Why are not Plug-in Electric and Hybrid not a part of the Power Grid?
Seems to me that if cars were factored in as part of the grid, they could store energy when it is cheap and sell it back when it is high.
A multi-fuel motor might even be able to to produce electricity at a profit to the car owner when a fuel is cheap.
All that would really be needed is a two-way meter with a cost-activated control.
So, You’re saying that it is do-able, but prohibitively expensive.
But won’t those lines need to be upgraded anyway as usage increases?
And doesn’t that create jobs?
And couldn’t those same cars be used to power the house buying cheaper electris at off peak and mininizing the need for new power lines?
3 Responses to “Why are not Plug-in Electric and Hybrid not a part of the Power Grid?”
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You would also need centralized capacity controls. The transmission lines are already operating at capacity, all the extra power transmitted to and from the plug-ins would require significant and costly infrastructure upgrades. As it is, we’re only planning on “smart” transmission lines where sensors allow us to increase capacity by reducing the safety margins on those lines. Whether to buy or sell to the grid can’t be a purely consumer decision when we’re this close to the grid’s maximum capacity.
The infrastructure is also designed for power distribution from central generation sites and hence have higher capacity lines the closer you are to the generation site and smaller cheaper lines the further away you are. Also the breakers are more sensitive the further away you are and break at higher current levels the closer in you are. The plug-ins would represent distributed co-generation and much of the grid simply would not have the capacity required.
Basically two thirds of the existing transmission lines would need to be replaced to do what you are proposing. For a modest city, that could easily be in the tens to hundreds of billion dollars, that would be an unheard of national infrastructure expensive many times the current trillion dollar economic stimulus plans.
fantastic idea!
Gret minds etc.
The process is known as “vehicle to grid” http://www.udel.edu/V2G/
and it can indeed improve the efficiency of the grid, especially for variable renewable energy sources.
It is not to expensive and AC propulsion have sucessfully demonstrated the process and it is in the new BMW mini ev http://www.acpropulsion.com/company/press-releases.php
“The AC Propulsion charger is flexible and can use 120V, 208V, or 240V outlets. Convenience charging from any 110V wall outlet reduces range anxiety by providing plug-in-anywhere capability. AC Propulsion’s tzero™ technology provides an additional state of the art feature available only with the AC Propulsion drive system – the charger works both ways – it is bi-directional. The charger can discharge the battery as well as charge it. In effect, the charger can serve as a regulated power source with many possible applications including, battery pack self-diagnosis, back-up power, car-to-car charging, and, perhaps most importantly in the future, providing ancillary services to the power grid. Engineers have a term for this – vehicle-to-grid or V2G – and it promises to make smart grids of the future more efficient in providing electric power for cars as well as buildings.”