There are a few potential demand growth opportunities for electricity; not all are bad.

Every now and then a new electricity-guzzling device comes around and gives a boost to what would otherwise be a saturated electricity business. Central air conditioning, which is now considered a standard feature in nearly all new buildings virtually all over the world, comes to mind as one, followed more recently by the proliferation of flat screen TVs and all manner of computers, printers, and home entertainment systems.

But energy efficiency gains in other areas including heating, cooling and lighting plus improved building insulation appear to have cancelled the increased load of these devices, leaving little room for electricity demand growth in rich countries with saturated demand (lead article in this issue). For those happy to see an end to growing electricity demand – and the need to build more infrastructure to meet it – this is welcomed news. Two developments, however, may change this outcome:

• First is the voracious energy consumption of the Internet and its peripherals especially cloud computing and networks; 
• The second, and possibly more significant, are predictions of a rapidly growing electric transportation sector.

The latter may be a blessing if the increased transportation load is predominantly charged into batteries, ideally from intermittent renewables sources during off peak hours when network load is minimal. In this case, a large number of EVs can run on energy that is virtually free and virtually carbon-free without exerting undue stress on the grid.

But how big can the electric transportation load possibly be? Estimates vary, but a recent study by IEE – it used to be called Institute for Electric Efficiency, now referred to as Innovation Electricity Efficiency – released in April 2013 concludes that under certain scenarios, light duty vehicles (LDVs) running on electricity can consume as much as 88 TWhrs [terawatt hours] of juice by 2035. Adding other types of electric transportation can conceivably increase the load to 147 TWhrs by 2035.

Would that be a big deal?

According to the current projections by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), under a business-as-usual scenario, total electricity consumption in the US may grow by 710 TWhrs between 2010 and 2035; suggesting that the electric transportation load could potentially add as much as 20% to the total under a high case scenario.

The high demand scenario, of course, may be extreme, but even under the most conservative of scenarios more than 5 million EVs can be on the US roads by 2035 (above graph). Lisa Wood, IEE’s Executive Director and Vice President of the Edison Foundation, said, “Opportunities for electrification in the (US) transportation sector are large and advanced batteries are a major driver.”

The significance of electric transportation, aside from the increased load on the electric network, will be its impact on US oil consumption. The US transportation sector accounts for 29% of total US energy consumption – second behind the industrial sector – running entirely on expensive and polluting liquid fuels. The current fleet of LDVs, numbering 225 million, consume 60% of the transportation fuel and are responsible for 31% of US greenhouse gas emissions. The number of LDVs is projected to grow to 276 million by 2035. The question is how many of the new ones will run totally or partially on electricity.

Another equally important development, of course, is the trend to switch cars, buses, trucks, trains and ships to run on liquefied or compressed natural gas (LNG or CNG). At current low prices for natural gas, this is likely to have an even bigger impact on US transportation fuel consumption. Cheap gas may make it so much harder for EVs to make a big dent in the transport market.

Perry Sioshansi is the editor of EEnergy Informer, and a consultant for energy firms. He can be reached at fpsioshansi@aol.com.

A recent book, Smart Grid: Integrating Renewable, Distributed, and Efficient Energy, edited by Sioshansi, explores the many dimensions of the smart grid . With contributions from a number of prominent experts, scholars and practitioners with different perspectives, the book provides a broad coverage of the what, how, when, why and other facets of the smart grid.