So Cal Motors up for the Electric Car

Phil Carson | Jan 06, 2011

As the Motor City in Detroit undergoes real changes, Energy Central decided to check into Southern California to see how the electric vehicle is unfolding there.

Today we'll touch base with San Diego Gas & Electric's Chris Chen, market development manager at the utility. His role is very different from that of Arun Banskota, president of NRG EV Services, which is behind the eVgo charging station brand, and that of Jeff LeBrun, a senior analyst at DTE Energy, who is stitching together the diverse array of stakeholders in Detroit.

(Please join us today for an Intelligent Utility Reality Webcast, "Electric Vehicles: A Tale of Three Cities," featuring these gentlemen from Detroit, Houston and San Diego; click on the title to sign up.)

"I'm looking at new business models for SDG&E, based on the advent of electric vehicles and smart grid," Chen told me. "We consider EVs to be an integral part of smart grid because of their draw and their storage capacities and other characteristics that make them somewhat of a unique load on the system.

"We think smart grid will fundamentally change the nature of utilities, as distributed generation increases and storage capabilities are added, possibly at the residential level," Chen added. "Do you need a utility anymore? What's the role of a distribution utility in that kind of world?

"We're trying to figure out, strategically, where do we want to go? Where do we invest? What kinds of new services can we offer? Are there new ways we can add value? What's the role of a 'wires business' in a smart grid world?

"One focus is how electric vehicles integrate with our smart grid programs," Chen added. "So we're designing demonstration projects, trying to architect the communications with EVs. We're asking ourselves what specifically do we want to communicate with them? Are we going to control them and, if so, to what extent?"

You'll notice the liberal use of rhetorical questions, as San Diego simultaneously prepares for the anticipated trickle of initial adoption even while it rethinks its fundamental business model for a day in the not too distant future when that utility will look vastly different than today's version. Much remains "TBD," until real data on EV buyer/driver behavior begins to inform the various possibilities.

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