Vehicle To Grid: Your Electric Car As A Backup Power Source

Electric cars are kind of a holy grail of green technology. Though it's important to keep in mind where the electricity would ultimately come from -- solar? wind? coal? -- it would be a pretty huge accomplishment. So how could you improve upon the efficiency and green-ness of electric cars? Alyssa Danigelis at Discovery found a way -- V2G:

Wouldn't it be awesome if we could have a two-way charging system when electric vehicles become widely available? That way the cars could store some power and serve as a backup electricity source in a pinch.

WATCH:

Comments

[poppabear]

I personally wouldn't count on the "Big Three" actually implementing any of these new technologies in the near future. Of course building a new alternative energy infrastructure would put millions of now unemployed people to work, but why rebuild when your not done wrecking everything.

If the "Big Three auto manufacturers aren't building alternative energy vehicles with the money they're getting from Congress, then what are they doing with it?

I wouldn't be waiting around for alt energy infrastructure and smart electric grids, and I wouldn't wait around for the "Big Three" to actually build a viable automobile that runs solely on electric power. The "Evil Three" go hand in hand with the big oil bankers.

I would however, take a serious look at smaller companies that have developed some very exciting alternative energy technology.

Wheego Electric Cars, a division of RTEV, is officially launching its U.S. dealer network. The first car will be the Wheego Whip, which is most certainly not a smart for two, and the plan is to find 50 dealers in America who want to sell them. Wheego has an exciting line of electric cars that I'd like to see on the roads very soon. The following article has more info on these great electric cars:
http://www.alternativeenergynewswire.com/electric-cars#electric-cars

[Belisarius]

[OT] Fuel Cell Powered Tractor from a major manufacturer:

New Holland's innovation and commitment to renewable energy was recently acknowledged at the SIMA Innovation Awards winning a Gold Medal for an impressively designed NH2 hydrogen powered tractor.

The hydrogen-powered NH2 tractor is a key element in New Holland's Energy Independent Farm concept, a project that hopes to free farmers from the cost of purchased fossil-fuel and allow them to achieve fuel autonomy. The concept is a natural fit with the brand's Clean Energy Leader position.

link: http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/Supppage9536.html

[Overtone]

Beyond batteries will be the next step. Zero Point Energy will be utilized by means of magnetic systems to supersede batteries in the not-too-distant future.

Electric cars will need no external recharge.

V2G will become much more interesting - as cars, trucks and buses, parked appropriately, will be able to supply up to 150 kW without wires.

Local utilities may end up helping to pay for your future vehicle over a reasonable period of time.

See the article Zero Point Energy (as well as others) on the website magneticpo­werinc.com to learn more.

[SomaMinneapolis]

read before you invest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy

I get to deal with zero point energy folks on a quarterly basis. All smoke no fire.

[Overtone]

Jovion Corp is trying to extract energy from the reservoir of “zero point energy” using Casimir cavities. One proposed device would generate up to 21.5 kilowatts of heat from sugar cube sized device. The heat would need to be captured and converted to electricity. Micro-gap thermal photovoltaics could match up well for this application to convert 50% or more of the heat to electricity. NOTE: This is a funded company that is a technology spinoff of research from the University of Colorado.

[Prole-NY]

Project Better Place, an electric vehicle and infrastructure system, includes some of the features mentioned in the article and the comments, though the pricing plan doesn't go into much detail, particularly regarding V2G. They currently propose vehicles by the Renault-Nissan Alliance, equipped with removable LiFePO4 batteries. These are safe in comparison to other Li-ion batteries. The scheme looks monopolistic as it stands.

[Prole-NY]

http://www.betterplace.com/

[RTIII]

Recycling batteries is well understood technology - we shouldn't avoid all-electric because of a fear of the batteries.

What I advocate are "rental" deals. Imagine a world in which you have standardized batteries. You don't own your own batteries - you have a set in your car, and maybe a second set at home you keep charged, so you can swap at home, and then when you are out in the world and need a refill, instead of waiting a long time while a recharge happens, you just swap battery sets with fully charged ones ready and waiting at your nearest service station. This makes it possible to go coast-to-coast, non-stop, just as we can today with gasoline. All we need are standardized batteries...

Perhaps cars could have two sets - the set each owner actually owns, and a second set that gets swapped out. This could help reduce fear of a bad cell leaving one stranded somewhere if a "rental" goes bad...

There are lots of interesting business models possible this way, not the least of which is that any facility with a lot of roof space now has a huge asset! The installation of solar panels now makes that site an instantly profitable charging station! Similarly, out in the lonely desert, a large wind generator can do the job.
.

[bluejay10027]

Have you ever lifted a high density battery? You have no clue.

[ipv4]

wow, you're just so pleasant.

[RTIII]

Of course!

I can easily imagine these battery packs will be conveniently mounted very low on the vehicle, probably just in front of the rear tires and lock in sideways. A person with a specialized dolley / jack will do the swapping. With standardized sockets, the batteries will just slide into place and quickly and conveniently lock down. Any teenager could do the job blindfolded. There'll be jobs for people doing this so drivers need not concern themselves with the task, as states like Oregon and New Jersey now do with gasoline (no self-serve).

Really, this is not a problem at all.
.

[RTIII]

What this video article didn't make clear is _why_ cars would be helpful.

If you have wind and solar power, one problem you've got is that they only make electricity when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining, respectively. Neither happens anywhere all the time. Therefore, either the electicity has to be transported huge distances or something needs to be there to absorb the energy and be capable of returning it to essentially take advantage of it when it's available and have access to it later when its needed.

When you add in millions of car batteries, fully distributed on the nation's grid, you get just that - a capacity to collect and store energy when it isn't needed but IS being generated, and the capacity to return it back to the grid when generation levels drop.
.

[bluejay10027]

These people are smoking crack. LOL

[marlovian]

Right, and the byproducts of recycling all of those lithium batteries include tofu, gold coins and cleansed auras.

[ianrthorpe]

Erm........there seems to be a flaw in the logic here. You charge up the car with off peak electricity and pump it back into the grid during peak times. And what happens when you want to drive your car? It can't be charging, discharging and moving all at the same time.

So far only the Honda system indtroduced with the Insight model seems to offer a practical system for electric cars. And that is a long way from commercially viable yet.

http://greenteeth.blog.co.uk/2008/12/04/new-electric-car-a-mini-adventure-or-wild-adventure-in-futility-5163333/

[aspecialed]

I've had direct involvement in the v2g area and it is possible to actually make money off the system by pumping back into the grid during peak hours and charging during off peak hours you can get a credit on your electric bill. If you are an energy conserving person like myself then you might even make money.

[frantaylor]

By the time you are done with the batteries and the inefficiency, you will not make any money.

If it were possible to do this, it would have been done by now.

[ronspri]

Oh dear fran, please remove the puppet strings. I can't speak to this system but there are plenty of things that can be done that aren't being done right now. Corporate greed and status quo is the short answer to why this happens. There's plenty of energy and plenty of ways ready to go to produce clean, cheap energy. Can't make much of a profit off free energy though can we?

[BLinCincinnati]

If it was possible the Electric companies would already be doing it themselves.

[Dystopic]

This is a great idea, I had this idea about 10 years ago.

Wouldn;t it be awesome if we had batteries that made solar, wind and electric vehices feasible?

Batteries are the problem, until we can invent ZPMs, batteries will be the problem.

Electric cars are not green, they use less gas, but also create a disposal problem for the batteries.

[frantaylor]

The batteries in modern hybrid cars have the same energy density as sticks of dynamite. Their long-term stability is not known. We understand the risks of gasoline.

[ronspri]

Yes we understand the risks of gasoline....the worst one is there won't be any...or enough soon. Secondly it causes war and greed and the worst kind of actions by human beans. Third it pollutes. Is that enough? You really appear to be a charter member of the 19th century club. As long as you accept what they are offering you will only get what they want to offer.

[SomaMinneapolis]

"The batteries in modern hybrid cars have the same energy density as sticks of dynamite." What size sticks? How many sticks?
Have you checked the energy density of an equivalent volume of gasoline?

"We understand the risks of gasoline."
We (as in all of the applicable regulatory agencies) understand the risks of modern hybrid batteries otherwise these cars would not be on the road.