Richard M. Pratt

Vehicle to Grid Communication Standards Development, Testing and Validation - Status Report

In the US, more than 10,000 electric vehicles (EV) have been delivered to consumers during the first three quarters of 2011. A large majority of these vehicles are battery electric, often requiring 220 volt charging. Though the vehicle manufacturers and charging station manufacturers have provided consumers options for charging preferences, there are no existing communications between consumers and the utilities to manage the charging demand. There is also wide variation between manufacturers in their approach to support vehicle charging. There are in-vehicle networks, charging station networks, utility networks each using either cellular, Wi-Fi, ZigBee or other proprietary communication technology with no standards currently available for interoperability. The current situation of ad-hoc solutions is a major barrier to the wide adoption of electric vehicles. SAE, the International Standards Organization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC), ANSI, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and several industrial organizations are working towards the development of interoperability standards. PNNL has participated in the development and testing of these standards in an effort to accelerate the adoption and development of communication modules.

DVD based electronic pulser

This paper describes the design, construction, and testing of a digital versatile disc (DVD) based electronic pulser system (DVDEPS). Such a device is used to generate pulse streams for simulation of both gamma and neutron detector systems. The DVDEPS reproduces a random pulse stream of a full high purity germanium (HPGe) spectrum as well as a digital pulse stream representing the output of a neutron multiplicity detector. The exchangeable DVD media contains over an hour of data for both detector systems and can contain an arbitrary gamma spectrum and neutron pulse stream. The data is written to the DVD using a desktop computer program from either actual or simulated spectra. The targeted use of the DVDEPS is authentication or validation of monitoring equipment for nonproliferation purposes, but it is also of general use whenever a complex data stream is required. The DVD based pulser combines the storage capacity and simplicity of DVD technology with commonly available electronic components to build a relatively inexpensive yet highly capable testing instrument.

Intelligent Vehicle Charging Benefits Assessment Using EV Project Data

PEVs can represent a significant power resource for the grid. An IVCI with bi-direction V2G capabilities would allow PEVs to provide grid support services and thus generate a source of revenue for PEV owners. The fleet of EV Project vehicles represents a power resource between 30 MW and 90 MW, depending on the power rating of the grid connection (5-15 kW). Aggregation of vehicle capacity would allow PEVs to participate in wholesale reserve capacity markets. One of the key insights from EV Project data is the fact that vehicles are connected to an EVSE much longer than is necessary to deliver a full charge. During these hours when the vehicles are not charging, they can be participating in wholesale power markets providing the high-value services of regulation and spinning reserves. The annual gross revenue potential for providing these services using the fleet of EV Project vehicles is several hundred thousands of dollars to several million dollars annually depending on the power rating of the grid interface, the number of hours providing grid services, and the market being served. On a per vehicle basis, providing grid services can generate several thousands of dollars over the life of the vehicle.

PinBus Interface Design

On behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, PNNL has explored and expanded upon a simple control interface that might have merit for the inexpensive communication of smart grid operational objectives (demand response, for example) to small electric end-use devices and appliances. The approach relies on bi-directional communication via the electrical voltage states of from one to eight shared interconnection pins. The name PinBus has been suggested and adopted for the proposed interface protocol. The protocol is defined through the presentation of state diagrams and the pins’ functional definitions. Both simulations and laboratory demonstrations are being conducted to demonstrate the elegance and power of the suggested approach. PinBus supports a very high degree of interoperability across its interfaces, allowing innumerable pairings of devices and communication protocols and supporting the practice of practically any smart grid use case.

DVD Based Electronic Pulser

This paper describes the design, construction, and testing of a digital versatile disc (DVD) based electronic pulser system (DVDEPS). Such a device is used to generate pulse streams for simulation of both gamma and neutron detector systems. The DVDEPS reproduces a random pulse stream of a full high purity germanium (HPGe) spectrum as well as a digital pulse stream representing the output of a neutron multiplicity detector. The exchangeable DVD media contains over an hour of data for both detector systems and can contain an arbitrary gamma spectrum and neutron pulse stream. The data is written to the DVD using a desktop computer program from either real or simulated spectra. The targeted use of the DVDEPS is authentication or validation of monitoring equipment for non-proliferation purposes, but it is also of general use in a variety of situations. The DVD based pulser combines the storage capacity and simplicity of DVD technology with commonly available electronic components to build a relatively inexpensive yet highly capable testing instrument