This is a combination of an electric car and off-peak energy pricing to even out energy usage and reduce need for new power plants. First, we need to have the electric companies be regulated to price energy at different rates during the day and night to encourage off peak usage (washers, dryers, dishwashers and charging you car can all occur at night). Next, you have a simple system that allows your home electric system draw energy from your plugged in car during the day. So now you have purchased cheap energy at night and are using it during the day. If you don't have a spare car at home, you could sell your stored electric to your company as you are parked in the garage at work. Your car can be programmed to stop energy withdrawal with enough capacity to get you home at night. A simpler system would just allow your car to be a backup battery that would kick in if there was a power outage. Yes, this requires some infrastructure changes but they cold be gradual and incremental.
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I doubt that it is smart to drain power from a car to run household devices. A car battery doesn't hold all that much power and in an emergency it's wise to keep the car fully charged.
Sand, there are so many ways to make this work and be palatable to the average driver. First, there is already an established market for load balancing where the electric company borrows electricity for a few minutes then puts it back. This would be perfect for a commuter car where you come out of work at the end of the day and the charge is exactly where you left it, but the electric company is sending you a $10 check each week for the right to borrow. The next step up could be a longer term borrowing of electricity, say during peak AC usage from noon to 3pm, then they charge it all back before you leave at 5 or 6pm.
Yes, you would not want to be stranded in your house by draining your car during a power outage, but you can control that and if you have two cars you can keep one in complete reserve.
I read that the average house uses about 1.5 Kilowats and a Toyota Scion stores 19Kw. Another article says an Austin, Tx company (EEStor) is working on a battery that stores 52 Kilowatt hours. Either way, lots of backup or power for your house.
We already know the electric company pays people to be on a "shutdown" list for items like AC in the summer peak hours. They send a signal over the line and your AC circuit cuts off for 30-45 minutes. For that they pay you a fee each month. The thought processes above are all logical extensions of that.
Part of the problem is that increased use of night time energy will raise its cost and decrease its availability. You also have to look at the energy source, because a nuclear plant has different economics from a plant running on natural gas or oil.
Puddinhead, I'm in agreement with sand and Belmont--this would only be worthwhile if you could save money doing it--these are the reasons I think it might be more costly:1. I think it would shorten the battery life of your car2. you'll lose energy to inefficiency converting it to DC and putting it in the battery and again taking it back out and converting it to AC. As much as 30 percent, I'm guessing. 3. the nighttime energy still uses as much coal (or whatever fuel) to generate, so the pricing breaks are purely artificial and likely to go away if everyone did this. Also, wind power is naturally less at night--as more wind power is used, this would be counterintuitive.
hrench: I will concede (a bit) on your first two points, although 30% loss sounds high and sounds like it can be overcome with technological advances. On the third point, the issue is not the absolute use, which in the equation would clearly be equal, but in the advantages of load balancing. Power plants must be built to handle the peak loads, as does the distribution infrastructure. If you can store power at people's houses/cars, then you can alleviate some of these problems. During peak conditions, electric companies often resort to alternative energy sources that are more expensive.
To answer another question: yes the night time price would tend to increase, but it would not get near the high demand of daytime. In California, the electric company must buy excess solar power from homes at a high daily rate. Home owners can sign up for and structure where they buy or sell during day at high rate (sell) and buy at night for much lower. So this has been done. Let's move beyond cars and imagine a big home battery (like having solar). You juice it up at night (cheap) and use it (or sell it back) during day. The energy savings could pay for a loan that covered the cost of the battery (or allow overall savings to make it desirable to consumers). Germany does solar like this.