It's the unexpected late night trips to the drug store for medicine or a long weekend of chauffeuring kids to soccer games that could be more taxing for parents. Owners can set the software to always maintain a certain charge in the batteries, say enough to make it to work in case the driver must leave early one morning, or for long weekends, decide that they want to forgo storing grid power and just charge the battery instead. This would also mean that consumers wouldn't be making money either. For Steven Latendre, a professor at Green Mountain College in Vermont, linking individual private consumers to the huge electric grid can lead to huge efficiencies for everyone. Latendre points out that power plants typically operate around 60 to 70 percent of the time to provide power, but have no storage capability. Meanwhile, personal automobiles require energy storage but only operate about 10 percent of the time, making them ideal places to store excess electricity. "There is a great compliment between the two systems which can now operate synergisticly," said Latendre. "It's making people very excited." Related Links: Mid-Atlantic Grid Interactive Cars Consortium The Center for Carbon-Free Power Integration Discovery Tech Blog: Vehicle to Grid Faces Speed Bumps Treehugger: Slide Show: 23 Electric Cars Driving the Revolution Treehugger: Build Your Own Electric Car: 5 Questions to Ask First |
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