Electric charging stations are an important part of the future of hybrid electric car use; easy access to charging stations will benefit hybrid vehicle owners tremendously and enable the eventual switch from fossil fuels to electricity. But all will not be smooth sailing in any transition. For example, charging stations can drain a local electrical grid of critical resources in certain situations. Hot weather can drain battery power quicker, requiring owners to charge their vehicle more often than normal.
In places like California, though, where there are rolling blackouts during the peak of the summer because the grid is insufficient to provide the necessary power, the lack of certain electricity makes the widespread use of electric cars problematic in any near-term scenario. But there are some who are working on potential solutions.
In one patent application published in late 2012 — U.S. Patent Application No. 20120286725 — General Motors seeks to protect a new system of selectively controlling electrical charging of hybrid vehicles to reduce strain on the electrical grid, which would address the aforementioned problem. The system involves a remote call center that could control electrical substation resources in response to a utility provider or car owner’s request. The call center also communicates electronically with charging cars to log location and rate of charge information, which can help determine future electrical grid resource needs.
According to the patent application, the articulated method and system will provide for remote control charging operation for multiple vehicles. In one implementation, a call center may receive a request from a utility regarding a particular grid and sends out an inquiry to locate vehicles in that grid. Once the vehicles have been located, the call center sends a command to those vehicles corresponding to the utility’s request. In another implementation, vehicles may register information with the call center every time a charging event takes place, and the call center keeps track of the location of each vehicle based on the registration. When the call center receives a request from a utility, the call center may directly send out commands to vehicles based on the request. In other implementations, vehicle charging may be remotely controlled through the call center by consumers, the utility, or a home energy management system. The charging control may further be customized based on a variety of information and preferences provided to the call center by the consumer or utility.
As Claim 1 explains, General Motors hopes to protect:
A method for remotely controlling the charging of a group of vehicles, each vehicle have [sic] an electrical power storage facility, the method comprising: while one or more of the group of vehicles are being charged from a utility power source, receiving, at a call center, a request from the utility to modify charging behavior of the group of vehicles; and at the call center in response to the request from the utility, sending a command to each of the group of vehicles to modify their charging behavior.
The core of the innovation seems to lie in the fact that the utility may send requests to the call center to reduce the load on a power grid, and the call center or the utility may select particular vehicles to which charging modification commands are sent.
Drain on the grid is not the only problem in search of a patent solution. Other, perhaps more lower-tech issues are sure to arise as well, as indicated by U.S. Patent No. 8,460,028, filed on June 11, 2013. The patent explains that charging stations may be located in publicly accessible locations, which can lead to mischief and vandalism. Typically, the charging cord connector is not secured when the charging station is not in use, which allows the charging cord to be used in an inappropriate manner and can damage the cord and/or connector. The patent specifically mentions using the charging cord as a jump rope as a particular concern, which seems odd but hardly beyond the imagination if the collective minds of teenagers are involved.
In the prior art, some charging connectors are designed to be locked in an electric vehicle charging inlet during electric vehicle charging such that the connector cannot be removed while the vehicle is charging. The locking mechanism that locks these charging connectors is controlled by the electric vehicle, and is typically tied to the car door locking system. The solution presented in this patent is an electric vehicle charging cord that is fixably attached to a charging station and secured to the recharging station by locking into a holster when not in use.
Claim 1 of the issued ‘028 patent covers:
1. An apparatus, comprising: an electricity control device to control a supply of electricity available to flow through an electric vehicle charging cord that is attached to an electric vehicle charging station; and an electric vehicle charging connector locking holster that is configured to, lock a charging connector of the electric vehicle charging cord in the locking holster when the charging connector is inserted into the locking holster, and unlock the charging connector from the locking holster in response to electricity flowing through the electric vehicle charging cord.
While having power sufficient to recharge cars and a grid capable of providing the power is a key, even in the high-tech world that foregoes fossil fuels, there will still be the need to take into consideration the impulses of those who seek to destroy and damage community property.
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