Posted on 05/26/2007 12:54:10 PM PDT by P-40
There's a new technology in cars that could save gas and stop construction of new power plants – and Austin Energy is leading the field in its development.
In 2003, Austin Energy deputy general manager Roger Duncan was asked by Mayor Will Wynn to find innovative ways to make Austin greener. At the time, AE was struggling over how to manage West Texas wind power. While it's clean energy, the wind doesn't keep to a schedule. Production often peaks at night, when demand is lowest. According to Duncan, the engineers realized that "the automobile battery is the perfect storage for wind."
Duncan started looking at plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The difference between a PHEV and a regular hybrid is that a PHEV has bigger batteries and an onboard charger. Plug the PHEV into a regular wall socket overnight and it charges the battery off the spare wind power. On the road, it charges the battery from fuel use, like a regular hybrid. In 2005, AE launched Plug-In Austin, a campaign to promote PHEVs.
The problem, and the solution, wasn't just for Austin. "It's the same across the country," said Duncan. "The difference between daytime and nighttime use is almost enough that all the vehicles out there could be plug-in hybrids and you wouldn't have to build an additional power plant." In 2006, the campaign went national as Plug-In Partners. Originally, the plan was to start similar campaigns in the nation's 50 largest cities, but by the big launch in D.C. in January last year, 75 utility companies and industry bodies such as the American Public Power Association backed the project.
There was one problem. Nobody made PHEVs, and no one was planning to. "When we asked automakers why they weren't making plug-in hybrids, they told us people didn't want 'em," said Duncan. So, to convince them, the program started taking "soft orders" – a promise to buy without a commitment. Duncan explained, "We'd talk to fleet managers and say, 'If there was a vehicle with these characteristics, would you buy so many sedans, SUVs, pickups, or whatever?'" Businesses were interested, and soon they had soft orders for more than 8,000 PHEVs. "That demonstrated to the automakers that there was a market, and that was the key component of the campaign," said Duncan. General Motors has committed to build two PHEVs – the Chevy Volt, which debuted at auto shows this year, and the Saturn View SUV, which should hit the market in 2009. Bus manufacturer International Corp. has already started production of plug-in school buses, and Austin will be getting one of the first batches.
The other side of this equation is called vehicle-to-grid, or V2G. Researchers at the University of Delaware have calculated that a family car produces 10 kilowatts – enough electricity for 10 houses. Under V2G, hybrids could charge up their batteries when driving. When they're parked, they are plugged into the wall, but instead of taking power from the grid, they put it back in. The driver is then paid by the power company for the excess energy they put in. Again, AE has been at the forefront of this, promoting the concept through Plug-In Partners. The technology is a little further away, with the energy-based PG&E Corp. having just developed its first working concept model, while AE is working on its own system.
Fit PHEVs and V2G together, and it could change not just driving but the whole electric industry. Under this model, PHEVs are plugged in at night to charge up on that surplus capacity. They charge up more on each drive, then dump that power back into the system when demand is high. This means unused power doesn't go to waste, and electricity firms don't have to build more plants.
While he's optimistic about the future of PHEVs, Duncan is cautious of taking too much credit. "We certainly didn't invent the plug-in hybrid, and there were movements to promote them before we came on board. But we're certainly a player in the national movement."
“The other side of this equation is called vehicle-to-grid, or V2G. Researchers at the University of Delaware have calculated that a family car produces 10 kilowatts – enough electricity for 10 houses. Under V2G, hybrids could charge up their batteries when driving. When they’re parked, they are plugged into the wall, but instead of taking power from the grid, they put it back in. The driver is then paid by the power company for the excess energy they put in.”
Now ther’s a great idea; the average car engine is good for about 2,000 hours of operation before overhaul.
There just happens to be about 3.6 times that many hours in a year so not many people would be willing to plug-in every night and wake up around midnight to refuel.
But 1 KW per house is way, WAY, low. Running an air conditioner in an Austin house in the summer (and it will run during both the day and the night) would take 3-5 KW of power.
Just curious -- how did you arrive at the 2,000 hour threshold?
to read...
Most homes I know draw more power than 10 each 100 watt light bulbs.
A good start would be 100,000 miles / 50 mph = 2000 hours. Of course, that is at cruise RPM, but at idle, with lower oil flow and pressure will the bearings and rings last very much longer or not quite as much?
I dunno about 100,000 miles. Most cars built in the last 15 years or so will easily go 200,000 - idling or not. And 300,000 or more is not uncommon. But making excess power with my car’s engine and feeding it to the grid (hydropower here) doesn’t seem very efficient.
No. It’s a stupid idea.
We have to decide what is the point of hybrids? Are we building them to save gas? iF so, then using a gasoline powered car to make electricity is stupid.
Are we building hybrids to save electricity? If so then a hybrid that is designed to plug into a wall to recharge is stupid.
This guy is schitzo. He needs to make up his mind.
These alternative energy fools always use unrealistic assumptions. Otherwise, their ideas are proved worthless on paper before they even get a chance to build a prototype.
Wind energy is a crock. Most of those windmills don’t even generate enough energy to pay for the erection process of the tower, much less turn a profit.
I don’t think they want you to run your car to generate electricity...but to use it as a store of energy from excess wind power at night.
Shouldn’t make a diference provided your engine isn’t worn out. The oil pressure required depends on bearing surface area and bearing load. The oil pump is designed to provide adequate oil pressure no matter what.
A potential problem occurrs with older “looser” engines. A loose engine has more gap between the bearing and crank and thus more oil leaks out. In this situation, an oil pump may not be keeping up, volume wise, at lower RPMs. In fact, it’s possible it may not keep up at higher RPMs either. It was once a common practice to intall a “high volume” oil pump in a tired motor to give it a few more usable miles. This kind of pump pumped at the same pressure, but just had greater flow potential to compensate for the “leaky” bearings. Without this compensation, it was beleived that the top end would be starved of oil and the cylinders and valve train would quickly wear out.
No. That is not how they described the V2G. This car puts energy into the grid. That is using gasoline power to generate electricity.
But the plan is to use the electricity you generated from your drive, not to come home and run your engine to feed the grid. That would not be economical.
You know that tingling you get when the Laws of Thermodynamics are being violated? Getting it now.
Just where the he11 do you think the electricity coming from driving comes from? It comes from your engine.
Let me explain to you the entire premise of hybrids, because you obviously don’t get it.
The whole point of a hybrid is to put an undersized motor in a car and then add a helping electric motor to add enough power to make it practical. If you then load up your vehicle with several hundred pounds of batteries and drain them dry every night by letting the grid suck the juice out of them, your poor little undersized engine won’t be able to cope with the added weight of the batteries and no electric motor to help out. The manufacturer will have no choice but to install a bigger gasoline engine to power your car by itself AND ALSO recharge all those huge heavy batteries so the grid can suck the power out of them again the next night.
It’s a stupid idea. It defeats the whole purpose of a hybrid vehicle in the first place.
I don’t see a problem with the first part of the proposal but the second part seems a bit far-fetched, but interesting. I can see the benefit of having your auto be a backup power source for the house though. I think it is Japan that has a system that does that now.
No, I get it. The proposal is to sell of the saved electricity, if any, you generated driving and then recharge at night using wind power. I think the assumption is that the car was driven at highway speed. I’m not saying it is a great idea or worth bothering with...but what is NOT being proposed is that the user will run the engine just to generate electricity to sell on the grid.
I was referring to the second part. The idea of using something that consumes energy - a car - to generate energy for the power grid is stupid. It’s not impossible, just impossibly inefficient.
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