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I met with Ed Kjaer, Director of the Electric Transportation Advancement and talked about how he got involved with electric vehicles, EV. What I found was a Southern California Edison that is at the forefront of energy management, alternative energy source, EVs, hybrids, HEV and plug-in hybrids, PHEV, as well as smart grid applications. All of this will greatly help the mass adoption of EVs in general.
The gist is that Ed Kjaer started working in the car industry and was enticed to join Edison's electric transportation program. The small entrepreneurial start up was working on building the charging infrastructure for California and Arizona. It is now an impressive testing facility and leader in its industry.
SCE's Electric Transportation Program. SCE has had a continuous Electric Transportation program since 1988, which currently employs 30 people only working on plug-in vehicle, PEV integration with the grid. This is more than any other utility in the country. SCE's focus in the near term is to work with auto makers and stakeholders on vehicle to grid, V2G and effective electric charging load control. SCE is also conducting extensive analysis to evaluate the potential of distribution system in order to make early adopter of PEVs a reality. The company is now looking into bidirectional energy communication from vehicles and advanced stationary battery storage.
An Alternative Energy Future. At this stage of the game, SCE is well ahead of other utilities, already producing 16% alternative electricity, of which 21% is generated by wind, 62% through geothermal, and 6% through solar. Efficiency plays a major role for Ed's team. The idea is not to create more energy but to better manage it. The team feels public education is crucial as people learn to turn down their AC units in the summer and simply enough, turn off lights when no one is around. Work on efficiency alone has so far given 8,000 homes worth of extra energy.
Stay tuned for the lab testing center and the Garage of the Future at Southern California Edison.
Rapid Transit 2009
Leave the car at home and let someone else do the driving this summer. Examiner.com's national network of Transportation Examiners have local and regional transportation covered. Stop sitting in traffic, already.
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