V2g

Madison, Wisconsin is a fairly typical college town, a place with a fairly substantial population of people with progressive attitudes on many issues. That means it has more people who ride bikes, take the bus, walk and drive hybrids than some other surrounding areas. It's also easier to find plug-in vehicles in places like Madison than elsewhere. Madison Gas and Electric can see the writing on the wall and wants to be ready for the transition to electrification.

MINI E - click above for high-res image gallery

A pair of southeastern U.S. electric utilities will soon start testing a fleet of converted plug-in Toyota Priuses to evaluate a smart charging system. Duke Energy Carolinas and Progress Energy will be evaluating both cross utility charging and billing and vehicle-to-grid technology. The project will look at the issues of tracking energy usage and billing when a car that is subscribed to one company charges on another's network. Similarly, energy fed back to the grid from the cars will need to b

Xcel Energy announced a plug-in hybrid test program today that will use six Ford Escape Hybrids converted to PHEV capability for a six-month period, starting before the year is out. The Escape PHEVs will be part of a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology demonstration in or near Denver (at least, that's where the press release, available after the break, is datelined. The release itself says " Xcel Energy will study how the vehicles perform in varied geographic regions and climates"). Three will be u

Tesla and PG&E have announced a partnership to research and develop vehicle to grid (V2G) technology. The focus of the research will be on Smart Charging. What's smart charging? If you don't know, let JB Straubel, Tesla's Chief Technology Officer explain:

The Sunday New York Times writes about the Prius powering someone's house and the future potential of V2G or vehicle to grid. A Honda (shouldn't that be Toyota?) spokesperson shot down plans for hybrids powering homes responding; "We would not like to see stresses on the battery pack caused by putting it through cycles it wasn't designed for." "Instead, they should buy a Honda generator that was made for that purpose."