Prius hack utilizes Vehicle-to-Grid technology to power your crib

For those of you Prius owners who felt the novelty of a hybrid vehicle was finally wearing off, a whole host of new hacks are starting to emerge, which should go quite a ways in expanding the utility of your gas-sipping whip. When you're not cruising around at the tune of 116 mpg, you can purportedly flip the power in reverse and actually juice up your house with your ride. A prototype system being demonstrated by California's Pacific Gas and Electric Company utilizes Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology to actually send power in reverse to energize a few in-home lights, appliances, and of course, Wii exercise sessions. Potentially more interesting is the possibility to actually "sell back energy to the utility during hot afternoons when demand is highest and most costly to avoid blackouts." No word just yet on when this stuff will be rolled out en masse, but if you needed just one more reason to plunk down for a Prius, it doesn't get much better than this.

[Via The Raw Feed]

[Deezee @ Apr 10th 2007 1:59AM]

Every little bit helps. Keep hacking!

[Bc @ Apr 10th 2007 2:33AM]

Do people think before they do things like this? How about the cost of gasoline? It is more expensive to buy gasoline than it is to buy power right off the grid. And considering the amount of power that is generated by the prius all you are doing is paying gasoline prices to power a few light bulbs and a refrigerator (not cheap) . Even in California this doesn't make much sense. They buy most of their power from us (washington) during peak times in the summer. If their are serious blackouts it is MUCH more cost effective to buy a propane or diesel generator not to mention environmentally friendly. The electrical generator doesn't do you any good just sitting on your driveway pad so you are essentially burning that gasoline straight.

[aonicc @ Apr 10th 2007 2:52AM]

The point of V2G technology isn't to use power generated by the gas engine. it's an extension of the plug-in hybrid concept, that lets you top off your prius's battery at night (when power is in excess) and use that on the road, or, with V2G, sell it back during the day to help balance the grid.

the problem is that right now with PG&E peak and off-peak power costs the same. this would only become a benefit if you paid less at night.

[Steve @ Apr 10th 2007 6:36AM]

I think you need to re-read the article. They are powering parts of a house via the vehicle, its useful as a generator should you lose power, but it's obviously not a constant source of energy.

Steve

[Alex @ Apr 10th 2007 2:56AM]

this is old news already.. people at CalCars had been doing it for a very long time

[johnzilla @ Apr 10th 2007 10:55AM]

I agree with Bc.

[gshephg @ Apr 10th 2007 10:59AM]

Think of a plug-in hybrid providing the benefit of a whole-house uninterruptable power supply and emergency generator. For brief outages, the vehicle can supply clean synthesized AC power inverted from its internal batteries. For longer outages, the quiet, super ultra-low emission engine fires up intermittently to replenish the battery on an as-needed basis.

That certain regional electric utilities could essentially expand their capacity by relying on a deployment of PHEVs is an intriguing possibility. Would this mean the utilities would finance installation and operation of public charging infrastructure if it made a net positive impact on their bottom line?

Let's not forget the primary benefit of a PHEV: a great number of people would be able to drive to work, and potentially back again, without needing to start the gasoline engine. This is a huge environmental and economic gain. The first few miles of a cold engine runs at unregulated emission levels, burning extra gasoline to heat everything up, ironically in order to reduce emissions. It has no idea you're about to shut the car down in a minute or two and go to work. Personally, I have a number of friends who drive just minutes to work. Of course, they could walk, or take public transportation, but short of a catastrophic change, it ain't gonna happen. People love their cars.

I look forward to a day of quieter downtown streets with cleaner air, and having a car that can double as a backup power supply and emergency generator will be quite useful.

[phortitude @ Apr 10th 2007 11:27AM]

California law doesn't permit the sale of positive net-energy back into the grid. The most one can do is Zero out one's electric bill. Until the law changes, no retail end user will make money doing this, they'll just mitigate their impact on the grid.

[kballs @ Apr 10th 2007 11:26PM]

The idea of using your PHEV as a backup generator during blackouts is interesting (except for having to make trips to gas stations with LONG lines because the blackout means half the stations don't have working pumps).

However, the idea of V2G isn't very interesting. It's not a technical problem but a logistical one: you drive to work and back, then your PHEV batteries are LOW, and you end up going G2V. V2G only works if you leave your car plugged in in the garage 24/7... and a site-installed flywheel or batteries would be more efficient and less expensive for that purpose.

Now the idea of charging PHEVs at night while the grid is just running base load (and wasting base load) is much better, because you utilize an otherwise wasted power resource to drive to work the next day running only on battery power.

V2G is a solution searching for a problem (and creating more problems in the process).

[seex @ May 3rd 2007 12:06PM]

mp3 hacking