As of this morning, the squawk box was chattering ’bout how gas prices were gonna get worse. And they’re already above the $3 mark, if that ain’t bad enough. Summer’s approaching with promises of road trips and umpteen weekends spent driving to and from the beach; and there’s the inevitable power outage thanks to air-conditioners running overtime.
Most of us are running low on gas and/or on money to pay for gas, thereby implying a gas shortage of sorts. Many of us have made the move to hybrid vehicles that use lesser gasoline than the rest, and use a specialized electric battery to drive their wheels at lower speeds; thereby reducing gasoline consumption, and money.
And then PG&E decides to make like it was 2001 and socialize a “Vehicle-to-Grid” technology that serves to move electricity from a hybrid / electric car battery, to the house powering it and/or the PG&E electric grid; i.e. the opposite way.
Effectively, this makes a hybrid vehicle work like a generator. That would be really, really cool, if it weren’t for the fact that the average household power generator had a retail price that was about a quarter of the price of the average hybrid vehicle.
The article(s) linked to above speak to how PG&E got itself a modded Prius that ran entirely off electricity. It goes on to say that:
“In front of many of the Silicon Valley’s industry and governmental leaders, PG&E showed the reverse flow of energy from the vehicle back to the outlet – a first public showcase for any utility. Once connected to the outlet, PG&E then ran several lights and appliances to show how V2G could benefit its customers.
Although PG&E’s PHEV is currently in prototype form, the company sees the possibility that its customers will be able to take advantage of V2G technology and PHEVs by providing power to their home or businesses during hot summer days to avoid high energy prices and help prevent outages.
In addition to reducing energy costs, V2G technology could provide the ability for customers to sell back energy to the utility during hot afternoons when demand is highest and most costly to avoid blackouts. During these periods, energy is worth several times more than overnight when vehicles charge. Vehicle owners will select a price threshold at which they are willing to sell energy, and when the price reaches this point the utility will be able to automatically draw energy out of the vehicle, leaving enough for the drive home if necessary. The utility’s customers would then earn credit in the amount of energy used by the utility toward their monthly energy bill.”
- Sell back the energy stored by the battery in a Prius with its engine turned off?
Seriously? What’s that going to get me? Enough money to buy a Slurpee?
- And if the engine is running, what is the Prius running on? Hopes and dreams? Or gas? If I had a choice, I’d prefer the former. Its cheaper.
I just don’t get it. A generator’s cheaper than a Prius, and selling back the miniscule amount of electricity made by a Prius would be hardly worth the effort. Even in the Utopian scenario of “one person, one hybrid” powering the PG&E grid when all those hybrids are parked in the office parking lot / garage during peak hours; it’d be a trickle, at best.
I’d suggest subsidizing solar cell arrays to the point at which everyone could drape a sheet of solar cells over every sky-facing structure they had access to. Heck, I’d replace all my curtains with solar cell arrays if I could. Ditto house and garage roofs, patio umbrellas and pretty much everything that faces the big bright light in the sky.
Perhaps then they could call it Sun-to-Grid technology?
