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How Electric Cars Can Power the Home

April 10th, 2007 | Posted in: Battery, Latest News

The issue of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) has been raised before when discussing electric vehicles. This refers to the intriguing concept of using a fully-charged electric car’s batteries to give power back to the grid, when the grid needs it and the car doesn’t.

An example given is the scenario of a blackout, ocurring after the homeowner’s car is already charged. The car could then contribute its power back to the house. On a whole-grid basis, one can envision a network of cars as both depositing and withdrawing electricity on an as-needed basis, titrated to keep costs down and efficiencies high.

On Moday PG&E showcased a plug-in converted Prius (A123 again) and demonstrated how it can be used to power a few home appliances. See article here. The batteries have enough power to keep the home going for hours (hopefully long enough for the utility company to fix the black-out).

This concept is interesting, when considering a wide network, but lets face it, we want electric cars for driving, its a bit too high a price to pay for a $500 emergency home generator!

Posted by: Lyle

3 Responses to “How Electric Cars Can Power the Home”


  1. Tim
    Vote -1 Vote +1Tim     Says:
    April 10th, 2007 at 12:02 pm

    The PHEV can also function as a very powerful back-up generator for your own and other homes in the area supplying 120/240v.  

    (Quote)


  2. majicmattyla
    Vote -1 Vote +1majicmattyla     Says:
    April 10th, 2007 at 11:42 pm

    A great concept although several years away due to the need for mass amounts of these vehicles. I spoke with Xcel Energy and PGE about the technology–both energy utilities are working on the concept and encouraging the large automakers to bring these cars to market to “power” the technology, if you will. It is surprising who is also examining the idea–Hymotion out of Toronto is as well, according to Hymotion President, Ricardo Bazzarella, and Altairnano is as well, according to CEO Dr. Alan Gotcher.

    http://www.podtech.net/nextgear/technology/1697/vehicle-to-grid-part-1

    http://www.podtech.net/nextgear/technology/1698/vehicle-to-grid-part-2

    http://www.podtech.net/nextgear/technology/1702/hymotion-in-motion

    http://www.podtech.net/nextgear/technology/1700/altairnanos-revolutionary-battery  

    (Quote)


  3. Eisemann-Theater.com
    Vote -1 Vote +1Eisemann-Theater.com     Says:
    April 16th, 2007 at 3:42 pm

    I think its best for Americans to wait for the volt. The Toyota president said that “We will win the war after the war is over” years back. Toyota is very aggressive and nasty in making other car companies look bad with posting fake numbers and covering up problems with their cards.

    Also when you buy a Toyota you are only giving 5% of the money back to the usa.

    http://www.levelfieldinstitute.org/docs/scorecards/ford-v-toyota-scorecard-lfi.pdf

    I have owned foreign cards and American cars and to be honest have spent less money owning American.

    Toyota is out to brain wash people including I hear giving large donations to Consumer Reports.

    We in the old days called it Consumer Distorts.

    GE  

    (Quote)

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