Vehicle-to-grid will turn suburbs into power plants, won't help undertones of repression

We've been hearing about vehicle-to-grid (V2G) for quite a while, and now a team at the University of Michigan is conducting an extensive study on the technology as part of a national sustainable energy solution. While current electric plants are good at generating power, they often fall short when it comes to storage -- which can be a problem when there's a power surge or when demand increases. V2G will let hybrid-electric owners sell the power their car generates to the electrical power grid whenever the car is not in use. The research team envisions a time when millions of hybrid vehicle owners will come together to create one large battery, allowing us all to play a small part in building our nation's energy independence. And sure, this all sounds good in theory. But wouldn't that mean relying on the neighbors to provide a key piece of the nation's infrastructure? Have you met the neighbors? Doesn't that seem a little... iffy?

[e.jake.ulate @ Oct 4th 2008 1:05AM]

Sennheiser cans?? wait...

[gonintendo @ Oct 4th 2008 1:10AM]

Lol, that's what I thought when I saw it too.

[DaShung @ Oct 4th 2008 1:17AM]

It does not seam iffy to me. I think with more responsibility we regain our humanity, and realize that we are unified even if the neighbours has close contacts with the Borg's...

[edgore @ Oct 4th 2008 1:34AM]

"But wouldn't that mean relying on the neighbors to provide a key"

Are you implying, sir, that myself and all of my suburban neighbors will be involved in some sort of, I don't know, "key party" is this technology comes to pass?

[Artie Lange @ Oct 4th 2008 3:28AM]

My wife always manages to get our hunky neighbor from across the street, while I end up with the 50 year-old divorcée with a smoker's cough. I feel like such a cuckold.

[Sam @ Oct 4th 2008 1:38AM]

I kind of thought this was a stupid idea until I read this in the article:
"Using gasoline-fueled conventional vehicles to generate electricity would be neither cost effective nor clean."
The article seems to say that this would be an occasional use to prevent brown outs when demand spikes.

I disagree with the implication that alternative fuels would make it feasible to use the car as a generator to make money. I think that a power plant designed to run on whatever fuel will always be more efficient and cost effective.

[Robert Abramson @ Oct 4th 2008 1:19PM]

I see what you're saying, and you may be right, but transmission lines do add an inefficiency to the power station equations that isn't present in the vehicle-to-grid idea.
Also, as the article mentions, the cost of doing the car-generator thing is constant while market prices for electricity fluctuate, so what may be economically unfeasible at times of low demand may be viable at times of peak demand. Also, it would be interesting if widespread use of this could provide a sort of "back-up" to the grid in the case of a blackout.

[Russell @ Oct 4th 2008 2:00AM]

Well I would hope you would get paid enough for this to offset the extra wear / charge cycles on your battery...

[dreamscape86 @ Oct 4th 2008 10:45AM]

That would be my concern as well. Frequently discharging the battery to provide a minuscule amount of grid power would wear your battery really quickly, which couldn't be cost-effective for the owner unless the power company paid a substantial watt-hour premium for vehicle-generated electricity.

[Woogs @ Oct 4th 2008 2:03AM]

Doesn't anyone remember the massive blackouts we've experienced this decade already? Let's be clear here:

The North American power grid is already stretched, and cannot tolerate millions of individuals putting small amounts of electricity "back on the grid" at unpredictable times. Period. End of story.

Between states and provinces with power surplusses and power deficits, power transmission infrastructure in North America has very little capacity to spare already. The idea that somehow this grid, without billions in infrastructure upgrades, will tolerate these schemes is laughable.

Any scheme for distributed micro-generation - distributed wind power, solar power, or vehicle generated power, must also include provisions for localized storage or for localized regulation (i.e. the local source cannot use the grid as a 'dump').

[bjsguess @ Oct 4th 2008 2:25AM]

We have plenty of money.

Our gov't is busy dolling out tax breaks for anyone and everything. They just threw in an additional $1.7b (bribe money) to the already enormous $700b bailout plan. If they can fund manufacturers who make children's wooden arrows or Puerto Rican rum producers, surely there's a few bucks under the mattress for infrastructure upgrades.

Why fret over money. It's all pretend anyway.

Another trillion added to our deficit overnight ... wonderful. Thank you Washington, Wall Street, Big Banks, and idiotic consumers.

[thedesolate1 @ Oct 4th 2008 2:29AM]

google is on the job:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10056099-54.html

Can wait for the Android Mobile to be released. It will use open source batteries and none of that proprietary NIMH battery patent EV1 killing nonsense. So any DIY Homebrew battery will work. Just dont buy it from Sony what ever you do.

Oh and suburbia will be the perfect place to turn into this kind of a "power plant" if not for the government and banks trying to finish killing the middle class. So yeah we can turn them into powerplants after all ....just not the way this article is saying. Since in a few years the suburbs will be foreclosure ghost towns. It will leave plenty of space to build a power plant and no human inhabitants to be exposed to health hazzards.

[lawyer bird @ Oct 4th 2008 2:05AM]

Those headphones look nice but how do they SOUND?

[sip @ Oct 4th 2008 2:10AM]

Then lets start building giant capacitors?

[Kevin Dickinson @ Oct 4th 2008 2:19AM]

This seems stupid. It defeats the entire point of having an electric car to begin; in fact, it defeats the entire point of having any car altogether if you're just going to SELL YOUR SPARE FUEL BACK. You're going to need it eventually right? Why on earth would you turn around and get rid of it (most likely at a lesser value than what you paid for it)?

It'd be like buying gasoline for your car, and then turning around and siphoning your tank to the gas company so they could sell it back to you.

[Michael Gogesch @ Oct 4th 2008 2:52AM]

The idea is to use the batterys on your plug in hybrid as a battery for the electric grid. This would not in fact use any of your gasoline, unless you started the car while your batteries low from selling back. Also note that you wouldnt be selling all the time, it's just when demand exceeds that of the current grid capacity to generate.

[zfurie @ Oct 4th 2008 2:37AM]

Okay, why dont we also build those high-rise structures where people generate electricity while sleeping in goo-filled cavities?



Oh shit.

[wickedpheonix @ Oct 4th 2008 12:18PM]

+1 for matrix reference :D

[Reader @ Oct 4th 2008 2:49AM]

This is a step backwards really. The best hybrid solution is the plug in types that charge from the powe rgrid, not give ICE generated power back to it.

[happy_penguin @ Oct 4th 2008 3:10AM]

I agree. I really don't get this concept at all.

[Friendly Neighbor @ Oct 4th 2008 2:53AM]

No, this doesn't seem iffy. Your neighbors are probably good people. Why don't you bake some brownies and go say hello and just be their friend.

[Bc @ Oct 4th 2008 3:08AM]

Stupidest thing I have heard of all day. Gas fired generation plants only work because they have insanely high efficiencies. Burning gasoline in your car is extremely inefficient. Why the f*&% would we want to waste energy to put it into the grid?! It makes more sense to instead burn said gasoline in ACTUAL power plants and not throw away the extra energy.....

[Zorque @ Oct 4th 2008 7:32AM]

Electric cars don't use gasoline?

What's being proposed is that people's electric car batteries will store energy that the plant doesn't have the capacity for, and then they can route that back into the system for a deduction on their power bill or whatever.

[ajfarson @ Oct 4th 2008 3:59AM]

oh sure it sounds innocent... one minute they want to plugin to our cars the next step is plugging us into the grid and providing a spiffy virtual reality for us to "live in" while "the grid" enjoys our juice... sounds familiar...

[Derry Quinn @ Oct 4th 2008 4:09AM]

And yet Americans are strongly opposed to socialism...

...never learn.

[Charles @ Oct 4th 2008 4:36AM]

I don't think you guys get it. This is a plug in hybrid vehicle that is charged from the grid (and benefits from the high efficiencies of modern power plants, or alternative micro generation facilities like wind and pv solar) during periods of low demand, and then acts as a battery backup system for your house during periods of high demand or brownouts. If you are using less energy than your PHV can output during times when powerplants cannot keep up with demand, this system will run that stored power back out to the grid and run your meter backwards, and the utility will be paying YOU those peak rates. It's really a win-win, except as Russell points out, it does put your battery through more taxing cycles. Luckily, by the time this is a reality, I imagine that V2G PHVs will be equipped with advanced lithium batteries that do not exhibit a memory effect.

[Sebastian @ Oct 4th 2008 12:40PM]

Thank you.
It is good to know that at least some people get the idea (even on engadget). The idea is a really smart one and could help us evening out the different peaks in demand and supply of power.
I personally would love to live in a neighborhood where renewable energy is produced whenever the sun shines and wind blows, party stored in the 2+ cars that the average US houshold has and used whenever and wherever we need the energy. (Yea I know doesn't work yet and will be a challenge to get implemented but what the heck - where is our ambition? Is all we can say really 'drill baby, drill'??)

[Macona @ Oct 4th 2008 5:47PM]

The only one this is Win/Win for is the power company.

First, you cannot just feed power back into the grid. You have to have a special disconnect that if the grid goes down it ensures that you are not feeding power back into the grid. The prevents issues of a lineman working on what should be a dead line and getting shocked. Also protects your inverter as it will be trying to run the entire neighborhood now. This setup, including the meter for reverse feed, is bought from the power company.

Second, the power company will only pay you at wholesale rates. So you charge your car at X rate, sell it back to them at 1/X and then recharge your car at X again.

Third, your car will have to have a phase matching inverter. And a pretty good sized one at that. It will take quite a bit of power to be useful. This means weight, which means less fuel efficiency. Which the power company will be happy to supply at that X rate again!

[paul-engadget @ Oct 4th 2008 4:50AM]

in other analyses I've seen, to recharge your plugin electric car (whether it has a hybrid drive train or all-electric like the Volt), it'd put a very heavy load on the grid, the high currents involved would cause lossage due to resistive heating, and generally not be scalable. therefore, you'd need an energy storage at your home recharging station, which would gradually charge up during the off-peak hours and thus give you fast charge capability on demand.

I would guess that this home recharge station would be a combination of battery and ultracapacitors, and it is these that could feed power back into the grid under *controlled* circumstances.

note too that the battery controllers in your electric car are very sophisticated to avoid damaging the batteries, far more so than a Sony LiIon charger (IME Sony seem to have better battery tech than most others), which is one reason why the Prius isn't cheap, and also why they are finding Prius batteries are lasting a long time!

[Dan @ Oct 4th 2008 12:54PM]

I think Paul's prob got it about right the idea would be that your PLUG IN hybrid or whatever ev would act as a short term store for the national grid. So you'd just be holding the energy minus charging / discharging ineff to prevent another Power station having to come online what you all go for a cup of tea during a break in 'Eastenders' old chap.

Of course you are all assuming that your HEV / EV will run on batteries.... hydrogen / methanol fuel cells seems like a more viable alt to fossil fuels. I t wuld suck however to wake up to drive to work, only to find that the man has used all of your fuel!

[THomas @ Oct 4th 2008 8:30AM]

I think we need to have an electical grid in place that can "napsterize/p2p/kazaa" electricity..... Every home/apartment building/office should have some solar panels and small wind generator and any other small source of electricity. Everyone gives when they have extra, everyone takes when they need....

[graham @ Oct 4th 2008 8:31AM]

This doesn't make any sense at all to me. If I park my electric car and plug it in to charge I expect it to be FULL (or fuller) when I get back. If the grid is allowed to pull power from my battery then, at any time, there is a chance that when I need my car it won't be full or will even be more discharged than when I left it.

[Wodheila @ Oct 4th 2008 8:50AM]

Hey! You want to be part of the solution or part of the problem? We're all in this together!

(Just kidding but get ready)

[HDGmansur Janitors @ Oct 4th 2008 10:55AM]

Think about parking meters as either an up load station or down load station. Put money in to recharge. Park free for down load.;)

[Static @ Oct 4th 2008 10:43AM]

I think a fair number of people are missing a key point:

Are people going to be OK with selling their "amps" back to the grid, depleting the energy in their cars? This may work for a hybrid vehicle, but isn't going to fly with a full-on electric vehicle. You're going to wake up one morning, and find out that you can't get to work because your battery was drained last night (due to local power outage, or the Emmy's being on TV, whatever).
This is going to have further issues when the buying and selling of "amps" occurs. The power company is going to want to buy low, and sell high (sorry, but I've seen profit motive to be one of the strongest forces known to man). Is John Q. Public going to be OK with selling a kilowatt hour of current to the grid for a buck, only to have to pay $1.50 to get it back later?

Integrating the battery back-up into the house makes a tremendous amount of sense, but going beyond your own front door seems to have some serious hurdles.

[Charles @ Oct 4th 2008 3:03PM]

Except that battery would only drain during hours of peak use (during the day when people are running a/c units, dryers, etc), and would charge at night (when the powerplant has a big chunk of unused capacity). Your electric/PHEV car would always end up fully charged by the morning. Not to mention that once this is commonplace, I'm sure you'll be allowed to set a minimum discharge capacity for you battery (so it never goes below 50% for example)

[trannypunk @ Oct 4th 2008 11:04AM]

look - this is not iffy at all. This makes perfect sense. Mx. Author you are just not, as they say, "thinking with portals". This is cloud computing - this is the one machine, sociologically this the monoculture of the future, the great biological multi-processor computer experiment on a planet the biological inhabitants have named 'earth'.
It makes perfect sense. The structure of society determines the ideology - not the other way around. You give your neighbors, or even imagine - the whole damn nation - cars that just automatically give back and supply for others and social patterns will warp to meet the plane of the structure, in this case the community consciousness that grows from the communal power sharing.
To think of it even more radically, call it power sharing, and then relate it to society: consider the phrase itself - 'power sharing'. 'Power'. Not to get all wingnut on you, but in Roddenberry's Star Trek the future depicts monocultural planets - pretty much everyone on the Klingon Homeworld is into the whole kill kill, metal armor, crazy music, dictatorial war culture. The related is true also for Vulcan, Romulus, etc. Their is an implied inevitability of imperialism.
The upside is that the more people that the empire converts - the faster the computer gets. The human brain runs at something like 70 mhz. That is abysmal. However monoculture, like a cloud computer - will be SO fucking fast. Multiply 70 mhz by 6.7 billion. That is pretty fast. The problem is that the machine still has A LOT of data lag. It is really embarrassing. If I was playing "capitalism" in 1400 AD I would just log out and eat a hot pocket - imagine the lag. 3-6 months to sent a message a distance that we now cover in seconds. The internet is the next logical step for the one machine. We don't actually have to be close to each other, but if we get everyone, EVERYONE, on the internet, or whatever we call it in the future, in a few generations we will have a machine running at darn near full capacity. Consider how much more innovative humans can be due to the data we share now on the internet. Consider that the new generation is just keeping information on the internet, outside of the brain. We don't bother to memorize as much because of the internet.
So as the machine gets closer, the individual processors will become more aware of each other - and determine ways to run the machine as fast as is stable - and stability depends on common good. If a hurricane wipes out a significant part of the machine we lose that much power, that much ability to run better programs.
So what is happening is the one machine has figured out a way to power itself off of what is essentially perpetual motion. Humans are always going to move. Always. And yes, that movement takes energy fuel - but our movement is an untapped energy source, and EVER LASTING until we all die off or evolve.
And the catch is that we have to trust our neighbors? OH NOE! I think I would rather get over my ignorance, plug into the thing, and see what happens in 200 years.

[Samboini @ Oct 4th 2008 11:36AM]

TL; DR

[John @ Oct 4th 2008 11:14AM]

This isn't about generation of power but rather it's storage. Excess power generated by power plants, solar cells and wind is stored in PHEV's until it is needed during peak usage periods. Chances are you won't be running your car in your garage to power street lights! I imagine you'd be able to control when/if you want to allocate your PHEV's power to the grid.

[BigD145 @ Oct 4th 2008 11:19AM]

Most state power grids need to be replaced. Many components are 60 years past their expiration dates.

[Clone @ Oct 4th 2008 12:20PM]

It's not very applicable if you think about it. When is the grid in dire need of energy? When people are home and using lots of energy for example a hot summer month. So if I understand it correctly. I would plug my hypothetical plug in electric/hybrid ( which probably non of us owns for at least another 3 years) and be stuck home in theory to give miniscue amount back to the grid. ( How much power is there in a volt by the way? ) Being stuck at home I would probably be surfing, watching HD tv, and having my air conditioner on probably sucking more power from the grid than putting back.

It seems counter intuitive. No to mention it will take another 8 hours to charge my plug in hybrid, which I will probably use non peak hours to charge. So I am at home another 8 hours on top of that. I would have used less electricitydriving my car during these hours and going to the mall, the beach, or the museum.

[pretol @ Oct 4th 2008 3:05PM]

Strange,

We're ok relying on our neighbors for FOOD, WATER, and EVEN ANAL LUBRICANTS.

But GOD DAMN, if our neighbors start making electricity.

[sarcasm-sarcasm]

[Misuzu @ Oct 4th 2008 3:09PM]

Bit-torrent style electricity? How can I loose!?

[pretol @ Oct 4th 2008 3:14PM]

On a different note:

This concept of charging up the grid with hybrids is SIMPLY IDIOTIC. It defeats the whole purpose of hybrid technology. You might as well get a 1000W gasoline generator and charge the grid right now (YOU CAN DO THIS, and yes the counter will spin backwards, and E-company will pay you money for you electricity - NOT THE BURNT GASOLINE). It's simply DUMB, and is a straight forward step BACKWARD in efficiency.

p.s. maybe I'm not getting some fundamental principle

[Bill @ Oct 4th 2008 3:32PM]

Electric vehicles store very little power compared to what residential connections can suck from the grid.

I'd rather keep that 8 kWh of capacity in my Volt's battery instead of selling it to the grid (for less than a buck), given that electricity (in my atea) is about 1/5 the cost of gasoline when driving a Volt.

A Chevy Volt (or another ER-EV) would make a nice whole-house UPS/emergency generator for my house (not my neighbor's).

Shut off a few circuits and run the lights, fridge, TV, and furnace fan w/o having to buy a separate generator.

[Rogbog4299 @ Oct 4th 2008 3:37PM]

I haved heard about vehicle-to-grid for quite a while! And its about time it was looked into. Those guys at the University of Michigan will get it done now for sure!

[Kevin M @ Oct 4th 2008 4:01PM]

I think that two-way V2G would work with two provisions:
-it must not damage the battery so much that the replacement costs more than the money V2G saves
-the user must have control of when and how much electricity can be sold back (perhaps set a "minimum charge" level?)

Tesla Motors (producer of depicted vehicle) takes a more conservative approach to V2G (it's not implemented yet, but it's in development). The vehicle will never sell its electricity back to the grid, but it will charge less (or not at all) during peak times, and charge more during off-peak and when the grid is using more renewables (i.e. sunny/windy days).

Read more about the Tesla system here: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog4/?p=62

[doctorSpoc @ Oct 5th 2008 3:23PM]

electric and fuel cell vehicles are a scam anyway... in the US ~80 of the electricity is made with coal so an electric vehicle is really a coal powered vehicles. how many would sign up for coal powered vehicles? how dumb can people be... electric vehicles at least in the US are not "clean".. your producing the electricity with coal and even for hydrogen powered vehicles it still takes coal to make the electricity to make the hydrogen... don't be scammed!

[Scott B @ Oct 5th 2008 10:17PM]

The idea is to be implemented on a new grid infrastructure called Smart Grid (Look it up on wikipedia).

[Doc @ Oct 6th 2008 9:41AM]

I didn't read all the comment to save time so excuse me if i'm repeating someone elses idea... but... I don't see this being a near future kind of thing... however. It does put an idea in my head that if you have a car that can produce electricity in your garage that can plug into your house, you now have a car/generator to power you home or at least your refrigerator during a blackout from say... the increasing number of hurricanes we seem to get each year. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. *ding*