For 15 years, Kempton, who directs the University of Delaware’s Center for Carbon-Free Power Integration, has pushed the idea that fleets of electric vehicles — rather than being another big draw on the electric grid — could provide valuable backup power on demand to utilities. This would reduce the need for costly new generating plants, and help ensure a reliable supply of electricity.
Utilities pay each other billions of dollars a year for such backup power through wholesale electricity markets, and Kempton believes that a hefty slice of that pie could be paid to electric-vehicle owners instead. Some industry analysts agree that the approach, known as “vehicle-to-grid,” could take off; a December 2010 report from the business research firm Global Data conservatively projected a global market for vehicle-to-grid that would pay $2.3 billion to electric vehicle owners by 2012 — and $40 billion by 2020. Kempton and his colleagues have made some influential converts in policy circles, too. Marc Spitzer, a commissioner with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has described the plan as “the salvation of the automotive industry in the United States.”
Read the entire article at Miller-McCune: Vehicle-to-Grid: A New Spin on Car Payments.
(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
Loading...