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."

The article also has opposing view points on V2G. They range from "pie in the sky" and at the "science project stage" to a technology that's "underutilized" and "win-win" for power companies and car owners. The costs for making your car into a back-up generator were quoted at $2,000 to $4,000 with simple ones built for just $200. Couldn't you just plug in your house in the cigarette lighter?

Related:

• DOE, FERC fight over V2G on blog
• V2G? PHEV? Just another green car day in Colorado
• PG&E demonstrates first ever vehicle-to-grid charging
• How PG&E will help Google with that 100+ PHEV, make computing greener and build the smart grid

[Source: New York Times]

The first comment to Toyota's blog entry about the plugin hybrid tests was by... THE FERC! Jon Wellinghoff the commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or FERC. He wanted to know about V2G (vehicle-to-grid) considerations in the tests. Toyota was "VERY INTERESTED" In Jon's question, (I'm guessing because, you know, he's head of the FERC and all) so they did a follow up post all about V2G.

So why is Jon posting to Toyota's blog? Don't you think the head of the FERC could get someone at Toyota on the phone if they liked? I did a bit of digging and found it might have something to do with what DOE thinks of V2G. Check out this pdf. It includes comments by Jon and Willett Kempton, a professor University of Delaware, that says "the DOE PHEV R&D Plan explicitly chooses to ignore the CashBack hybrid and dismisses V2G technology." Also: "By ignoring the demonstrated economics of CashBack hybrid and V2G technology, DOE comes to an incorrect conclusion." Ouch! Dems fighting words!

So the blog post was probably just another way for Jon to push V2G because the DOE is dragging its feet. I don't know about you, but I think this is pretty cool. You would think he would write an Op Ed in a newspaper or something. Instead he replies to a blog post. You gotta love the web. I wonder if Jon is reading this? Feel free to post a comment, Jon :D

[Source: Green Wombat]