Pathway to Zero Emission Vehicles through a Decarbonized Power Grid

2015-10-01


NRDC completed a three-city roadshow in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing in September to promote the development of truly "emission free" vehicles integrated to a decarbonized power grid. Integrating the deployment of electric vehicles (EV) with flexible demand side measures such as demand response (DR) can optimize power grid operation, improve generation efficiency, and ultimately help achieve greater renewable energy (RE) penetration. While China has launched various initiatives to promote EV, DR and RE, it has yet to integrate all three. Our workshops were attended by government representatives from power and transportation divisions, grid companies, EV manufacturers, demand response aggregators, energy services companies and charging service providers. NRDC unveiled its research findings on international experiences with EV-DR-RE integration and proposed a pathway for doing the same in China by starting with local pilots. Experts from NRDC's California Energy and Transportation Program and Southern California Edison shared pilot experiences from the U.S., then BYD (China's largest EV manufacturer) representatives and local experts discussed the challenges and potential for future development in China. The discussion at the workshop was in-depth and constructive, and the participants thought NRDC's EV-DR-RE integration initiative was both innovative and viable. We will build on this success and work towards establishing China's first city-level pilot for EV-DR-RE integration. This idea has already received strong support from both government and academia, and NRDC expects to finalize the pilot city selection by the end of this year.

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