LA Times : Electric cars may hold solution for power storage
In a Delaware pilot project, electricity is stored in and retrieved from the batteries of idle vehicles. Car owners would be paid.
By Evan Halper
December 29, 2013, 5:00 a.m.
NEWARK, Del. ...
The pilot project here at the University of Delaware has had enough success to set off a frenzy of activity in the auto and electricity industries, particularly in California, where Gov. Jerry Brown's transportation plan this year promoted "vehicle-to-grid" technology.
...."This is a fascinating option," said Robert Weisenmiller, chair of the California Energy Commission. "The technology works. You can do this. The question is … what do we need to do to make it happen?"
....The idea is that utilities would pay vehicle owners to store electricity in the batteries of electric vehicles when the power grid has a surplus and drain electricity back out of them when demand rises.
The plan takes advantage of a key fact about cars: They spend most of their time parked. The technology makes idle vehicles a source of storage for utilities and cash for car owners.
The "Cash Back Car" is how the concept is described by Jon Wellinghoff, the recently retired chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. "It provides another incentive for people to buy electric cars," he said....
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-electric-cars-20131229,0,5640652.story#ixzz2pTKkOxoh
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But, I'll agree that, in principle, such a system would work in the future. I am sure that's what this is about. But it takes smart grid a step or two further, I would think. Not against that.
But why can't I get the image of the pissed off person who cannot drive to work in the morning because the grid took his charge out of his clean, non-polluting vehicle overnight?
I would think that there was a more centralized storage possible which didn't screw the small guy who only wants to get to work in the morning. Try this scenario on for size. On very high demand times, many people's cars get drained and nobody drives to work.
How does thing work in practice?
Sorry, kristopher, I must be missing something here. I confess ignorance.
Who in the heck would want to use their automobile battery, one that potentially could cost thousands of dollars, to be used to make a few short term bucks from the grid operators for essentially wearing their expensive battery out. If I'm right and I think I am all batteries have a finite life, a lifetime that is measured in how deep and how often they're discharged/recharged. Not so much in days/years as much as in charge discharge cycles.
I could see the grid operators buying the used automobile batteries and using them in a system to help with the peaks and valleys. I think most EV's manufacturers consider when a battery is down to 80% or so of their capacity to be ready to be replaced. Those batteries still hold a lot of potential that could be used for this scheme.
I know if I live long enough to be able to purchase a new EV I won't be letting the energy companies use my battery as this suggest. Ain't gonna happen.
Next it'll be your laptop battery 
Help me out with this train of thought you have going there Kris