As many people have been saying for years, big batteries in cars are a valuable resource that shouldn’t sit there doing nothing for the 95% of the time that cars are parked.
Turning that obvious idea into reality isn’t easy, however. The technology doesn’t seem too hard but all the ancillary stuff is a mess: industry standards so that different techs can interact, regulations so that utilities can deal with another erratic input, rate cases so that the car owner makes enough money to be worthwhile.
Massachusetts, which is pretty forward-thinking in this area, is launching a vehicle-to-grid test – but it’s only 100 vehicles, reports Canary Media (story here). You’d think we had moved beyond that stage, but apparently not: “The trick is to move from the experiment stage to a safe, simple, and profitable program for a majority of the state’s EV owners, he said. It’s not something any other state or utility has managed to pull off.”
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