Plugging in to the garage of the future

My car quietly rolls up my driveway, the sound of tires on the gravel masking the almost silent purr of its electric engine.

Sensors tell me the battery is at 80 percent capacity. I shut the car down in the garage and connect it to the electric power socket next to the vehicle.

As I go about my evening's business, preparing some food before heading out to meet friends at the bar, I am oblivious to what is happening in the garage.

The car has told the system that manages my house's power usage the battery is a fifth depleted. The utility controlling the electric grid my house connects to says power right now will cost peak rate, a staggering 45 cents a kilowatt hour.

Since I had instructed the system to charge only when the rate was significantly less than that, the system waits. Additionally, since the car has access to my calendar, it knows I need less than 20 percent of the battery for the evening and to get me to work in the morning.

Now, things get interesting. 

Given the utility is experiencing a peak load period, it asks my house if it can use the spare power in the car's battery and send that electricity elsewhere in the grid.  What's more, it will pay me for that power. Since I like being paid, I have already programmed the system to accept such requests.

So, while I am snacking in the kitchen, I am actually being paid for the unused power remaining in my car battery, and yet have complete confidence there will be more than enough power left in the vehicle to get me to where I need to go.

This concept of energy integration between the vehicle, the home or building, and the electric grid is what Rocky Mountain Institute has termed the Smart Garage.

But it is much broader than just the 'garage' bit. Vehicles can connect to the grid at the shopping center while you buy groceries, in the parking lot of your office, curb-side down town, or in your own driveway.

Closer than you think

Is this a vision of science fiction in a future far away? 

Not so, says RMI's Laura Schewel who organized a recent three-day summit of experts in Portland, OR, to identify and tackle the barriers and breakthroughs needed to make Smart Garage a thing of the present.

Already, there is an increase of electric vehicles on the docket (like the Chevy Volt), distributed power coordinated by smart grids (such as plans in Boulder, CO), smart appliances, and buildings that produce and even return excess energy to the grid.

"What proved most surprising was the Smart Garage concept is a lot closer to realization than we previously thought," Schewel says.

"We found there were many misconceptions -- including that technology to make all this possible was not available -- when in fact the opposite is true."

The event -- which gathered the broadest assortment of stakeholders yet assembled on the topic -- included representatives from GM, Nissan and Ford, utilities such as PG&E and Duke Energy, IBM, P&G, WalMart, Google among others.

Getting from here to there

The consensus: There needs to be increased alignment and communication between the various players to ensure definable and consistent standards as infrastructure and information technology is developed and rolled out.

There are also several surmountable barriers to large-scale implementation that involve the consumer.

"Everyone is waiting for someone else to move and overwhelmingly we agreed that the chicken that can lay the egg, so to speak, is the consumer," Schewel says.

Put simply, consumer demand will force manufacturers to act.  Finding out how to increase, incentivize or identify that demand is one of several initiatives born out of the Smart Garage summit in Portland.

The advantages of such a Smart Garage concept are tremendous.

Oil consumption is radically reduced, variable distributed green power sources, like solar and wind, are utilized -- meaning less need for traditional power plants and less carbon emissions. 

On top of all that, a new green industry will grow with the consumer's control over energy at its core, generating a new raft of jobs and business opportunities.

While the cost to roll out such a system will run into the hundreds of billions, there is $30 billion to $100 billion in net benefit above the cost, according to Michael Brylawski, who heads RMI's MOVE team that focuses on transport energy efficiency.

In my terms, Smart Garage will mean while I meet my friends at the local drinking hole on that evening not too far away, I can buy a beer with the money my utility pays for my car's power.

In the end, I decided not to drive and to walk to the pub, which means even more savings, and maybe more beer, for us all.

Andrew Demaria is Editor in Chief at Rocky Mountain Institute.