The Cars of the Future are Here: Is Illinois Ready?

By JoshMogerman in News on Sep 25, 2010 9:00PM

Only about 100 drivers are behind the wheel of electric cars in Chicagoland these days, but that is not stopping regulators and entrepreneurs from planning for a significant shift in the way we drive---and how we power our City. Charging stations are beginning to pop up around town with a lot more on the way, which has the Illinois Commerce Commission pushing back on utilities to make sure they are ready for the changes an expanded fleet of electric cars might bring.

Clean energy advocates are excited about the potential for vast changes in the electric sector that could come from the adoption of plug-in cars. The cars offer the energy storage currently missing from the power grid which could significantly improve the use of renewable energy sources which are not available at all times of the day. A large fleet of plugged in cars would bank solar energy as they recharged after the morning commute while people are at work; and could do the same in the evening to store excess wind energy.

But that may also change the way energy companies have to plan for energy use, which has the ICC focused on making sure that local utilities get out ahead of the curve. According to the Chicago News Cooperative, utilities have to report their efforts to accommodate the newfangled autos before the end of the year:

“If everyone gets home and starts charging their car at 6 p.m., we could have new peak times,” said [ICC] Commissioner Erin O’Connell-Diaz. “We’re potentially looking at a deployment of 5,000 or 10,000 cars. We don’t know what that means for reliability of the system."

Not everyone is waiting on the utilities. One of the nation’s first wind-powered charging stations was recently installed in Highland Park. The Greenway Garage is powering charging stations with wind. And more than 40 charging stations are already operating in the city (including a bunch of new ones in the Millennium Park garage) with 136 more on the way thanks to city and state funding.

An NRDC-EPRI study showed that an expanded electric car fleet would have a significant impact, lowering air pollution and carbon emissions even if run on coal-generated electricity. The local impact would be even more significant given the nuclear generation in Chicago’s energy mix.

With the ugly oil issues popping up all over of late, we think these autos of the not-so-distant-future seem more and more attractive---we are ready to start plugging away!