The EV fleet will become our future energy storage network

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Editors Note: The following post was originally posted at Smart Energy Groups by Sam Sabey. Sam is a featured writer at SEG. He is also an energy aware individual trying to make a difference by helping people get together and build a more sustainable energy future. You can also find Sam on twitter: @samotage <link to twitter.com/samotage> Please welcome Sam Sabey to RYD! You’ll be seeing more of his posts here in the future

To make renewables work well, our smart energy future is going to require lots and of battery storage, and the Electric Vehicle will become the cornerstone – a massive distributed battery storage network.

Right now, I believe much of our thinking and attitudes towards EV’s is all wrong. We consider them in terms of

• how many miles per charge,
• time to charge,
• where are the charge points going to be (and who’s going to pay for ‘em)
• …and the list goes on

We also consider EV’s in terms of like for like replacements of our current gas pumping vehicles – which most of us know it’s pretty hard to compare a peach to a lemon.

There is also another thing to consider in terms of renewable energy – if the the wind’s not blowing, and the sun’s not shining, just where are all the electrons going to come from?

In the future, many will drive less, and we will use bikes more and more to get about – both the normal human powered and the electro variety. Cars, like many today, will sit about in the street and in the garages, “resting”.

Now consider a fleet of EV’s, each with it’s internal battery. That’s a lot of energy capacity just sitting about, and it’s unlikely we won’t utilise it. Our fleet of EV’s in reality will become a massive mobile battery storage network. The missing link in a sustainable energy future that will need electricity storage to work.

These EV’s will be grid connected using the millions of charging outlets about …I rekon I’ve got at least 50 of them in my small home

Owners of EV’s will be able to offer their electron storage facility to their local energy community, as a kind of electron swap and share program. Some may even be able to profit from selling their stored energy back into the grid at peak times!

This will allow our cars to power our evening activities, and provide for plenty of spare capacity for people who can plan to need a certain amount of energy to go for a trip. Think of it like asking you neighbor to borrow a few buckets of electrons so you can pop down to the shops and collect the weeks groceries.

In time, solutions applications and technology will be developed that will make this a reality, and allow for seamless management of our energy on an increasing community basis.

Things will be very different in time, and it’s going to be amazing to watch our smart energy future evolve.