14 DAY TRIAL // Navigant Consulting has released a new report saying that, all things considered, it is likely that the US military will be “crowned” one of the world's largest operators of EVs (electric vehicles) by the year 2020 at the latest.
According to the report, this is bound to happen due to the fact that, in the following years, the country's Department of Defense will spend loads of money on buying roughly 92,400 such vehicles.
Although the Department has already taken a keen interest in purchasing low emissions vehicles, odds are it will significantly augment investments in EVs between the years 2013 – 2020.
In case anyone was wondering, the US Department of Defense will probably make these purchases in an attempt both to improve on its ecological footprint, and to gain several economic advantages.
“The military's approach to reducing fossil fuel consumption from non-tactical operations includes acquiring increasing numbers of vehicles powered by ethanol blend and biodiesel blend fuels.”
“But the majority of the investment will go toward HEVs [hybrid electric vehicles] and PEVs [plug-in electric vehicles],” explains Scott Shepard with Navigant Consulting, as cited by Business Green.
Navigant Consulting argues that, while adding to the fleet of environmentally friendly vehicles it owns and operates, the US Department of Defense will also invest heavily in developing so-called micro-grids that run on renewable energy sources alone.
It is likely that these micro-grids will serve both to power military bases, be they tactical and non-tactical, and to charge the newly acquired EVs, thus helping the Department further improve on its ecological footprint.
“One particular area of focus for the military market is the development of micro grids in tandem with vehicle-to-grid (V2G)-enabled PEVs. Micro-grids can enable bases in both tactical and non-tactical operations to utilize energy generation sources more efficiently and to operate independently of conditions on the grid.”
“V2G-enabled PEVs used solely in non-tactical applications provide an additional layer of energy support and storage that can assist islanding micro-grids and balance distributed energy generation resources by providing power from the vehicles’ battery packs to buildings,” Navigant Consulting says.