One of the major issues that will be debated during the next three days of the Smart Garage charrette and into the future is -- what impact will people plugging their vehicles (perhaps thousands within a single utility area) have on the grid? Will the grid buckle under the strain of recharging vehicles every evening, or will the grid actually be made stronger? You'll get a variety of opinions based on the many studies (see links to ORNL, RMI, PNL).

Michael Brylawski, the Practice Leader for RMI's MOVE (transportation) group, equated the arrival of PHEVs to when air conditioning units first came on the scene. Yes it added load, but the grid largely (the occasional summer brown out excepted) handled the stress. That's an optimistic view. If fast charging -- at greater than 220v becomes de rigueur, the load during evening hours could be higher than the AC effect.

Brylawski said if all vehicles were grid connected, the amount of electricity would be 10 percent of U.S. energy consumption. For residential energy use, that equates to about 25 percent.

Michael asked if people liked the name of Smart Garage to represent this idea of the interaction between vehicles, buildings, and the power grid. Only a few folks (who all seemed to work for RMI) raised their hands in the affirmative. So, therefore one of the goals of the event is to come up with a better name.

If you can think of one, let me know and I'll pass it along.