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Posts in category Electric car

Dominion VA starts electric car pilot program

Oct05
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin2

Dominion Virginia Power is starting a pilot program that will encourage electric car users to charge their vehicles during off-peak times.

Dominion said the pilot will offer participants two rate options:

• Electric vehicle only: Customers would have a second meter installed to measure energy used just to charge an EV at a lower rate. Dominion estimates it will cost about 54 cents to charge an EV overnight.

• Whole house: The price for electricity would change during the day to encourage off-peak use for charging vehicles. Dominion estimates it will cost 51 cents in the summer and 61 cents in the winter to charge an EV.

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Geothermal plants could produce lithium for batteries

Sep29
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin2

Simbol Materials is extracting lithium from the brine pumped up by geothermal plants that is used to produce electricity.

After geothermal power plants pump up a hot brine—water and dissolved salts from underground—and use its heat to make steam to spin a turbine and generate electricity, Simbol would borrow the still warm fluid for roughly 90 minutes. A pipeline would carry the brine through a series of processes that remove the silica in the brine (it would otherwise foul the works) and then use a series of membranes, filters and adsorption materials to extract valuable elements like lithium. The extraction method was developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Simbol then adds water to make up for the lost material and sends it back to the geothermal power plant for re-injection underground.

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Posted in Geothermal

Electric cars could help store wind energy

Sep18
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin2

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists are studying the possibility of using electric cars to help balance the variability of wind energy.

A “grid-friendly” technology would charge vehicles depending on how much extra energy was available at that moment. That’s different from how things work right now. Think of charging a cell phone. Plug it into the wall, and it charges at a consistent rate. Not so with Kintner-Meyer’s technology. Vehicles would charge slower or faster depending on how windy it is. More wind means more power on the grid. With the new smart technology that surplus power could now be put to work. Kintner-Meyer says this could be especially helpful during the spring.

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Posted in Wind

Ford to offer solar option for electric car

Aug15
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin2

Ford announced that it will offer the option of a solar array on top of the new Focus Electric.

The solar arrays that SunPower will sell to Ford buyers are smaller than the average rooftop arrays sold in Arizona and are designed to offset about 3,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, which is what it will take to drive a Focus about 12,000 miles, according to the companies.

Link to original article

Posted in Solar

FedEx field gets solar panels, charging stations

Jul18
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin2

The Washington Redskins’ FedEx Field will install solar panels over part of a parking lot and 10 charging stations for electric cars.

Eight thousand solar panels will be installed as part of the project. They’ll go up in one of the parking lots and cover about 850 spaces. That would protect fans in that area from bad weather. Parking would not be reduced.

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Posted in Solar

New popemobile will be a hybrid

Jun25
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin2

The Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI’s newest popemobile will be a hybrid based on the Mercedes Vision S500.

Neither the Vatican nor Mercedes has given any more details on the popemobile for security reasons, but have hinted that the pope will be able to travel about 16 miles in all-electric mode.

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Solar array to be built at Chevy Volt plant

May16
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin2

General Motors announced that it will build a 516-kilowatt solar array, the largest in southeastern Michigan, at its Chevrolet Volt plant.

The 516-kilowatt project by DTE Energy at GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck plant will provide enough electricity annually to fully charge 54,750 Volts, according to the auto maker.

The $3 million solar array will cover 264,000 feet and should be on line by the end of the summer.

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Posted in Solar

US Army charges electric cars with solar power

Apr05
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin2

The first Smart Charging Micro Grid (SCMG) prototype was unveiled outside the US Wheeler Army Airfield in Hawaii.

The prototype was created at the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) in Detroit, along with help from the private industry, although specific companies were not credited. Consisting of a 25 kilowatt solar array, the SCMG has the capacity for 200 kilowatt-hours of battery storage and four plug-in electric vehicles.

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Posted in Solar

Volvo’s C30 electric car has an E85 generator

Mar29
2011 Leave a Comment Written by admin2

Volvo’s C30 electric car has a generator that can run on 85% ethanol.

Stegland says that even when used in extreme conditions, the C30 Electric will use less than 4 gallons of E85 every three weeks. If the tank runs dry, the climate control system merely reverts to battery power and you’re all electric again.

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Posted in Biofuel, Ethanol

GE to buy 25,000 Chevy Volts

Nov12
2010 Leave a Comment Written by admin2

General Electric will buy 11,000 Chevy Volts for its fleet in 2011 and expects the total to rise to 25,000 by 2015.

GE will begin with an initial purchase of 12,000 vehicles from General Motor Co., starting with Chevy Volt in 2011. The conglomerate said it “will add other vehicles as manufacturers expand their electric vehicle profiles.”

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