Pacific and Gas Electric demonstrated how cars can help to keep the lights on when the grid is being swamped. The power company's demonstration vehicle sent electricity stored on its lithium ion batteries to the grid.
I must admit that the idea of thousands of plug-in hybrids or EV's acting as backup power for a city seemed bizarre, but the more I hear about it, the more it makes sense to me. Utilities and city managers are in love with the concept of paying people to leave their cars plugged in during times of peak demand and paying them a bonus for the right to tap their batteries as needed.
For homeowners this could help in the case that a storm knocks the power out. Forget missing the end of American Idol or not being able to cook dinner -- just plug the car in when the lights go out.
The promise of a vehicle to grid system is great, but the challenges are formidable. Intelligence will have to built into the vehicles so that they can track time of day and location that the vehicles are plugged in. The utilities have to set up accounts for consumers and manage all of the data. It's not impossible, but not easy. Oh yea, and we need extremely reliable batteries that won't falter from overuse.
Source: AutoIndustry
