Think of it as the end of cars’ slacker days: No more sitting idle for hours in parking lots or garages racking up payments, but instead earning their keep by providing power to the electricity grid.
Using a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, University scientists are exploring plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) that use grid electricity to meet their power needs then return it to the grid, earning money for the owner.
“Cars sit most of the time,” says Jeff Stein, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “What if it could work for you while it sits there? If you could use a car for something more than just getting to work or going on a family vacation, it would be a whole different way to think about a vehicle, and a whole different way to think about the power grid, too.”
The concept, called vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integration, is part of a larger effort to embrace large-scale changes that are needed to improve the sustainability and resilience of the transportation and electric power infrastructures. If V2G integration succeeds, it will enable the grid to utilize PHEV batteries for storing excess renewable energy from wind and the sun, releasing this energy to grid customers when needed, such as during peak hours.
This will lead to more sustainable transportation and grid infrastructures, and also will increase the resilience of these infrastructures to sharp changes in energy costs, supply or demand.
If PHEVs, which are anticipated to be on the market in 2010, fulfill their promise, millions could be on the road in the decades to come.
“Only by applying thoughtful, well developed science will the nation be able to make the right decisions to effectively address our energy challenges,” says Gary Was, director of the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute, which develops, coordinates and promotes multidisciplinary energy research and education at U-M. “This project will provide policy makers, industry leaders and the public with critical information so that they can make well informed decisions. It is the new face of informed decision making.”
The team, which draws upon expertise in transportation and grid systems, economics, industrial ecology and natural resources, includes Hosam Fathy, Zoran Filipi and Huei Peng in the Department of Mechanical Engineering; Duncan Callaway and Greg Keoleian in the School of Natural Resources and Environment; John Sullivan in the U-M Transportation Research Institute; Jing Sun in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; and Carl Simon, in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
