Feb. 2, 2009 -- Electric cars, touted as a way to save the environment, still draw power off the electric grid. Now scientists from the University of Delaware have come up with a way for electric cars to store, and then give back, electricity back to the power grid.
WATCH VIDEO: A car doubles as a mini power station.
"The cars become an instant reservoir of available electricity," said Willett Kempton, a professor at the University of Delaware leading the project. "Half the time we are pulling power off the grid during low usage times, and putting power back on the grid during the other half."
Current plans call for a fleet of six modified Toyota Scion XBs. The boxy-looking vehicles will have their internal combustion parts replaced with new electric drive trains, batteries, engine and plugs. The garages and parking spaces for the cars will also be modified to store and power the electric vehicles.
Right now the plan is still in what Kempton calls a "R and D phase." The cars won't actually be on the road until this summer. But once they are they would quickly help relieve stress on the grid. Kempton estimates that his fully charged Scion will be able to power ten nearby houses, once it's on the road.
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Storing electricity for the electric company is nice for the electric company, but also for customers. Kempton will get a small check each month for storing and providing power back to the grid. It won't be much, "maybe enough to cover the initial expense," said Kempton.
But with more cars, those checks could become substantial, said Kempton, up to $2,000 or more each year for car owners. More than 200 cars would be necessary before consumers could make a meaningful profit. The more cars storing grid power, the more consumers can expect to make.
However, to profit consumers will also have to adjust their driving habits and monitor their energy consumption more closely.
An artificial intelligent software package will manage the energy inside the car and learn about when and how far the driver typically drives to maintain optimal power levels for car owners and for grid consumers. The system will work best when it knows what to expect, say, driving to work everyday at around 8:00 a.m. and coming home at 5:30 p.m., the software will make sure the car switches from giving power to storing power for the drive.
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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