Project Better Place Coming To California

Solar Panels and Paint on Plug-In EVs to Boost V2G Two Way Charging

The “state of the art” electric vehicle charging system will include V2G: Vehicle to Grid capability. A two-way system that will enable you to feed excess power from your vehicle into the local grid for energy credits, in addition to charging your vehicle when needed.

One of the first mainstream production vehicles with a Solar Roof Panel will be the next generation Toyota Prius due out next Spring. Plug-in hybrids and EVs equipped with solar roof panels will soon follow. Nissan, VW and numerous other carmakers will offer solar panels on their vehicles also. The early mainstream electric vehicles will initially be like Henry Ford’s Model A, compared to what they will become, with the right combination of break-through components that are in the works.

One solar roof panel will only provide a small percentage of the power that todays electric vehicles require. At 20% efficiency (Suniva, Day4 Energy), a solar roof panel could generate up to 270 watts. The panel will be optional and cost under $900. Keep in mind, the cost of solar panels will come down, and the efficiency will go up. Already, there are cheaper and more efficient solar panels being announced. The SunFlake panel, invented by Martin Aagesen who is a PhD from the Nano-Science Center and the Niels Bohr Institute at University of Copenhagen, gets 30% efficiency and will be cheaper than current panels. Innovalight claims they have a solar panel that is 44% efficient at one tenth the cost. NanoSolar and others also look promising. At the rate that solar technology is advancing, solar roof panels on vehicles will soon be over 500 watts.

The next technology, coming within 3 to 5 years, is SOLAR PAINT, that will generate solarvoltaic power from the entire body of the vehicle. When the body is covered with solar paint, that has the potential to provide three times the surface area of a first generation solar roof panel. This will triple the generating power of your vehicle to 1,500 watts, more or less, depending on the angle of the sun, weather conditions, and the amount of light reflecting onto the body. Window tinting will also be replaced by translucent solarvoltaic film.

Recently, Toyota described its 1/X Concept vehicle, a plug-in hybrid about the size of a Prius, but ONE THIRD the weight, only 926 lbs. With a vehicle that is one third the weight, the mileage DOUBLES from the same wattage. Quantum Sphere announced a breakthrough in their lithium ion batteries that produces FOUR TIMES the capacity from the same size cell. Ultra-capacitors may also be combined with batteries, or one day overpower them. Another breakthrough is an electric motor that uses HALF the amount of energy to perform the same amount of work. With this new electric motor, the mileage DOUBLES again. Search: Thor Power: Revolutionary Electric Motor Design Cuts Energy Use in Half (there are others).

And with that 1,500 watts of solar power, we will Not be powering the vehicle motor. We will be powering a generator to Pulse Charge a cluster of individual batteries in rapid succession, many times per second. Search John Bedini and Energenx battery charger. This is a motor-generator with a pulse width modulator charging multiple batteries simultaneously. Scientist Tom Bearden explains that when a battery is pulse charged, there is an “electro-chemical lag” between pulses, and it continues to charge for a split second, even after the current is briefly switched off. Then, with the power still off, a second line of current flows out of the battery briefly, if there is a load on it. The next pulse charge is carefully timed to first allow these second and third responses. Thus, with solar electricity being precisely distributed, it may also be possible to plug-in and feed power into the grid or to operate the vehicle, while the batteries are also being charged.

A large percentage of the coming electric and plug in hybrid vehicles will be charged at night, when the rates are low, then driven to work and parked all day. If you live in a sunny location, the big pay-off will be V2G (vehicle to grid). This concept was originally conceived to transfer into the grid a portion of cheap off peak power, from your batteries, into expensive daytime peak load power. You would charge up at night when the rates are low, drive to work, park your car at a V2G receptacle, plug in and tell your car how much power to sell to the grid at the higher daytime price. Then when you got off work, you would have enough juice left to get home. This was before V2G engineers realized that future EVs and Plug-in Hybrids would also be equipped with solarvoltaic glass and solar roof panels, or covered with solar paint.

With lighter vehicles coming, with high capacity batteries and ultracapacitors, with advanced motors and battery chargers, with vehicle bodies covered with solarvoltaic collectors, a whole new world will open up. Your vehicle will generate 1,500 watts of power, maybe more, either for charging your batteries to move you down the road, or to feed power into the grid at peak load rates while your vehicle is parked. How would you like to get credits on your electric bill, while your solar equipped plug-in vehicle is parked in the sun?

All of this will eventually become mass produced standard features financed into your vehicle, and it will pay for itself. As a last resort, if your juice is running low, plug into the V2G system and charge your batteries from the grid. The power will go both ways. Feed electric power into the grid for credits, or draw power out as debits on your electric bill, or on a plastic card that you could use anywhere.

Solar panels, solar glass, and solar paint on vehicles will soon contribute power to your vehicle and to the local grid using V2G. Vehicles capable of exchanging power with the local grid, charging themselves, or generating power on the fly. These vehicles of the future will be portable power plants, and their owners will manage energy from the sun.