Environmental benefits of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles: The case of Alberta

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) are emerging as a promising alternative for the existing transportation system. This technology is envisioned to run on electricity from the grid, stored in high capacity batteries, for short trips and switch to a conventional fuels for long trips. Thus, the demand for electricity will significantly grow if this technology is adopted widely. Although, PHEV technology is generally considered to be more environmentally friendly than conventional transportation systems, especially in regions with a diverse electric power generation fleet, the environmental impacts of such wide integration of PHEVs need to be investigated in thermal-dominated systems, such as Alberta's. This paper studies the potential environmental impacts of the wide adoption of PHEVs in the context of Alberta, given the 90% share of thermal units and the growing interstes in wind power developments in the province. Various scenarios are considered for supplying the required energy for PHEVs and the resulting gas consumption and emission reductions are estimated.

[1]  Driesen,et al.  Grid power quarity improvements using grid-coupled hybrid electric vehicles PEMD 2006 , 1988 .

[2]  Athanasios Papoulis,et al.  Probability, Random Variables and Stochastic Processes , 1965 .

[3]  Willett Kempton,et al.  Vehicle-to-grid power implementation: From stabilizing the grid to supporting large-scale renewable energy , 2005 .

[4]  Willett Kempton,et al.  Vehicle-to-grid power fundamentals: Calculating capacity and net revenue , 2005 .

[5]  E. Parzen.  1. Random Variables and Stochastic Processes , 1999 .

[6]  Julio Usaola,et al.  Combining hydro-generation and wind energy: Biddings and operation on electricity spot markets , 2007 .

[7]  Paul Denholm,et al.  Preliminary Assessment of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles on Wind Energy Markets , 2006 .

[8]  A.M. Gonzalez,et al.  Stochastic Joint Optimization of Wind Generation and Pumped-Storage Units in an Electricity Market , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems.

[9]  Willett Kempton,et al.  ELECTRIC VEHICLES AS A NEW POWER SOURCE FOR ELECTRIC UTILITIES , 1997 .

[10]  Bruno O. Shubert,et al.  Random variables and stochastic processes , 1979 .

[11]  T.J. Overbye,et al.  An evaluation of PHEV contributions to power system disturbances and economics , 2008, 2008 40th North American Power Symposium.

[12]  Eric Hirst,et al.  INTEGRATING LARGE AMOUNTS OF WIND ENERGY WITH A SMALL ELECTRIC-POWER SYSTEM , 2004 .

[13]  Johan Driesen,et al.  Grid power quality improvements using grid-coupled hybrid electric vehicles , 2006 .

[14]  EnergyInformationAdministration.  Annual Energy Outlook 2008 With Projections to 2030 , 2008 .