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Tesla readies smaller, cheaper crossover, sedan by 2017

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by John H, May 30, 2013.

  1. Scorpion

    Scorpion Active Member

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  2. John H

    John H Senior Member

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    North American Windpower: Battery Storage Project To Aid Wind Energy Integration In Texas


    Wind Energy Storage -


    This is where batteries really help out the grid ....

    http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/49218.pdf
     
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  3. Scorpion

    Scorpion Active Member

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    About battery degradation in V2G........I'm not sure if there really would be any.
    Anyone feel free to chime in and offer your 2 cents........

    Consider 2 Nissan LEAFs. Each has 20 kwh on tap, good for 100 miles.
    (1) 1st LEAF is a "super-commuter" who drives close to 100 miles/day and uses all 20kwh.....no V2G
    (2) 2nd LEAF is more typical commuter, drives 30 miles/day. Only needs 10 kwh, and chooses to make remaining 10 kwh available for V2G

    In both cases, each LEAF is discharged 20 kwh over the course of a day, and recharged 20 kwh overnight. How is there any more degradation in the V2G car?
    In fact, I would argue the opposite. The super-commuter uses the marginal 10 kwh in high-load driving situations requiring frequent bursts of high energy. The typical commuter uses the marginal 10 kwh in a low-load V2G setting, where power is distributed over hours, not minutes. Seems like the V2G LEAF would have less stress on the pack.
     
  4. 3PriusMike

    3PriusMike Prius owner since 2000, Tesla M3 2018

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    I still think you are over estimating the problem you are trying to solve and the value of the V2G power.

    Here are some calculations on what V2G could possibly do.

    I took CA as an example. There are 1.5M cars sold each year. I assumed that starting in 2014 1% of all cars were EV, increasing 1% each year...thus in 2025 180K new EVs sold and a total of 990K on the road...almost a million. This is a far far faster adoption rate than just hybrids...so there is pretty much no way this can happen. BTW, the Prius is the highest selling car model in CA today. (Still this is probably an order of magnitude too high and would take 2-3 times as long to happen)

    I assumed 50% of owners particapte in V2G and at any one time half are plugged in and ready to supply power. (This means that they have a full charge and/or have more than they need to get home or whereever. I assumed half are plugged into 220v and half 110v, so on average they provide 1.5 kw each. These numbers are far above what I would expect is reasonable.

    In 2020 you can draw 118 MW...in 2025 371 MW. Yes, seems like a big number.

    Now here is today's Cal ISO power demand graphs:


    California ISO -
    Today's Outlook Details



    (I think this changes based on what day you click on it.) Anyway, the demand valley is 22000 MW and the peak is 33500 MW. The available generation was 38000 MW to 44000 MW. Since this isn't a peak hot summer day...why would any utility buy any power from a EV battery today? Look at the graph. All day there is more than 10000 MW of spare capacity...compared to a highly optimistic 371 MW in 12 years (probably more like 20 or 30). The 10000 MW is more than 1/3 spare capacity...today. This is in CA...know for a rolling blackouts 12 years ago. It is supposed to get to 90-100 degrees in a few days...we can check back then.

    Note that about 5% of the total capacity is from wind. See: Wind power in California - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    On the few dozen hot, critical days, V2G could be somewhat useful. But if you look at the numbers it will take decades, even for CA with high hybrid adoption, to even make a dent (with an even higher EV adoption rate).

    To re-iterate. My point isn't that it can't be done. Its just that it is a lot of expense and effort for a drop in the bucket. IMO it is better to put that expense towards wider EV adoption or a more reliable, more renewable grid, but not to confuse the two.

    Mike
     
  5. Scorpion

    Scorpion Active Member

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    Mike, your points are well-taken. Effectively implementing V2G will take decades (I'm thinking 2050).....so we better get started! And yes, it should only be one of many different grid storage options, and the pros and cons of each will vary by time/place.

    Now, about that 10,000 MW of spare capacity.....remember, just because it is available doesn't mean it will be called upon. What matters is the marginal cost of those 10,000 MW. Most likely they would be Natural Gas "peaker plants". Well, in order to utilize them, PG&E or SCE would have to make enough on their top-tier rate to cover BOTH fuel costs and capital expenditures.

    In the case of V2G, the utility would ONLY have to pay out the "fuel" costs (the payment to the owner). There are no capex, since the battery is paid for by the EV driver.

    In my example, I gave a reasonable payment of $.15/kwh. So, when faced with the need to tap into spare capacity, is it cheaper to tap into V2G first, or the 10,000 MW? I admit V2G loses here as well, because currently natural gas is very cheap. In fact, it will be cheaper than $.15/kwh as long as its price stays under $20/MMBtu......and right now the price is more like $4/MMBtu.

    So, yes, it will be a very long time - decades - before V2G is a competitive at utility-level reserve power. However, in the interim, as it is scaled up, it should definitely be competitive with other competing technologies at reducing power consumption at the local company / corporate-campus level.

    I would sure like to see an economic comparison between Bloom Box fuel-cell servers and V2G. I suspect V2G would be cheaper, but Bloom Box already has a commanding lead onV2G.
     
  6. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    V2G likely will be a minium of 6kw. Just forget about those 110V chargers, they aren't worth installing for this. So using your numbers of 1M cars, and say 300K can buffer at 6KW, that is 1800 MW which is huge.

    Absolutely, if california stays with only 5% wind and less than 1% solar, V2G is not going to make sense. I have to believe that in the future california will use more renewables. Perhaps then it will want to take on V2G. Certainly by 2020 ERCOT can use the technology. Take a look at the last few days on the texas grid

    http://www.ercot.com/content/gridinfo/generation/windintegration/2013/06/ERCOT%20Wind%20Integration%20Report%2006-02-13.pdf

    Lots of wind at the end of may, then very little wind yesterday. A buffer can leave off some natural gas plants from spinning and give them time to start when unexpected bad wind happens. In the winter it can keep coal plants shut down. If you look at the average for yesterday peak wind was 4.7 GW, less than half of the record on may second of 9.7GW. The wind yesterday only supplied 1.5GW at the peak hours, we could have done a lot of great management with 300,000 cars buffering the grid.


    Totally agree, california is unlikely to be able to use this as fast as places with lots of wind being built.
     
  7. Scorpion

    Scorpion Active Member

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  8. Zythryn

    Zythryn Senior Member

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    Well, there are over 10,000 Model S out in the wild now and many more of the other EVs.

    The implementation of this will be the big factor.
    I think EVs with some sort f smart grid could actually be used to help lessen the base draw.
    It seems to me there will be more available power overnight when most of the cars are charging.
    Our cars typically charge for 2-3 hours. So if we get home at 5, connect our car, the utility could draw power during peak, or later after peak to act as base power.
    As long as the car is charged at 6am, it would work great.
     
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  9. Sergiospl

    Sergiospl Senior Member

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  10. 3PriusMike

    3PriusMike Prius owner since 2000, Tesla M3 2018

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    But you did read how I over over-estimated on how we'd get to those 1M cars. If V2G EVs are adopted at the same rate as hybrids, it will take at least 20 years to get to that point, not 12. And that assumed that V2G EVs were ready to ship in MY 2014.

    And why do you think 30% of EVs would be supplying energy to the grid? I think that number is highly optimistic. I was being over generous in thinking it would be 25%.

    Of course, all you or I can do is guess at the numbers. CA has the hghest hybrid and EV adoption rate in the country. If V2G is going to work anywhere, it will be in CA first, IMO. I know PG&E was one of the first utilities to show interest 6-8 years ago. But I think this is more PR than anything after they have looked at the realistic numbers. 1) it is 15-20 years out before one power plant could not be built; 2) they need the huge normal reserve 90+% of the year to be able to handle the worst case days; 3) cars don't generate power they just time shift it; 4) there is no real CO2 benefit to the time shifting unless there is a surplus of CO2-free generation at night; 5) the surplus has to also exceed the charge-discharge losses; 6) the grid must still handle the worst case; 7) the grid must still handle the worst case; 8) the grid must still handle the worst case, when V2G behaviour is unknown.

    IIRC the largest installation of wind in CA is near Palm Springs...6000+ windmills. As the desert warms the heat rises drawing in cooler air from near LA and up the valleys where it is funneled between two 10K+ ft mountains. This means more wind in the afternoon and evening....not as much at night. (There are several other large wind areas that also rely on a similar effect, such as Altamont pass). The point is, there isn't a lot of capacity to time shift wind in CA. Other places...sure. But the calculations for other places need to exclude the high EV adoption (mandate) rates in CA.

    That means 20-30+ years until it "could" be viable (in other regions), if MY 2014 cars supported the V2G feature. The fact is, it will be even longer than that, IMO. If I wanted to expend energy advocating for something, it would not be this...it would just be EVs in general. They are here, they are available, they save oil... but they are expensive and have some limitations -- why confuse the average consumer...or give them a false hope of something that won't happen until after their next car gets scrapped?

    Mike
     
  11. John H

    John H Senior Member

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    Personally I think V2G will be appealing to the homeowner that wants to further leverage their investment in a long range EV to provide a whole home UPS. Time shifting and peak shaving can help offset the additional costs of larger EV batteries.

    Peak shaving is typically a strategy for commercial customers, so an office that can peak shave 60KW from 10 EVs in the parking lot might find it worthwhile to provide free non-peak charging.
     
  12. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I'm fine with 25%. 20 years is fine too. How is this 1M large batteried BEVs in ERCOT in 2035, able to provide (6KW x 1M plug-ins x 25%) = 1.5 GW of potential load or supply to buffer wind and (ocgt and ccgt) start up. Really we only need 10,000 BEVs hooked up to make a venture worthwhile. Tesla can provide 10KW or 20 KW if there is demand, but some car makers seem to stick with 6KW that's why I used it. What do you think gas will cost in 2035? We have large populations that are ready to switch to use less oil in texas, if the cost of vehicles goes down.


    I kind of doubt that, because CA doesn't look like it wants to do it. The utility regulation seems to favor not doing it. You seem to be poo pooing the idea that california should do it based on its slow adoption of wind. I hope this changes. We have universities in Texas working on it, both municipal utilities, NRG, ERCOT. Denmark seems to be furthest ahead.


    Great so that is why you don't think it will work in cali.

    In Texas the facts are quite different, and I don't believe your facts for california. It takes about 30 minutes to spin up a turbine. It takes minutes to shift power, so in ERCOT we have turbines spinning to provide power just in case. Often we have natural gas thermal running that is less efficient because they turn on slowly. Batteries may be able to inexpensively time shift and buffer. That is why there are multiple fixed battery projects going on in ERCOT right now.

    Duke Energy Renewables completes Notrees Battery Storage Project in Texas; North America's largest battery storage project at a wind farm - Duke Energy
    Here's another 36MW battery project.

    25,000 cars could provide the more battery power (6kw x 25,000 plug-ins x 25%) =37.5 MW than one of these projects (36MW). Just because you don't think PG&E will make it work in california, doesn't mean Austin Energy or NRG won't make it work in ERCOT. NRG is a big supplier of charging stations in texas and has a V2G test going on in Delaware.

    Anouther alternative to building batteries is to generate hydrogen with the excess wind, and convert it back with fuel cells. This is definitely a more expensive proposition than V2G, but we may end up with all 3 V2G, fixed batteries, fuel cells.
     
  13. Scorpion

    Scorpion Active Member

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    Mike, couple of points:

    I think 25-30% is quite pessimistic. Cars spend 22 out of 24 hours a day parked. The V2G vehicles would presumably be commuter cars, going straight to work and back home, ideally with V2G at both locales.

    There is a HUGE Co2 benefit from time-shifting. Nighttime has huge surplus of wind and nuclear. The nuclear plants alone have the capacity to support 20-50 million EV's, depending on battery size. Losses are about 90% in and 90 % out, so you still get back 81% or so of energy put in.

    It seems like those LA wind turbines are producing peak power right when it is needed. So no need for V2G - fine. But remember, the V2G cars can dynamically receive/send energy to the grid as needed, any time of day.....it does not have to be "receive, night - send, afternoon".

    Not sure why V2G can only work for wind or other renewables. It helps with the intermittency of those, sure. But, as noted above, time-shifting of nuclear, geothermal or other sources is also highly desirable.

    I disagree that cars must ship MY2014 'V2G ready'. Retrofit kits could be made cheaply and widely available. There is one company already doing this.

    There may be some consumer confusion, but people will get through it. People are getting used to technically complex products in their lives - just look at smartphones. I think the fact that EVs are 'expensive and have limitations' is precisely why we need out-of-the-box thinking like battery leasing, battery quick-swapping, and V2G.
    It may be the only hope of the 'average Joe' to be able to afford an EV with a Tesla-like range.
     
  14. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    If we are talking california, you don't need to worry about nuclear. San Onofre, likely is going to remain closed. Base load will always be above the remaining nuclear plants, and I doubt the PUC will approve any more. Geothermal if they build enough of it would benefit from time shifting, but.... it does not need the short bursts that are helpful for solar or wind.

    Enough V2G could have prevented things like the rolling blackout in the winter of 2011, where coal plants shut down because they were not weather proofed for freezing temperatures. The grid needed more power before natural gas could be turned on. Perhaps v2g can prevent blackouts in california if hydro stops providing power temporarily.


    I'm sure technical details can be worked out before the gen III tesla is built. We are talking futures here.


    $200/kwh batteries and $10/gal gas will make a 2030 60kwh vehicle look more affordable.
     
  15. dbcassidy

    dbcassidy Toyota Hybrid Nation, 8 Million Strong

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    Before you can even get to a smart grid, you must have system with built in redundancy. A reliable system is mandated first, then one can talk about a smart system implementation. Also energy from wind power needs careful monitoring on frequency.

    DBCassidy
     
  16. 3PriusMike

    3PriusMike Prius owner since 2000, Tesla M3 2018

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    Don't take what I say as my opinion as any kind of official policy in CA




    I did some research on what CA is doing. Here is a recent study. About a one hour read...so it is long.
    Very hard to quote and summarize, but you will be rewarded by reading it.

    link: California Energy Commission Publication Database Search Page
    (5 MB pdf)

    They studied many forms of how to mitigate wind variability with grid-scale solutions and show the cost of each. (capital cost, plus cost per kwh). The only one not shown is V2G (but they do show two battery types). This is much more than a BOE calculation like I've done. They took years of minute-by-minute windmill data from thousands of specific utility-connected windmills and hourly pricing data and simulated solutions from 2012 - 2032. They concluded that CAES (compressed air) in a salt tavern is cheapest/most economic followed by CAES above ground with an array of pipes for storage. But you need to read the doc and look at the numerous charts and graphs to really understand. It isn't just about providing some kwh's into the grid. It is about economically running a reliable source of power, with frequency regulation, as a spinning reserve, or quick-start ready with 100's of MW. And not theoretical-- they have specific site plans.

    One chosen site is Tehachapi, with 750 MW of wind as of the study date, but supposed to be >4200 MW last year. But I can't find any data that shows it is greater than about 1700 MW so far. I believe this is larger than any Texas wind farm. :) Yes, TX has many more MW, in total. :)

    But they did not include V2G. (even though they have pumped storage, CAES, flywheel, super-capacitors, etc) ...reasons might include:
    - they are idiots
    - V2G is too far away for a 2012-2032 time frame
    - V2G doesn't satisfy the grid-scale requirements

    Mike
     
  17. 3PriusMike

    3PriusMike Prius owner since 2000, Tesla M3 2018

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    Just a quick question. Do you have employer provided charging at your work? I do.

    Just yesterday (after a month of digging and wiring) they doubled the number of charging stations (ChargePoint) from 3 to 6. A nice site to see 3 new charging cords still in plastic coverings as I drove in today.

    The first 3 were installed a bit over a year ago...we quickly got ~8 EVs using them daily. At about 12 EVs (and PHEVs) they started putting new requests on a waiting list. We have at least 16 EVs now. When these new ones open up today or tomorrow I suspect we may have 20+ EVs. We are quite happy to have ~4 parking spaces per cable and (previously) people had to sometimes move their cars mid day to make room for others to charge.

    I do not think it is reasonable to think that employers are going to install one station per EV owner any time soon. We have ~800-1000 parking spaces.

    FYI...about 8 Leafs, 3 Prius PIPs, 2 Teslas (1 Roadster, 1 Model S), 2 Fords, 1 Rav4, 1 Coda that I can recall.

    Just because a car is parked does not mean that it is plugged in to the grid.

    Mike
     
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  18. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    That is much more helpful information. The 5 big ones are pumped storage of hydro, CAES, hydrolysis + fuel cells, fixed batteries, and V2G.

    The left coast is currently using pumped storage, which states like texas can't use because there are not hydro resources.

    Compressed air is pretty new technology, and looks like it might be helpful. They are building a system in Germany right now. One should be live in texas in 2016. In about 5 years we should have a good idea if this is worth expanding. This is a lossy system because of dealing with the heat.

    On fuel cell/hydrogen storage there have been a number of good pilot projects. These also look promising, but require advancements in the fuel cells to be more cost effective. Fuel cells can not easily turn on and off, they want to be hot before they are efficient, so this is not a good system for short transients.

    Going on Fixed Batteries are in a number of pilot projects. The problem here is its fixed cost is much higher per kwh shifted than pumped storage, caes, or fuel cells. Battery costs are going down, but these will likely be small systems for transients, that help pay for themselves with load shifting. The grid operator would need to pay more for battery power than ocgt natural gas. This is easily done in ERCOT, but unlikely in califoria even if it increased reliability and lowered overall costs. In other words it would take major regulatory changes on the california grid, but simply a rate meeting by ERCOT

    Finally is V2G. It greatly reduces the cost of fixed batteries if assumptions are correct for increaased reliability. The Danish/German wind probably need this fastest, but don't look like they will have high numbers of vehicles. The Texas grid could easily be 20% wind by 2025, and may have the numbers of cars, which means its worth checking out in the near term. ERCOT and austin energy and/or NRG could reach out to employers with lower rates for the test to encourage installation of the equipment. It makes the Auto Dealers association fight with Tesla potentially stalling for testing such a system. The auto company and local utility would likely get doe money for the test, and hopefully some would be passed down to the car owners.


    The need doesn't come from individual wind farms, it comes from wind on one part of the grid. ERCOT has a much higher percentage of peaking wind on the grid. IIRC ERCOT portion of texas has about double the wind of california + california wind imports. I hope that california will feel the challenge and continue building at the rate they did in 2012.

    Since california regulators created conditions for the black outs, we can not rule out that they are idiots. They also don't seem to be interested in planning for permanently shutting San Onofre nuclear plant. They don't seem to be screwing up as much as during Pete Wilson and Grey Davis terms as governor, but many of the same idiots are working for SCE and PG&E, and they have large influence.

    When we combine the interests of SCE and PG&E with some environmental groups it seems that there is still an interest in creating shortages, and price spikes in the spot market that can add to rates. There simply is not a way for PG&E or SCE to profit much from V2G. Certainly the potential is larger than some of the fuel cell projects these utilities are trying, and should come into play well before 2032. I would say the reason it was left off was pure politics, not stupidity. Its the same reason CARB, instead of embracing plug in hybrids into the ZEV, they embraced Fuel cells. THe claim was BEVs were not praticle in the near term by 2015, but there would be tens of thousands of inexpensive fuel cell cars.;) Sorry, off my soap box. We won't know how V2G or CAES do at the micro-grid scale until we build it. I think that NJ super utility NRG is the most likely to pump enough money to make it work. They are already building fast chargers in texas and california, and see the potential to make money off people charging at home and the office. They must be well regulated though, and I don't think that is happening in california.
     
  19. 3PriusMike

    3PriusMike Prius owner since 2000, Tesla M3 2018

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    It is certainly possible that they are (were) idiots in charge back then when they deregulated/decoupled power generation and power delivery. But recall, that the real issue was illegal action by Enron, a TX company. (Sorry, not bashing TX, just Enron. But it seems no one seriously questioned why Enron was allowed to get away with this for so long before they had to close shop)

    a shortage of electricity caused by market manipulations, illegal[5] shutdowns of pipelines by the Texas energy consortium Enron, and capped retail electricity prices.

    California had an installed generating capacity of 45GW. At the time of the blackouts, demand was 28GW. A demand supply gap was created by energy companies, mainly Enron, to create an artificial shortage. Energy traders took power plants offline for maintenance in days of peak demand to increase the price

    See more at link: California electricity crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    And this was 12-13 years ago. It seems that as totally dysfunctional as the CA legislature has been and is now, that at least the power problem has been left for smarter people to run. :)

    It should also be noted that the people who did the study were from EPRI...a non-profit started in 1973. I had no knowledge of them until I found this paper. Yes, they seem to be funded (mostly?) by the utilities...but they seem to have no direct connection to CA regulators or government.


    Mike
     
  20. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    The california politicians wrote into the new regulations ways for PG&E and SCE and Enron to make huge profits by manipulating markets for those regulations. Somehow PG&E and SCE were too clever for themselves, and the regulations they helped write caused their own bankrupcies. Of course for the California PUC they were too big to fail, and rate payers lost. No problem with bashing Enron, but you should put primary blame on the california legislature, then also include those beasts that control most of the electricity in california.


    Thinking it was only Enron, will cause the next set of black outs. I know its easy to blame out of state actors, but any honest accounting would show how flawed the scheme was. Say you are Grey davis, PG&E, and SCE. You park a mercedes with gold bars on the seats, and the windows rolled down in south central. The gold gets taken, and then you blame blacks for being criminals, and ask for the people of california to pay for the missing gold. Really I think wilson, davis, pg&e, and sce took a lot of those gold bars before parking that car. Some will believe it was all the fault of those nasty theiving blacks, or in this case texans. The question is why would anyone in their right mind trust PG&E and SCE and the california legislature with a whole hoard of new gold bars:(




    When I look at PG&E, SCE, and the california legislature, I am not sure they don't have schemes to enrich themselves today at the risk of black outs and cost to rate payers. This is the article linked to wikipedia, talking about how flawed the scheme was
    THE ENERGY CRUNCH / A YEAR LATER / State's deregulation folly is no laughing matter / Consumers face inflated bills for years for failed electricity plan - SFGate

    Somehow it was a California utility that went first in using the new rules to make huge profits.


    That was the governor, not Enron that transferred all that wealth from rate payers to utilities. Call it lack of competance, or something worse.


    From what I read PG&E and SCE where the clients. I have no problem with EPRI, but the big utilities that payed for the research likely help set the scope.