In this section, read about:
- How electricity-transportation convergence can provide many benefits – for example, customers potentially will be able to use energy stored in plug-in hybrid vehicle batteries to avoid higher electricity costs during critical peak usage days.
- How SCE’s Time-of-Use rates assist business customers in significantly lowering their electric-drive technology charging costs.
- How SCE helps businesses manage their electric transportation equipment charging operations and save money by shifting charging from daytime to nighttime periods and by using more efficient charging strategies.
Electric-drive technologies offer an increasingly important solution for reducing dependence on foreign oil and lowering transportation fuel costs.
Just look at the following data from the U.S. Department of Energy:
- U.S. transportation relies on petroleum for 95% of its energy use.
- Transportation remains our biggest petroleum user, accounting for about 70% of oil consumption.
- In the United States, we currently import about 60% of the oil we consume.
With the support of leading utilities like Southern California Edison in ensuring a safe, reliable, efficient and cost-effective electric supply for use by grid-connecting electric-drive technologies, these numbers can change.
Consider the results alone from SCE’s fleet of almost 300 electric-powered vehicles – the nation’s largest and most successful fleet of pure battery-electric vehicles.
Through mid-2008, our electric vehicle fleet had driven more than 16 million miles, and in the process had saved approximately 805,000 gallons of gasoline and nearly $3 million in fuel costs (the difference between electricity costs and higher equivalent gasoline costs).
The Future Developments
Looking to the future, a report by TIAX LLC (a collaborative research and development firm) finds that use of electric transportation technologies is expected to reach 1 million by 2020. These technologies are expected to displace up to 380 million gallons of gasoline (gasoline gallon equivalent) annually by that year. That’s the amount of gas used yearly by 605,000 2005 model year cars!
However, the growing use of electric-drive doesn’t have to require more power generation facilities. Data shows that California’s approximately 20,000 megawatts of excess off-peak (nighttime) electricity capacity would allow the charging of millions of electric-drive technologies without the need for new power generation stations.
This off-peak charging offers domestically produced, clean fuel, especially given SCE’s role as the nation’s leading purchaser of renewable energy. And nationally, off-peak electricity on a cents-per-mile or other gasoline equivalent measure costs about 25% to 50% of the price of gasoline today, making electricity as a fuel much easier on the pocketbook.
The Future Vision
Given the exciting developments on the near-term and longer-term horizons, SCE’s future vision reflects a fundamental convergence of electricity and transportation not just for on- and non-road vehicles and equipment, but also for a complete integrated energy system.
Near-Term
- Vehicle to Home: Charging vehicles (mainly plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles) during nighttime (off-peak) hours, and using that stored energy occasionally for peak emergency backup or peak shaving to avoid higher electricity costs during critical peak usage days.
- Home Energy Storage: Identifying and evaluating new stationary applications for advanced vehicle batteries, such as a home energy storage device.
Mid-Term
- Excess Grid Capacity: Using the electric grid’s nighttime excess capacity to charge volumes of plug-in and other electric vehicles, helping lower customer rates by spreading fixed generation plant costs over more energy use.
Long-Term
- Vehicle to Grid: Tapping into the potential ability to move stored energy from plug-in and other electric vehicles back into the electric grid as part of the “smart grid of the future,” helping enhance power grid quality, reliability and cost-effectiveness.
Check out some of our recent news to learn more about what the future holds.
Electricity…Sustaining Our Transportation Future.