Fiscal Automotive is opening an Engineering and Development Center in Pontiac, Michigan, that will house up to 200 engineers and designers in support of Fisker's much anticipated four-door plug-in hybrid car, the Fisker Karma.

Fisker is set to release the Karma in 2010. The Karma is touted to have a 50 mile all-electric range and more than 350 mile total range. Fisker claims that the Karma "will have the potential for a fuel economy of over 100 miles per gallon on extended drives."

The Karma is expected to cost around $80,000 -- which is $29,000 less than Tesla's Roadster -- and Fisker plans on selling 15,000 of them annually by 2011.
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Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles may have an unexpected value.

One car of tomorrow may not only get its energy from the grid but also may give "imaginary power" back to the grid. The plug-in hybrid electric vehicle envisioned by the Department of Energy would be plugged at night into a home wall outlet, connecting the car to a local electrical distribution system that would recharge the battery. The next day the car would travel using a combination of stored electric energy and fuel. According to a vision of Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers, the car's charger would supply the grid with "reactive power," or non-active power, to help regulate local utility voltage.

To convert the alternating current from the local electrical distribution system to the direct current needed by the car's battery, a rectifier, or charger, is required. Conversely, an inverter is needed to convert direct current to alternating current. The car would use alternating current to power the drive motor. The rectifier, or charger, could be located either in the car or at facilities designed specifically to recharge batteries of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles parked for extended periods at, say, apartment complexes, hotels and parking garages.

Inverters have several uses, including the ability to inject reactive power to the grid or absorb this imaginary power from the grid. This helps regulate the voltage on distribution and transmission systems. Inverters can prevent "micro-voltage collapses" that frequently occur in the western United States. Such sudden voltage dips can cause dimming of lights, computer crashes, damage to equipment and destruction of semiconductor wafers during manufacture.

Automobile Industry Optimizes Plug-in Hybrid Engine, Motor and Battery Operation

DOE researchers are working with the U.S. automobile industry to optimize plug-in hybrid engine, motor and battery performance for efficient vehicle operation. ORNL and University of Tennessee power electronics experts at the National Transportation Research Center are seeking to improve inverter design to make the device smaller, lighter and less expensive. ORNL is a member of the Plug-in Hybrid Development Consortium.

DOE also supports research on one way to reduce peak demands on the electric grid: deploy distributed energy resources—microturbines, fuel cells and photovoltaic panels—to provide electricity to both local buildings and the electric grid. The plug-in hybrid could be considered another distributed energy resource, but one that also stores energy.

Electric Grid for Distributed Energy System Benefits from Plug-In Vehicles

ORNL researchers led by Stan Hadley have found that the U.S. electric grid will operate more efficiently as more Americans charge the batteries in their plug-in hybrid vehicles after 10 p.m., when the electric load on the system has dropped to almost zero and the wholesale price for energy is least expensive. The researchers have analyzed the potential impacts of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on electricity demand, supply, generation structure, prices and associated emission levels in 2020 and 2030 in 13 regions as specified by the North American Electric Reliability Council and DOE's Energy Information Administration.

Their study assumed that by 2020 a mixture of sedans and SUV plug-in hybrids would make up one-quarter of the cars sold. They performed calculations using the Oak Ridge Competitive Electricity Dispatch model, which was developed at ORNL over the past 12 years to evaluate a wide variety of critical electricity sector issues.

Solar panels would provide shade and electricity to recharge the batteries of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

The ORNL researchers ran seven scenarios for each region for 2020 and 2030. In each scenario they assumed these vehicles plugged in starting at either 5 p.m. (early evening) or at 10 p.m. (nighttime) and remained until fully charged.

"We concluded that most regions must build additional electrical generating capacity or rely on demand response to meet the added demands from plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in the early evening charging scenarios," Hadley says. "This need will be critical by 2030 when plug-in hybrids will likely have a larger share of the installed vehicle base and thus exert a greater demand on the electrical system."

Accommodating the peaks and valleys of electricity use is a major challenge for generators and transmission operators. Ideally, customers would reduce their consumption of electricity at peak load times in response to market prices or a utility's request. During hot summers, the demand for air conditioning between 2 and 6 p.m. can boost the peak load to the point that a utility must purchase power from another utility at a higher price. In sharp contrast, the grid on the same night may be so underutilized that energy is sometimes given away.

Smart Chargers for Distributed Energy System

Another potential advantage of wide usage of plug-in hybrids is that charging stations can help regulate local voltage. Researchers at ORNL's Distributed Energy Communications and Control laboratory plan to test this concept.

Smart chargers are needed to avoid negative impacts on the distribution system. For example, if several plug-in hybrid pickup trucks with 250-kilowatt batteries were recharged in 10 minutes on a feeder without a smart charger, the distribution system's reliability could be threatened. In one project, ORNL's Burak Ozpenici is examining possible rectifier designs that would perform rapid charging while providing reactive power compensation.

SOURCE: ORNL Distributed Power Update