Electric Vehicles
Ford Helps PHEVs Talk to Grid
Where the rubber meets the road has just been usurped by where the PHEV meets the grid.
Ford Motor Co. announced Aug. 18 that it has developed an intelligent vehicle-to-grid communications and control system for its fleet of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. When the battery systems are plugged in, they can communicate directly with the electrical grid via utility smart meters.
This means PHEV owners will be able to program when to recharge their vehicles. For example, they could opt to juice up when electricity prices are lower, or when the grid is using only renewable energy.
Ford executives called it an important step toward making electric vehicles commonplace.
“For widespread adoption [of electric vehicles] the infrastructure to support the technology needs to be in place and we need to ensure that the national electric grid can support increased demand,” said Nancy Gioia, Ford’s director of sustainable mobility technologies.
The vehicle-to-grid technology will be installed in all 21 Escape SUV PHEVs being tested by the automaker in conjunction with several utilities, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute.