Dec262008
Mass. geek powers home with Prius after ice storm
Filed under Uncategorized by david brooks at 11:22 pm
Boston Business Journal reports that a Harvard, Mass., man converted the DC power from his Prius into AC and powered part of his home during an extended outage following the ice storm. Those electrical engineering degrees can come in handy!
Using hybrid cars for individual power storage is part of the overall picture of remaking the nation’s electrical infrastructure. You don’t actually see it in action much, though.
December 26th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
What a great idea. I'm reluctant to purchase a generator - expensive and don't really need it very often. Taping a Hybrid to function, as a backup generator is pretty interesting. If we had a duel use Hybrid all we would need is an inverter to change DC batter voltage to 120/240 AC.
Along similar lines there is talk about using Hybrid to supply power during peak time to reduce generation cost. Peaking plants are expensive and not very efficient coupled with fact they are not used 24/7/365 like base load plants.
December 26th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Forgot to mention you could use a regular automobile but it would be horribly inefficient. Can use an inverter convert battery voltage but that is limited to less then 1,000 watts by the size of the alternator. Another option is connect an alternator and drive it mechanically like a tractor PTO. Regulating engine speed to produce 60 HZ will be a challenge.
The problem with these approaches is you are running a ~100 HP engine where if you had a generator would only need one about a tenth the size with commemorate fuel consumption.
May 24th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
however, the best technology that is environmentally friendly.