Electric cars are more expensive than gasoline-powered models, mainly because the batteries cost so much. However, new technology could turn these expensive devices into an asset, providing owners with benefits such as reduced utility bills, lower rent payments or free parking.
Ford Motor, General Motors, BMW and other automakers are exploring how electric car batteries could be used to store excess renewable energy to help utilities deal with fluctuations in energy supply and demand. Automakers would make money by acting as middlemen between car owners and electricity suppliers.
Millions of cars could be seen as a huge energy system that, for the first time, will be connected to another huge energy system, the electric grid, said Matthias Preindl, associate professor of power electronic systems at Columbia University.
“We’re just at the starting point,” Dr. Priedl said. “They will interact more in the future and can potentially support each other – or stress each other out.”
A large flat screen on the wall of the Munich offices of Mobility House, a company whose investors include Mercedes-Benz and Renault, shows one way carmakers could benefit while helping to stabilize the grid.
Charts and numbers on the screen provide a real-time picture of a European energy market where investors and utilities buy and sell electricity. The price changes from minute to minute as supply and demand rise or fall.
Mobility House buys energy when solar and wind power is plentiful and cheap, storing it in electric vehicles that are part of its system and are connected across Europe. When demand and prices rise, the company resells the electricity. It’s a classic play: Buy low, sell high.
People in the automotive and energy industries have been talking about using car batteries for grid storage for years. As the number of electric cars on the road increases, these ideas become more tangible.
Renault, the French automaker, is offering Mobility House technology to buyers of the R5 electric compact car, for which the company began accepting orders last month. The car, which Renault will start delivering in December, starts at 29,490 euros (about $32,000) in France.
Buyers who choose will receive a free home charger and sign a contract allowing Renault to draw power from the vehicles when they are plugged in. R5 owners will be able to control how much energy they give back to the grid and when. In return, they’ll get a break on their electricity bills.
“The more they connect, the more they earn,” said Ziad Dagher, the Renault executive in charge of the program. Renault estimates that participants could cut 50 percent off their home energy bills.
Renault, which will offer the technology in France before rolling it out in Germany, Britain and other countries, will share in the profits Mobility House generates from energy trading.
If such services prove successful, the economic case for electric vehicles, an important tool against climate change, will become stronger.
“It would really drive the adoption of EVs,” said Adam Langton, a BMW executive who works on energy issues.
BMW already offers software that allows owners to charge their electric cars when renewable energy sources are more abundant. This allows the company to earn carbon credits and pay customers who participate in the program.
A new generation of electric vehicles that BMW will start selling next year, known as the Neue Klasse, will have so-called bi-directional capability, meaning the cars will be able to take electricity from the grid and release it back in addition to the use of energy. to power their engines.
Ford pioneered two-way charging with the F-150 Lightning pickup, which can power a home during a blackout. General Motors, Hyundai and Volkswagen also offer or plan to offer cars with two-way charging. As such vehicles become more common, the storage potential could be enormous.
By the end of the decade, about 30 million electric vehicles could be on U.S. roads, up from about three million now. All these cars could store as much energy as a day’s output from dozens of nuclear power plants.
But of course those millions of cars can also put a strain on the grid, which is already increasing demand for electricity from heat pumps and data centers, said Aseem Kapur, chief revenue officer at GM Energy, a unit of General Motors that provides services to electric car owners. vehicles. By helping to smooth out demand, “EVs can be an important resource,” he said.
But some problems must be solved before this vision can be realized.
Owners may be reluctant to have their cars service the grid because they worry that constant charging and discharging will wear down their batteries faster.
Some energy experts said the degradation would be insignificant, especially if utilities use only a small fraction of a battery’s capacity. Renault addresses this issue by offering energy storage program participants the same eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty that non-participants receive.
Another challenge is that some U.S. utilities and the state regulators that oversee them prefer to operate centralized grids in which energy flows almost entirely in one direction—from power plants to homes and businesses.
To overcome resistance from utilities, Maryland passed a law last month requiring them to adapt two-way billing systems and provide financial incentives.
It is increasingly recognized that electric vehicle batteries are valuable investments that most owners will only actively use for a few hours a day.
“We want to unlock the full value of electric vehicle batteries,” said Gregor Hintler, Mobility House’s managing director for North America.
If all the electric cars in New York were used as storage, said Dr. Priedl, the Columbia professor, “these vehicles would be by far the most valuable power plant in New York.”
Consolidated Edison, the utility that serves New York City and some of its suburbs, is exploring how managing charging times and using electric vehicles for storage could help it deal with the rapid growth of battery-powered cars.
Contrary to popular fears, “the grid is not going to collapse” because of electric cars, said Britt Reichborn-Kjennerud, director of electrification at Con Ed. “The biggest concern is that if we don’t plan differently for this very rapidly growing load, the network won’t be ready in time to support the transition.”
Con Ed provides power to a Bronx depot for New York electric school buses, where Mobility House software allows more vehicles to use the facility.
Electric vehicle fleets owned by businesses or governments are a particularly promising form of backup energy storage. Trucks or vans have large batteries and tend to have predictable routes and schedules.
Ford Pro, the commercial vehicle division of Ford Motor, has started offering free chargers to customers that allow them to switch off during peak electricity demand. Owners also save on electricity bills.
Ford provides the software to manage the chargers and meet customers’ driving needs and manages the relationship with the utilities. Ford is testing the service in Massachusetts before expanding it to other states. The next step will be a two-way system that will allow vehicles to send power to the grid.
“What smart charging can do is reduce costs,” said Jim Gawron, director of charging strategy at Ford’s electric vehicle division. “That was a key barrier for customers.”
