Great story.
For Danish Drivers,
Filling Up Will Be a Breeze
Utility, U.S. Firm Plan
A Wind-Powered Grid
To Charge Electric Cars
By LEILA ABBOUD
March 27, 2008; Page B5
Danish utility Dong Energy A/S Thursday announced a partnership with a California start-up to build a nationwide system to charge electric cars, in a major expansion of the European country's green energy policies.
The deal with Palo Alto-based Better PLC is the latest step in a global race to offer alternatives to traditional gasoline-fueled vehicles. For Denmark, it is a creative way to deal with an unexpected consequence of success in wind power.
A country of 5.4 million residents, Denmark gets some 20% of its total electricity needs from wind. On windy days, that percentage can double. But the success of wind also poses a problem for Denmark that other countries, such as the U.S. and Britain, are just waking up to: how to balance power surges on windy days with dead times on still days.
The ups and downs of wind power can strain an electricity grid. In western Denmark, the price of electricity can drop to zero on a windy day, leaving utilities scrambling to offload excess power or take a financial hit.
The deal with Better provides one outlet for that surplus. Consumers will be able to charge electric car batteries at windy times when power is cheap. Better and Dong are planning by 2010 to build the infrastructure to support a countrywide electric-car system, with charging spots and battery-exchange locations across Denmark.
"Cars are the perfect match for wind power," said Shai Agassi, chief executive of Better, which is rolling out a similar network in Israel and has a deal with Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co. to build fully electric mass-market cars that run on lithium-ion batteries. "They charge sitting in the garage at night when there is little other demand for electricity."
Managing the variability of wind power is a growing concern. In Texas, the grid operator recently grappled with an electrical emergency that began after an especially windy storm was followed by a quick drop in wind. The grid was destabilized. To get the system back in balance, the operator had to persuade big customers to lower consumption in exchange for cash.
Regulators in Europe, including in Germany and Britain, are trying to reconcile ambitious targets to increase renewable energy use with keeping electricity systems stable.
Dong, which has dealt with wind "intermittency" for years, has its hands full with the Danish government's pledge to raise its share of electricity from renewable sources to 30% by 2025. "It's an increasingly difficult challenge for us," said Dong CEO Anders Eldrup. "We have to make our traditional fossil-fuel plants more flexible. That way we can turn power plants down, or even off, when the wind is blowing."
In addition to revamping old plants, Denmark has built stronger connections to nearby Germany, Sweden and Norway so it can sell excess electricity on windy days. When it is windy in Denmark, countries like Norway buy cheap power to supplement their own hydropower resources. On very windy days about half of wind power is exported to Norway and Sweden, where many homes are heated with electricity.
"We have to keep investing heavily in the grid to make sure we can transport the electricity from wind when and where it is most needed," said Peter Jorgensen, vice president at Energinet.dk, the nonprofit, state-owned company that runs Denmark's grid.
Officials from the U.S., Ireland, China and Japan have all visited Denmark's grid operations to get tips on how to make wind power work.
U.S. utilities could well face challenges as they try to incorporate wind and solar energy into their systems. The U.S. gets less than 1% of its electricity from wind, with the biggest installations in Texas, California and Washington. But electricity grids are fragmented and out of date, making moving power around difficult. Windy areas well-suited for wind turbines are often located far from centers where lots of power is needed.
"The grid in the U.S. just isn't as strong as in Europe, in part because the country isn't as densely packed," said Ryan Wiser, a scientist in renewable energies at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "But studies have shown that the grid, with modest tweaks, is up to the task."
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