Office of Vehicle Technology Annual Merit Review Underway; Highlights Program Focus on Deployment and Commercialization

26 February 2008

The US DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office of Vehicle Technology (OVT) is hosting an annual merit review meeting this week in Washington DC for all of its funded research and deployment projects—the first such combined “big tent” review for all active projects.

There will be more emphasis to come on deployment activities to help get the technology out, said James Eberhardt, Chief Scientist for OVT, in his introduction to the meeting. This increasing pressure for deployment is altering the project portfolio composition and is driven primarily by the goal of reducing the consumption of petroleum by 4-6 million barrels per day and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the sector by 50% compared to the projected base case scenario in 2030, said Ed Wall, OVT Program Manager, in his overview.

The EIA is currently projecting that the on-road transportation sector will consume almost 15 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2030, up from 11.21 million barrels per day in 2005—an increase of 33.2%. EIA projects that the full transportation sector will consume almost 19 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2030, an increase of 33.7%.

(Those projections are based on the preliminary work for the Annual Energy Outlook 2008, and do not yet reflect the impact of the Energy Bill enacted at the end of 2007, which includes a larger renewable fuel standard and the revised CAFE fuel economy regulations.)

The Assistant Secretary [of Energy] has repeatedly asked for us to try to accelerate movement of technologies into marketplace, and to readjust the portfolio toward activities and actions in the deployment area that would move things into the market sooner and would make the [technology adoption] curve faster...What drives the [OVT] program is the [EIA] consumption chart.

—Ed Wall

Peak oil is an issue, Wall said, noting that while experts are not in complete agreement over the timing, “most do agree we’ll peak within the next 20 years.” He referred attendees to the Hirsch report (Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management) for an overview of the impact.

Can we afford to continue to blow up oil in combustion engines at 25 to 30% thermal efficiency? That’s the question.

—Ed Wall

As a result, there is a strong emphasis on energy storage research, as well as an active program for PEEM (power electronics and electric machines) to support the development of hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles.

The OVT research program for batteries has three components, said Rogelio Sullivan, Team Lead for Hybrid and Electric Systems and Materials:

• Battery development with contracts with USABC;

• Applied research; and

• Exploratory research.

PHEVS in terms of priorities are the largest new emphasis area for OVT. DOE has redirected a lot of research effort to support the development and hopefully the near term commercialization of PHEVs...Within the hybrid and electric vehicle program, energy storage is the number one electric priority.

There is an increasing emphasis on systems analysis and integration, and expanding research in battery chemistries beyond lithium-ion—fundamental research projects with basic energy sciences to develop basic battery materials and a better understanding of fundamental electrochemical processes that can lead to better batteries many years down the road.

—Rogelio Sullivan

A123 Systems, Compact Power, EnerDel and Johnson Controls-SAFT are presenting the status of their work in USABC HEV and PHEV projects this week, while the national labs are presenting a range of projects targeting calendar life, abuse tolerance, the development of new high-energy materials to support PHEVs and low-temperature solutions.

About one-third of the current OVT budget is being applied to combustion engines and fuels. In the advanced combustion area, funding is focused on low temperature advanced combustion regimes, both in heavy-duty and light-duty engines. Sample projects being discussed this week, for example, include GM’s work on gasoline and diesel HCCI, and Cummins’ work on High Efficiency Clean Combustion (HECC) for heavy-duty and light-duty diesel engines.

The development of the Cummins 2010-compliant 6.9L light-duty diesel was supported in part by the DOE. GM has already transferred some of the initial HCCI work, which was highlighted in an on-the road demonstration of an HCCI vehicle in August 2007 (earlier post), to GM Powertrain for incorporation in upcoming products.

We are now more focused on near-term technologies than we ever have been to maximize the impact of technology investments on petroleum displacement.

—Steve Goguen, Supervisory Engineer, Combustion Engines and Fuels