Under the Transportation Electrification Initiative, which received $400 million from the Recovery Act, companies are developing, deploying, and analyzing EVs and EV infrastructure, and educating the public to help accelerate market adoption of advanced EVs.
The eight projects under the Transportation Electrification Initiative represent the world's largest EV demonstration project and will result in deployment of over 13,000 grid-connected vehicles and 22,000 charging points in residential, commercial, and public locations nationwide by December 2013.
Coulomb Technologies, ECOtality, General Motors, and others have been installing the charging stations. Coulomb, which is providing $22.9 million toward the project cost, is deploying EVs-including 2,000 GM Volt, 200 Ford Transit Connect, 100 Ford Focus EV, and 100 Smart EV vehicles-and is establishing 4,600 EV charging locations nationwide. Through these cost-shared projects, DOE will collect information about how consumers use and charge electric vehicles.
To build on this foundation, DOE recently announced $5 million in EV funding for local governments and private companies to continue to accelerate installation of charging stations and infrastructure. Communities will develop strategies for EV deployment, update their EV permitting processes, develop incentive programs, or launch other local or regional initiatives that improve the experience of EV users and help bring them to market.
See coverage in the EERE Network News of DOE's partnership with Google. See the DOE press release and the DOE Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center.
Also, California-based AeroVironment announced on May 18 that the BMW Group selected AeroVironment as the preferred provider of EV charging equipment, accessories, and installation services supporting the introduction of BMW's ActiveE electric car, a new class of luxury vehicles. ActiveEs will be available major metropolitan markets: Boston, Los Angeles, NYC, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Sacramento. Charging stations will be installed with a 240-volt electric circuit in drivers' home garages. See the AeroVironment press release.
Massachusetts is Winding the Future
As of May 18, Boston is home to the largest commercial wind blade test facility in the world.
The Wind Technology Testing Center at the Boston Autoport in Boston Harbor is open for business. To produce more power from the wind, manufacturers have been creating longer and longer blades, but until now, all blades longer than 50 meters had to be shipped to European facilities to be tested. Now that the Wind Technology Testing Center is up and running, companies can test wind blades up to 90 meters long.
DOE pledged $2 million for the project when it selected Massachusetts for the Wind Technology Testing Center in 2007. In 2009, DOE awarded Massachusetts an additional $25 million from the Recovery Act. The Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust, now part of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, contributed an additional $13.2 million in grants and loans. See the Energy Blog post.
Los Alamos Unlocking the Power of Algae Oil
One significant challenge of using algae for fuel is cheaply separating it from the very thing that allows it to grow: water.
