Using electric vehicles as PV energy storage on military installations

The Southwest Research Institute recently published a press release discussing their involvement in a new project in partnership with the US Military to look at ways to make military installations more energy efficient. (Q)The program, called the Smart Power Infrastructure Demonstration for Energy Reliability and Security (SPIDERS), is intended to make military installations more energy efficient and secure.

“The goal for the SwRI portion of this 18-month effort is to demonstrate the ability of electric vehicles to serve as energy storage devices in support of a microgrid and provide grid ancillary services, such as peak shaving and demand response, during non-microgrid operation,” said Sean Mitchem, SwRI project manager and a principal analyst in SwRI’s Automation and Data Systems Division.

“Unique challenges of this project include using electric vehicles to absorb excess generated power from the base’s photovoltaic array and reduce the base’s energy bill by integrating vehicle energy storage into the energy management strategy, all the while continuing to serve as an active part of the base vehicle fleet,” said co-researcher Joe Redfield, a principal engineer in SwRI’s Engine, Emissions and Vehicle Research Division (&Q)

This project could go a long way to help curb the problem of energy storage in photovoltaic systems and help military installations become even more self-sufficient.

To read the entire release, head over to http://evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=29206.