Electric Vehicles as Back Up Power
Normally we think of electric cars as consumers of electricity and as an environmental friendly means of transport. Nisan however came up with the idea that the electric cars can be used as a back up power source during power outages.
A Nissan leaf has a 24 - 30 kWh battery where the Tesla has a 60 - 100 kWh battery. The average US household uses around 32kWh per day. As can be seen this means that an Electric Vehicle is a viable back up power source for house hold use.
The photo below, shows the LEAF to Home converter. This gets wired up to your home power supply and plugged into the car. When a power cut occurs the car goes from being charged to providing power to the home.
A further use for this technology would be to take some strain from the power grid during peak hours. Instead of reducing usage during this peak hours, the household could uncouple from the grid and use the car to power the house or some portion of the total power consumption. Charging of the car batteries can then be resumed after peak hour, during the night, when the grid has excess capacity.
Also think about the possibility for office buildings. The electric cars could be used as Uninterupted Power Supply, UPS's for computers and sensitive electric equipment. The employer will provide charging stations for employees vehicles. These vehicles will be connected to the office building's electric supply. In the event of a power cut the electric vehicle will automatically switch to supplying power to the computers etc, minimizing down time, disruptions and damage to sensitive equipment.
Currently the problem is that we don't have enough electric vehicles on the roads to use for office buildings, but the few people who have them for private vehicles could be smiling, busy steeming, when the rest of us sits in the dark, waiting for the power to come back on.
Look at the cool charging station below, independent of the grid, this is as green and sustainable as it gets.
Electric vehicles do not have to be boring, just look at the beautiful Tesla below.
I hope you enjoyed reading the post