If a quarter of America’s cars went electric, they could store more energy than that produced for the nation’s entire electricity grid, an expert on electric transportation says. Making them a backup power source for the grid faces significant challenges, however.
Plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles could grow to be a greater source, or sink, of power than the entire American electricity generation system. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
It’s a question that utilities and policy makers have been grappling with as they prepare for what could be millions of new electric-powered vehicles to hit American streets. Unless those cars can be charged at times of lowest electricity demand, they could overwhelm the electric grid or require huge new investments in power generation.
But Jasna Tomic, new fuels program manager for Calstart, a nonprofit group promoting clean transportation, sees the conundrum as a big opportunity for such vehicles to serve as backup power for the grid, through so-called “vehicle-to-grid,” or V2G, technology.
If a quarter of the nation’s car fleet was to go plug-in hybrid or electric, the combined energy they could store would equal about 750 gigawatts, Tomic said Thursday at the Opportunities in Grid-Connected Mobility conference in San Francisco. Of course, that’s a share of the market that could take decades to reach, but if it comes about, “That basically surpassed the size of the electric grid,” she said.
via Greentech Media: Electric Vehicles Could Surpass Grid or Support It.
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