Add IBM to the roster of tech companies trying to help charge electric vehicles off-peak, when they won’t bring down the power grid. Big Blue and Swiss electric company EKZ now have a mobile device app that lets motorists monitor their EV’s state-of-charge and potentially choose to recharge off-peak using renewable energy such as hydro power. In Switzerland, more than half the energy is produced from renewable resources, mostly hydro power. Elsewhere even if there’s no hydro power, there could be benefits charging from wind, gas instead of high-sulfur coal, or nuclear.
The pilot project comprises an app for smartphone (or tablet or web browser) and a phonebook-size black box with cellular data modem that collects information on the car’s state of charge, the vehicle location, and the type of power source it’s connected to. All this heads to the cloud where IBM computers running DB2 and WebSphere calculate what’s going on where, how heavily loaded the power grid is, and when is the optimal time to recharge. The current app has a four-item interface showing the battery level, how far you could drive on the current charge, your car’s location (typically you ought to know that unless you had a serious night out and took a cab home), and the current energy costs.
The IBM application lets the driver turn over to the utility the right to decide when to start the charging process. The application would take into account when the driver needs the car next and what currently-available power sources are the greenest. Typically that’s going to be in the early morning hours. According to Peter Franken, head of the Energy Distribution department of EKZ, “Electric vehicles can be used to buffer the irregular production of electricity from future renewable sources, which will contribute to the overall stability of the electrical network.”
Each electric vehicle or hybrid that needs recharging draws at least as much power as one or two (take your pick) electric toasters, hair dryers, microwaves, or space heaters running at full power. That’s for the 120-volt charger that works with the sockets in your garage now, and that’s a minimum of 3-4 hours charging time for a hybrid car, overnight for an electric vehicle. Double or quadruple the power draw if you’ve got a 220-volt charger (which is what most Europeans have since that’s their standard power) or a 440-volt megacharger that could make lights flicker throughout the block when it kicks in.
While IBM is working on a solution that draws heavily on IBM servers and software out in the cloud, virtually every automaker with either a hybrid such as the Toyota Prius, plug-in hybrid such as the Chevrolet Volt, or pure EV such as the Nissan Leaf, is working on or has its own smartphone application. If the vehicle has built-in telematics such as GM’s OnStar, there’s no need for the single-purpose black box that IBM and EKZ have to install. On-board telematics also gives an advantage to OnStar over Ford Sync, which only has telematics when you plug your cellphone into the car, but at a cost of $200-plus per year for OnStar where Sync is free. It’s not clear whether automakers want to cede control of the charging application to IBM, but it’s obvious that there can’t be multiple standards for remote charging if it’s going to happen on a big scale. Power companies would be happiest with a single standard, or a common middle layer. So IBM may bring a lot to the table of technology and it’s not clear if a consortium of automakers, or Apple or Google, would be colleagues or competitors.
In the US there’s also the problem of privacy. Political brushfires have erupted in California and Texas when utilities try to install time-of-day electric meters. Opponents, whose very phone call is currently recorded and whose children at this moment are probably telling their family stories on Facebook, think it’s intrusive that someone knows the amount of power you’re using on an ongoing basis in order to charge you less at night, and more during the day. But time-of-day metering is necessary if there’s both a carrot and stick that gets people to recharge cars, run dishwashers, and wash clothes when the power grid isn’t fully loaded.
Read more at IBM, or watch the video below