Can electric vehicles supply power to homes? The short answer is yes! Electric vehicles can be connected to the electric grid, not only to draw electricity from the grid (in order to recharge their batteries), but also to supply power. The longer answer is that not only canelectric vehicles power homes, they should!
When you discuss this with friends, they may come up with questions such as: "Isn't this inefficient? If electric vehicles get their power from the grid and then feed that power back into the grid, wouldn't that result in losses up to 25% of the power?" They may also ask: "If the electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants, isn't that more polluting?"
Well, let's look into these questions a bit more closely. There's a peak demand for electricity during the day, continuing into the evening, when everyone has their lights and TV-sets on. Feeding energy back into the grid means that the grid may have to burn less fossil fuel to meet peak demand.
Electric vehicles could be set to recharge their batteries at night, when there's little demand and rates are low. At off-peak times, there's plenty of unused capacity in the grid, enough to potentially power73% of the energy needs of today's cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, and vans, without adding generation or transmission. We wouldn't need to import oil anymore either.
| We need a smart network, with two-way metering of electricity and with floating prices, both for drawing and supplying electricity to and from the grid. This would make it financially attractive for electric cars to supply electricity to the grid when demand is high. It would also make overall electricity supply more robust, better capable to handle outages, congestion, glitches and peaks. There are further benefits. Gasoline cars are more polluting than power plants. The average thermal efficiency of cars is around 20%, while it is about 33% for coal-fired power plants (for new plants it can go up to 40%). On a mile by mile comparison, an electric car emits less CO2 than a conventional car, even when the electricity that powers the electric car came from a coal-fired powerplant. So, even if the power originally came from coal-fired power plants, it still makes more sense to drive an electric car. Moreover, as time goes on, more and more surplus power is likely to come from wind farms, which can supply huge amounts of clean energy at night. |  |
Another consideration is that electric vehicles could store more power than what's needed to drive them. Most trips we make are short. The average vehicle usage is only about 35 miles per day or one hour per day. The average US passenger car is parked and idle for about 23 hours a day. All that time, the batteries in these cars could be connected to the grid, either drawing or supplying power.
In conclusion, these points are no excuses for buying a gasoline car. Even if you don't have solar panels (yet) at your home or place of work, electric vehicles make more sense. Similarly, if your car has a fuel cell and your place of work has access to cheap hydrogen, it makes sense to use that fuel cell to feed power into the electric grid, while your car is parked there.
As a final note, even during the day, when your car may be parked at your place of work, it may be attractive to top up your car battery. If your office has roof-top solar panels, then it's a no-brainer. But even if your office lacks solar panels, and despite higher rates during the day, it may still be attractive. With prices for electricity publicly available on the net, you could set your car to start charging the battery for as much as you need to drive and to power your home for the rest of the day. In the evening, you could then power your lights, PC and TV-set from your car battery and any other equipment and appliances that you may use. If what you pay at work is less than what you'd pay at home during the peak evening period, then this will lower your overall electricity cost; it could also safeguard you better against outages and glitches in the electric grid. You may even consider going off-grid altogether and let your electric vehicle power your home!
References:
Electric vehicles as a new power source for utilities
Potential Impacts of High Penetration of Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles on the U.S. Power Grid
June 2007 workshop
Electric Drive Vehicles as Distributed Power Generation Systems - by AC Propulsion
http://www.acpropulsion.com/technology/Veh_grid_power.htm
Why Not Switch to Electric Cars? - by Doug Korthof
http://baltimorechronicle.com/2005/083005Korthof.shtml
Phoenix Motorcars - extended battery pack
Phoenix Electric Truck: Fantasy No More
Test Drive: Phoenix Motorcars electric Sport Utility Vehicle
Altairnano NanoSafe cell charged to over 80% charge capacity in about one minute
How To Build A Quick-Charging Electric Battery
Can Altairnano Deliver the Goods?
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Comments: 6
Thanks Joe, you're very welcome. Unfortunately, the chances that we will have such a distributed grid soon are reduced because there are so many who have been over-privileged over many years and who have vested interests in the status quo. As I have described in other articles, we need a feebate policy that discourages polluting activities and encourages safe and clean alternatives.