Posted on 11/11/2007 7:54:54 PM PST by T Ruth
Poultney, VT - Imagine collecting a paycheck from your utility company each month simply for plugging your electric vehicle into the power grid and making it available to supply or download power.
"There's a whole new way to look at energy supply and distribution, and our love affair with cars," said Dr. Steven Letendre, professor of management and environmental studies at Green Mountain College. "In the not-so-distant future, electric cars should be viewed both as environmentally-friendly suppliers of services to the power grid and as sources of income for owners."
An article written by Dr. Letendre and Dr. Willett Kempton of the University of Delaware, appearing in the February 15 issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly suggests that this vehicle-to-grid scenario (dubbed "V2G") is not only feasible, but close to reality in some parts of the U.S.
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By the end of this year, the first wave of vehicles able to supply auxiliary power to homes and contractors will hit the market, but with modest modifications, these vehicles also have the potential to "sell" their electricity back to the power grid, increasing reliability and efficiency of the power system and netting a profit for the car owner.
* * *
In the most profitable scenario, the owner charges the vehicle while rates are low and provides services to the grid operators as requested. The study estimates that a properly managed V2G car could net the owner close to $3,000 per year.
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(Excerpt) Read more at greenmtn.edu ...
How in the world is that going to work?
Wait until they have problems disposing of the lead and acid in the batteries. Something tells me the silver lining in the clouds with respect to electric cars is going to be a nightmare.
Bullshit
> Wait until they have problems disposing of the lead and acid in the batteries.
A company that is successful in recycling/renewing these things is going to have a ton of business, if they can make it profitable. I’m betting on American ingenuity to make it so.
> Bulls***
Maybe your erudite commentary was a little *too* concise. Care to clarify what the *beep* you’re talking about?
Since the best electric vehicles are going to Lithium Ion, it'll be a non-issue.
Besides, we've been recycling lead for decades now, why is that suddenly going to be a problem?
Expensive batteries.
There you go again, peepeeing on our parade. We're looking for something to celebrate about and you bring physics into the discussion.
Magic. like all things liberals do, magic figures in the how.
That's kinda what I'm wondering.
I was under the impression that gasoline was used to maintain the vehicle's speed and to charge the battery, that the battery & electric motor took over for acceleration and the brakes aided the battery recharge. Having the car donate electricity to the grid only seems to make sense if the car is spontaneously generating power somehow.
As far as I know (I'm certainly no expert) what they're talking about is not science, but science-fiction.
Alternatively, if you want to sell electricity to the grid you could do it w/ a generator. I often wondered, on the porch of my family's beach house, how much money we're wasting by not putting a wind generator on one of the lots...
“The study estimates that a properly managed V2G car could net the owner close to $3,000 per year.”
LOL - and how much in gas will this car use to create that energy to sell back to the grid ?
or perhaps they are thinking the car will absorb electricity at night and sell it back to the grid during the day ... acting as a storage reserve ?
... That “logic” fails also as the grid would simply buy the battery themselves, lowering the excess capacity at night and evening out the power price - there are already ideas to buy back car batteries that have lost capacity to use in massive storage banks.
Gas engines will power the car’s generators.
In short, with sophisticated software, the thing can be managed to be profitable.
By the way, I understand that there is a start-up company (not publicly traded) that is developing software to manage the transfer of electricity between vehicles and the grid, as opposed to on-board software which manages only the on-board battery.
skeptics of electric cars might want to look at this
article about Mitsubishi’s electric car in EV World.
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1352
with that said, V2G is stupid.
the more important thing is to
cut the middle east out of the deal.
I wonder how in the world will it work in cold weather ?
I think this is a large part of the idea. Wouldn't it be better from the utility's point of view to have millions of car owners foot the capital cost of battery storage capacity?
Why can’t I just buy a battery pack, or make my own from deep-cycle batteries, add a small fuel efficient generator, and the interface hardware, and make a couple grand a year?
Why pay for the rest of the car if this will be profitable to me?
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