Added on August 1, 2014  The News Wheel   , , , , , , , ,
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Honda Joins EPRI for PEV Open Grid Integration Research

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EPRI

The Honda Fit EV

Honda is the latest of eight major automakers and 15 utilities organizations brought together by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in their effort to create an open grid integration platform for plug-in electric vehicles. The goal of EPRI is to make vehicle-to-grid (V2G) communications simpler and help augment the speed and ease with which PEV technology is being adopted by the public.

“This project is an important step in enabling plug-in vehicles to reach their potential as a valuable distributed resource that can increase grid stability, improve power quality and reduce demand peaks,” said Steven Center, vice president of the Environmental Business Development Office at American Honda. “Honda is participating in several projects aimed at accelerating vehicle-to-grid integration, which has the potential to reduce the total cost of owning a plug-in vehicle while enabling higher concentrations of renewable energy.”

EPRI

2014 Accord PHEV

Honda has a storied history of involvement in various efforts to improve PEV technology. In 2012, Honda utilized IBM’s PEV Enablement platform and demonstrated technology that allows PEVs to schedule charging times based on driver needs and preferred rates.

In December 2013, Honda gifted the University of Delaware’s Science, Technology, and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus with an Accord Plug-In Hybrid equipped with a bi-directional on-board charger as part of their combined efforts to research the numerous possible benefits of V2G technology.

Just this past March, Honda launched their Smart Home US project at UC-Davis. Honda Smart Home US examines how PEVs can benefit homes through smart charging and energy redistribution.

Honda’s work with EPRI goes back as far as 1993, when they were part of a group of automakers that comprised the SAE-JEVA Conductive Coupler Working Group (CWG). The CWG sought to determine the best practices for standardization of conductive couplers for EV charging.

Source: Honda