Electric Moment: Leading the Charge?

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High summer gas prices may help drivers decide that this is the year to test drive an electric vehicle (EV). But until charging stations replace gas stations, EV adoption may lack juice. So, who will develop the infrastructure necessary to support electric cars?

"We sure hope that we do," says Colin Read, vice president of corporate development at ECOtality (ticker: ECTY), one of four key players taking on the largest deployment of electric-vehicle-charge infrastructure in history.

The San Francisco-based pipsqueak lost $1.78 per share last year on revenue of $14 million, and despite its ...

EEbeat › California Advances Towards BCS Efficiency Standard ...

The California Energy Commission (CEC) moved a step closer to finalizing the most far-reaching mandatory efficiency standard for consumer and industrial battery charger systems (BCSs). In a public workshop held last week in Sacramento, the CEC’s Efficiency Committee gave stakeholders the opportunity to review and discuss the newly revised draft amendments to the state’s Appliance Efficiency Regulations (also known as Title 20).

Earlier in the year, BCS manufacturers voiced a number of concerns regarding the specific requirements and timing. After reviewing those concerns, the CEC staff made amendments to the originally proposed metrics, including:

Changing the scope of the program to exclude illuminated exit signs, high input battery voltage chargers (>300 V input), and battery analyzers Testing to be done only at 115 VAC, 60 Hz input only Large BCS changes – Tier 1 requirements for large battery chargers have been removed and now go directly to Tier 2, maintenance mode levels now scale with battery capacity, and the Power Factor level has been changed to a level between Tier 1 and Tier 2 Small BCS changes – Power Factor was removed (although some are still lobbying for a 0.9 PF for BCSs > 100 W), maintenance and no-battery mode have been combined into a single standard to give manufacturers design flexibility, and a scaling factor for maintenance power has been added to accommodate the association of battery capacity and maintenance mode power requirements Certification requirements have been added to be consistent with other CEC regulated products and DoE’s approach. BCSs will require a marking (consisting of a circle with the letters BC inside) showing compliance

Large BCSs (defined as those with a rated output power > 2 kW) manufactured on or after July 1, 2013 will need to meet the performance requirements shown below:

Table 1. Efficiency performance requirements for Large BCSs (Source: CEC)

Meanwhile, the US DoE is working on a federal BCS standard that could pre-empt the California BCS standard after only one year. But, the CEC continues to move forward. They anticipate that even if the California standard is in place for only a year (assuming that DoE deadlines are met), the state will save over 2,000 GWh of energy (the equivalent of a 350 MW power plant) with a positive benefit / cost ratio.

The comment period ends May 31 and it’s expected that the amendment’s final language will be published for a 45-day review this summer.

Standard for industrial battery chargers

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In this technique the vehicle drives into a probe unit connected to an appropriate battery charger. into a charging track connected to ac main ...

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