photo: CalCars
Thanks to Felix Kramer of the California Cars Initiative for tipping off Green Wombat to an enlightening exchange between a Toyota executive and a U.S. energy commissioner on the automaker’s blog. The topic: plugging a plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) version of the Prius into the power grid to supply electricity when demand peaks. Toyota (TM) corporate communications exec Irv Miller wrote a post on July 26 about the company’s move to supply plug-in versions of the Prius to the University of California, Berkeley, and UC Irvine for testing. In response, Jon Wellinghoff, a commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, posted a query on Toyota’s Open Road blog about the car’s vehicle-to-grid capability, or V2G in green car geek talk, which would allow owners to be compensated for generating electricity. "Is Toyota planning on incorporating this ‘cashback’ hybrid technology into the cars they produce for testing?" asked Wellinghoff. "Studies have demonstrated that PHEV with vehicle-to-grid capability can realize annual payments from electric grid operators of between $1,000 to $3,000. These cashback payments could completely offset the high cost of this technology. What is Toyota doing in this regard?"
In a lengthy reply posted less than a day later – warp speed for a multinational corporation dealing with a hot-button topic – Miller said Toyota’s priority is to produce production-ready PHEVs rather than build mini power plants. "Our expertise is in building motor vehicles. It’s not in power generation," wrote Miller. "That’s something that we would prefer to leave to those best equipped to do it." Nevertheless, he went on to discuss the challenges of V2G. Among them:
- Battery performance.
- Coordinating thousands of PHEVs to supply power to the grid.
- Building and financing the V2G infrastructure.
- Consumer’s willingness to accept lower fuel efficiency by giving up battery power to the grid.
(One hurdle not mentioned but something that Tesla Motors CEO Martin Eberhard has raised with Green Wombat is the impact of V2G on PHEV or electric car battery life.)
"The automobile business is changing and will, we feel sure, require strategies, partnerships and alliances we might not even have thought of yet. We don’t even know, for sure, if PHEVs will come to market in the way in which we think they will," concluded Miller. "So while the potential for V2G is another intriguing aspect of hybrid technology, we must not become sidetracked so that we lose sight of the immediate goal. That goal is to produce an affordable, reliable PHEV that can be sold in large quantities, that can be serviced at any dealership, and that will meet the needs of the American motorist."
For CalCars’s Kramer, whose organization promotes plug-in hybrids, Toyota’s willingness to even publicly discuss vehicle-to-grid was more important than Miller’s laundry list of obstacles to V2G. "The company’s reservations are less significant than the fact that it is paying very serious attention to the subject," Kramer told Green Wombat in an email. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area you might spot the PHEV enthusiast tooling around in his converted 100-miles-to-the-gallon plug-in Prius, as Green Wombat did just the other weekend out at Point Reyes National Seashore.
Green Wombat is also fascinated by how a high-level U.S. government energy official and a corporate executive are having a direct, and apparently minimally mediated, open discussion via blog on a matter of public policy. Toyota’s willingness to talk no doubt owes in part to the pressure exerted by groups like CalCars and the interest of utilities like PG&E (PCG) and Southern California Edison (EIX) in V2G. Google (GOOG) also has focused attention on the issue by installing a vehicle-to-grid charging stations at its corporate headquarters in Mountain View. Now the question is, will Honda (HMC), General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) join the discussion?
Green Wombat 
Government: Lets mismanage our energy infrastructure and spend tax dollars that were meant for roads and infrastructure on other things. Then when bridges collapse and we have brown outs, we can just raise taxes again and force automobile companies to build cars to power our grid. If anyone complains, we’ll blame it on George Bush and global warming deniers.
With all this talk about energy efficiency and “clean” technologies, I am baffled that there is no media attention paid to natural gas vehicles for consumers. The fuel is widely used throughout the US to power municipal vehicles like trash trucks and other fleets such as buses and field service trucks, yet I have seen ZERO discussion about perhaps the most attractive aspect of NGVs for consumers: they can be filled at home. I am dumbfounded that the US hasn’t constructed a new oil refinery in 30+ years for “environmental” reasons, but the blight of ~200,000 gas stations across the US doesn’t seem to bother anyone – that is, until a plume of MTBE starts heading toward a municipal water supply. The ground under every single gas station taken out of commission is heavily polluted and must be extensively remediated. Meanwhile, natural gas is already a fixture of our nation’s residential and commercial infrastructure. And it burns extremely clean. And it’s inexpensive compared to gasoline and diesel (but that is bound to change). Sure, it’s a fossil fuel, but at least OPEC doesn’t tell us how much it’s going to cost.
Yes I drive a natural gas vehicle and yes I fill it at my home. Yes I pay ~$1.15/gallon and can travel ~275 miles for about $8 and I haven’t visited a filthy gas station (or “travel center” if you prefer that euphemism) in a long time. Yes I earned a $4,000 tax credit for purchasing my new NGV last year, and sold my five-year old NGV for more than half of what I paid for it in 2002. Yes I paid $3,580 for my home refueling appliance, but my state’s air quality board gave me a $2,000 instant rebate on it and I have already saved at least twice that in fuel cost (let alone time saved) over the last two years. Yes I can drive my NGV solo in the HOV lane. And yes I’m wondering why more people aren’t buying natural gas vehicles.
The utilities DON’T pay for excess electric power!
We generate MORE electric than we use, but of course they DON’T PAY for excess, it just carries over month by month, then is wiped out and taken back by the utilities.
Anyone who thinks that V2G makes sense is NAIVE, MISINFORMED, or just plain ignorant.
Both the grid, and cars, need their energy in the daytime; so V2G makes no sense at all.
The most a Toyota RAV4-EV holds is 28 kWh. It costs us nothing to charge up on this off-peak, but it’s ILLEGAL for us to use it to run back into the grid. We get “charged” 14 cents per kWh at night, off-peak, but get “paid” for generation 50 cents per kWh in the daytime peak summer hours. Even if we sold all of it back every day, instead of driving, that would be only $14/day in the summer and $5/day in the winter, or about $400 per year.
For the Plug-in Prius, it has only 9 kWh, so even if you sold ALL of it (illegally) at the TOP rate (instead of driving) you would only get $4.50 per day in the summer and $1/day in the winter.
Fantasies of V2G are just a distraction to the main problem, which is getting the NiMH battery patents back from Chevron, and putting the superior NiMH batteries back into production inside plug-in EVs.
http://SealBeach.org
Our rooftop solar system powers two plug-in Toyota RAV4-EV
Well, this is the exact reason Ford has teamed with California Edison. They have already joined the discussion. Ford’s goal is to share the risk of developing a plug-in hybrid with a utility provider. The emissions from a “ubiquitous” network of cars are less than most power plants which have crude emissions controls at best. It would also allow grid operators to manage load better and prevent fast ramp-up and ramp-downs that create inefficiencies and risk of outages.
Currently, the couple Rav4 or Ranger EVs on the road aren’t going to return that much because power generators cannot be bolstered by a very small fleet. They can, however, be bolstered by a larger fleet of say 20,000-30,000 vehicles in a large market like LA. That many vehicles may be able to keep a power plant ramp-up smooth, constant and efficient during demand spikes, saving the provider money by avoiding inefficient operating conditions and returning money in greater amounts to consumers who share on the grid.
It is totally possible, and a good direction. But, there are a lot of challenges to meet before this can be accomplished: a new battery woudl be the biggest. Producing NiMH batteries are hard on the environment and are inefficient compared to Li+ or other more advanced materials. We need a real revolution in this space before we can dream of either effective PHEVs or V2G.
But, I’m very hopeful, and actually proud of Ford for jumping so directly into the game of PHEV and V2G issues.
To “Robert” and “liveoilfree” –
I don’t know the answer to this, so please excuse me: how can cars with disposable batteries, or cars that can only use a portion of the solar-generated electricity a given user/producer generates, be the solution to the problem of dependence on foreign energy sources in the short term and fossil fuels in the long term?
I spend a lot of time trying to understand the effects of the consumption choices I make. The purchase of my first natural gas vehicle in 2002 came after an exhaustive look into all options at the time. My first choice was the Saturn/GM EV1 electric, but I was told they were no longer for sale to individuals. That left gasoline, diesel, LPG, and CNG – the easy choice was CNG based on availability, price, emissions, and model choices.
I applaud both of you for pursuing alternatives to gasoline and diesel, and I don’t know what the future holds, but I know at least some of the electricity production by public utilities is by coal and hydroelectric and I have no interest in adding to the demand for that power source. I installed my first PV array in 2001 and enjoyed “net zero” energy, so I have walked in your shoes at least a few steps, and I know the energy I produced was not the energy I used nor could I directly profit from my investment in photovoltaics.
Let’s keep the discussion going – I have a lot to learn. My hopes are high for hydrogen vehicle fuel, and my ongoing talks with the head of the alt fuels group at American Honda are fueling that optimism. I feel natural gas is the clearest path between today and tomorrow. For once, I want to see the consumer win the battle instead of the producer.
-Ken
There are batteries that can handle the extra cycling V2G would subject car batteries to. The funny thing is, they might go into the grid before they go into cars! (they are expensive for cars right now). See link below
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/23/ap3942041.html
Note that PHEV tech places the greatest strain on batteries if you want to drive as far as possible in EV mode. Since most trips are the full length of the EV range of the PHEV batteries, they will be deep-cycled more in this application than in BEV’s or HEV’s.
Who the hell cares about the environment? Let’s spend $400 billion in Iraq so no one will have any money to build power plans or maintain bridges!