In What Ways can Electric Vehicles Assist the UK Renewable Energy Strategy?

The latest (June 2008) UK Renewable Energy Strategy (Consultation) document,has called for 30 – 35% of electricity to come from Renewable sources by 2020As the current level in 2008 of renewable electricity production is 4% (excluding hydro) this is a challenging target.With the Government then, floating the idea of generating 32% of UK electricity by 2020using wind, it is clearly urgent and important to look for and investigate ways ofachieving this. This paper examines the possibility and possible benefits and costs of utilising electric vehicles as storage for the UK electricity grid as a means of harnessing intermittent wind power and hence of assisting with the UK Renewable Energy Strategy. Potentially, the infrastructure use described here could both not only deliver a way of permitting large scale penetrations of intermittent renewable sources in the UK electricity grid but also allow for a significant reduction in the consumption of oil based fuel by thecountries’ 32m vehicles and at the same time help to deliver secure electricity fromintermittent renewable sources. With input from data provided by the Met Office and by National Grid and with further input from a questionnaire designed to obtain vehicle use patterns, a mathematical model using Microsoft Excel was constructed. Using the model and sample data from 2002 Various scenarios were examined including 20% penetration of wind in 2020 and 32% penetration of wind in 2020. The possibility of 100% wind was also examined.