Introduction of the EV Project – the Largest Deployment of Electric Vehicles and Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructures Ever Undertaken

ECOtality North America, in partnership with the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Nissan North America, General Motors, and over 40 government, electric utility, and private organizations, has launched a large-scale demonstration of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. This demonstration, called The EV Project, will deploy more than 15,000 level 2 and DC fast chargers in private residence, commercial, and public locations in seven market areas in Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Washington state, and Washington, D.C. The EV Project will also include a total of 5,700 Nissan Leaf battery electric vehicles and 2,600 Chevrolet Volt extended range electric vehicles, operated by consumers and fleets in each of the market areas. This demonstration, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy�s (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Program, represents the largest ever deployment of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. Idaho National Laboratory (INL) will collect data from The EV Project�s 23,000+ charging systems and vehicles, all of which will be instrumented with data loggers and data collection / transmission systems. These data will be analyzed to characterize vehicle consumer driving and charging behavior, evaluate the effectiveness of charging infrastructure placement, and understand the impact of electric vehicle charging on the electric grid. The EV Project will also include trials of various revenue systems for commercial and public charging infrastructure, smart charging trials, and demonstration of grid energy storage to support fast charging. The ultimate goal of The EV Project is to capture lessons learned to enable the mass deployment of grid-connected electric drive vehicles nationwide. The purpose of this presentation is to outline the key research objectives and organization of The EV Project and to present the status and initial findings of the project. This includes an overview of the infrastructure deployment guidelines developed early in the project and the data mining approach to be used to optimize the deployment process. Key metrics which describe initial driving and charging behavior of program participants will be given to establish a baseline for evaluation later in the project.

Presenter
John Smart, Idaho National Lab.