Hydro-Québec Joins Ford-EPRI PHEV Program
09 June 2009
Hydro-Québec has joined a Ford-EPRI North America-wide demonstration and research program on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). Ford, in collaboration with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), is undertaking a three-year test program on the Ford Escape PHEV designed to develop and evaluate technical approaches for integrating PHEVs into the electric grid. (Earlier post.)
EPRI has identified nine utilities across North America to test drive the vehicles and collect data on battery technology, vehicle systems, customer use and grid infrastructure. In total, Ford will provide 21 vehicles for the real-world trials. Hydro-Québec is the only Canadian company participating in the North American Ford PHEV Program.
The average consumption of one million all-electric vehicles, which represent 25% of Québec’s cars, would be 3 TWh (one billion kilowatts per hour), the equivalent of the annual generation of the Carillon hydroelectric facility.
Ford’s current demonstration fleet of Escape PHEVs is using JCS Li-ion packs. The first PHEV research prototype used a JCS 10 kWh lithium-ion battery pack based off a 41 Ah cylindrical cell. Ford and JCS developed the plug-in pack together.
When driven for the first 30 miles (48 km) following a full charge, the Ford Escape PHEV can achieve up to 120 mpg (2 L /100 km) when driven on surface streets. Once the charge in the battery has been depleted, the vehicle continues to operate as a standard Ford Escape Hybrid.
Ahem. There is no such thing as "kilowatts per hour". Stop copying clueless reporters verbatim.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 10 June 2009 at 05:48 PM