ecofriend.com

Charging electric cars at night benefits the environment

electric vehicle recharging

In a recent study jointly conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Texas, researchers have arrived at an interesting conclusion that the time of recharging of electric cars decides the pollution levels in the environment.

As per the research papers published in the journal ‘Environmental Research Letters’, the fossil-fuel plants are responsible to an extent for the smog in the environment. And these very plants are the main providers of power to the electric vehicles. These plants technically known as electricity generating units (EGU) alongwith the vehicles are responsible for the emission of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides which when react with atmospheric oxygen in sunlight’s presence produce ozone. Ozone layer present in stratosphere, though, prevents harmful ultraviolet rays from entering Earth’s inhabited area but its presence in troposphere where most of the life exists, causes harm to respiratory organs and plants. Due to these issues EGUs continue to fail in meeting the standards set by National Ambient Air Quality.

The research
The researchers modeled the result of replacing 20% of the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by gasoline run cars with PHEVs and for that they employed three situations in which electric car was charged and closely studied the pollutants discharged. This was done in the state of Texas. The results were encouraging since the levels of pollution, resulting from EGU emissions were lower the pollution levels when associated with 20% gasoline of VMT.
Another observation was that at night time charging, the emission of pollutants was much higher but due to absence of sun they couldn’t react with sunlight to form ozone. The results were almost same in all the four model cities. By the time morning arrived the pollutants were already dispersed and diluted by the winds. In the words of the lead author of this study Dr Tammy Thompson of MIT,

The results in general show positive air quality results due to the use of PHEVs regardless of charging scenario with the nighttime charging scenario showing the best results on average by a small margin.

Over the last 10 years, the Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) have considerably grown in popularity due to several reasons including cheap fuel cost, efficiency and eco-friendly nature. As a result Dr. Thompson, emphasized on the need to design and implement policy that will encourage charging behaviours that are positive for both air quality and grid reliability.

Source: Physorg

Today's Top Articles:

Scroll to Top