10th April 2014
Now you can do more than just drive your electric car, you can also use it to power your house using the lithium-ion batteries inside of the car.
The system makes it possible to take the electricity stored inside of the cars battery and feed it into the house by hooking the car up to the house’s electric panel. This is done with a connector attached to the cars charging port.
The connector is designed to be compatible with many electric systems from around the world and is the start of the basis for new home storage technology.
Thanks to this system, now the car can be used like a giant battery for a house in case of a blackout or power shortage. The lithium-ion batteries, capable of holding 25-85 kWh of storage capacity, (theoretically equal to 25,000 watts for one hour or 1,000 watts for 25 hours) are able to store enough energy to power a typical Australian house for 2-4 days with no sunlight or grid power depending on their usage.
It is a perfect system that seems to coincide with the way in which people use their car to the time of the day when people use the most amount of electricity which is when they get home. The typical home seems to use most of their electricity in the early evening after work and onwards when the car is parked and plugged in. To counteract the other times of electricity use when the car is away, a solar system to catch the suns energy and a simple backup battery bank can be installed to be included in the total system.
Car charging technology is forever changing and is getting smarter and smarter. Today’s chargers are being found to be more intelligent than ever by incorporating programmable charging times. With this smart technology, you can use the remaining electricity in your car after you arrive home from work to power the washing machine or heaters. After you go to bed, the cars charging system knows to switch to charge mode to make your car ready for use the next day.