Let electric vehicle owners sell unused battery power
With President Joe Biden’s commitment to a 50 percent cut in greenhouse gases by 2030, it’s clear that the United States is back in the climate game.
For the president to succeed, he’ll need states like New York to adopt emission standards and policies to achieve the magnitude of this cut.
One key area is transportation: Transitioning all of our vehicles to electric by 2050 would eliminate vehicle pollution.
What is often overlooked is the ability to store and discharge electricity when vehicles are connected to the grid. Industry insiders call this vehicle-to-grid technology.
Such technology enables the charged power in a vehicle to be pushed back to the grid from car batteries to balance variations in energy production and consumption.
Not all electric vehicles have this capability yet. It has to be built into the battery. That’s why we need to start talking about this now so, when electric vehicles start rolling out in big numbers, they are enabled with this technology.
Where this is already available, owners are actually making money from selling energy from their car batteries. Smart owners sell back the energy in their car battery to the grid during peak times, which is when energy is most needed. Not only will vehicle-to-grid benefit the grid’s health, but it benefits the consumer in many ways.
I am still young, with hopes for a healthier New York. That cannot happen without the implementation of this technology.
Shelby Doren