Hurricane Sandy, caused more than $50 billion in economic losses. Insurance companies are on the hook for tens of billions of dollars in claims as a result of Sandy and other severe weather events. And American taxpayers are on the hook for tens of billions of dollars themselves, thanks to losses sustained by the National Flood Insurance Program as well as disaster relief spendingThis raises a fundamental question: Is the insurance industry prepared? Have insurers analyzed and measured their climate-related risk? Are they planning for life in a warmer world? These should be essential questions for insurance regulators in all 50 states to be asking, and some are

A roadmap for China to peak carbon dioxide emissions and achieve a 20% share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy by 2030

As part of its Paris Agreement commitment, China pledged to peak carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions around 2030, striving to peak earlier, and to increase the non-fossil share of primary energy to 20% by 2030. Yet by the end of 2017, China emitted 28% of the world's energy-related CO2 emissions, 76% of which were from coal use. How China can reinvent its energy economy cost-effectively while still achieving its commitments was the focus of a three-year joint research project completed in September 2016. Overall, this analysis found that if China follows a pathway in which it aggressively adopts all cost-effective energy efficiency and CO2 emission reduction technologies while also aggressively moving away from fossil fuels to renewable and other non-fossil resources, it is possible to not only meet its Paris Agreement Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) commitments, but also to reduce its 2050 CO2 emissions to a level that is 42% below the country's 2010 CO2 emissions. While numerous barriers exist that will need to be addressed through effective policies and programs in order to realize these potential energy use and emissions reductions, there are also significant local environmental (e.g., air quality), national and global environmental (e.g., mitigation of climate change), human health, and other unquantified benefits that will be realized if this pathway is pursued in China

California methanol assessment. Volume 1: Summary report

The near term methanol industry, the competitive environment, long term methanol market, the transition period, air quality impacts of methanol, roles of the public and private sectors are considered