Waterloo Engineering researchers are tapping into idled electric vehicles to act as mobile generators and help power overworked and aging electricity grids.
The team, led by Dr. XiaoYu Wu, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering, analyzed energy demand on Alberta’s power grid during rush hour and proposes an innovative way to replenish electrical grids with power generated from fuel cells in trucks.
“Canada’s power grids need to be upgraded,” said Wu. “But the price of Alberta’s power grid is much higher than other provinces. Most power is supplied by fossil fuels which results in high carbon emissions. The need to rapidly adjust generators to meet fluctuating demand is one of the reasons that the grid price is unstable and volatile. This creates the potential for clean energy storage to flatten the demand and price of electricity.”
The team's research builds on vehicle-to-grid technology which employs special chargers to push unused energy from electric vehicle (EV) batteries back to the power grid for storage. This electricity in-storage can support the grid during weather-related outages or to reduce the demand during peak periods.
The research proposes paying drivers of fuel cell powered trucks to rest during rush hour and while resting, to plug into a hydrogen refueling station or pipeline and use their trucks’ idle fuel cells as generators to provide electricity to the grid. The result is less vehicle traffic on highways, reduced energy use at peak times and cleaner way to store energy.
Waterloo graduate student Daniel Ding developed a mathematical model to simulate the operation, then used software to analyze and model the feasibility and potential of hydrogen fuel cell-powered electric vehicles to balance the grid load and decrease the peak price and carbon intensity.
The researchers’ next steps plan to test these preliminary findings in the lab and the field to determine its real-world applicability.
Go to Using idle trucks to power the grid with clean energy for the full story.