Toyota PHV / EV to Home Power Sharing

While “power sharing” sounds like a phrase you would expect to hear in the context of a Greek coalition government, here we’re talking about an experimental development from Toyota to share electrical power between PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) or EVs (electric vehicles) and the home.

Toyota’s demonstration system in Toyota City, Japan will comprise 10 homes and Toyota’s plug-in hybrid version of its Prius. The V2H (Vehicle to Home) system, as they are calling it, balances power use between home and car, sometimes using electrical power stored in the car battery to power the home, while at other times reversing this flow to recharge the vehicle’s battery. The HEMS energy management system balances competing demands of home and vehicle, as well as making use of the best power source at the best time. For example, on a sunny day it may be most efficient to draw power from the solar panels on the home or in the local area. At night, it may be best to draw cheap off-peak electricity from the regular grid. This cheaper off-peak power can be stored in the car’s battery and then released to the home during the day when the grid supply is more expensive.

In an emergency situation, such as an earthquake, a manual override permits the user to draw all the power from the car’s battery pack and generate additional power with its engine. A PHEV withe a full battery and full tank can supply the needs of an average home for 4 days. Not only that, but unlike a “pure” EV, replenishing the gasoline makes it drivable and able to continue supplying power even if the battery has been completely run down. With this in mind, Toyota is also considering the possibility of providing these kinds of hook-ups at emergency shelters so that PHEVs can provide power to displaced people if disaster strikes.

Source: Nikkei BP (Japanese)