Electric cars run soundlessly, get some of the best mileage, and don’t pollute the air. But if you ask officials in Yokohama, Japan’s second-largest city, an electric car can do even more than that.
They can contribute to the electricity network.
Because electric vehicles, or EVs, run on batteries, they could theoretically store energy and feed it back into the home from the garage, for instance, or even provide electricity to the community if it was connected to a “smart grid.”
Yokohama is one of four cities selected by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to test that “Smart City” concept, bringing together power companies, electronics firms and others. Nissan Motor Co is providing the electric cars, as well as ideas for where best to place charging spots around town.
In the city’s vision, homes and businesses will be connected to a smart grid that combines electricity and telecommunications to make the most efficient use of energy across a community.
Solar panels will be installed on rooftops, and instead of having a separate storage unit, electric cars would capture that energy. By doing so, the car would not only run on clean energy, but could also feed electricity back to power household appliances when demand arises, the city says.
The electric car thus can be both a source of supply and demand on a smart grid.
“Electric cars would play a very important role in this kind of city,” said Tetsuya Nakajima, director of Yokohama’s Climate Change Policy Headquarters.
Over the next five years, Yokohama, home to Nissan’s global headquarters, is aiming to have 2,000 EVs in use in three neighborhoods, comprising 170,000 households and 420,000 residents.
Yokohama, a city of 3.7 million people, is targeting a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, and 80 percent by 2050, Nakajima said.
Nissan says EVs, when used in a “connected” system, could open up other possibilities for car-based transport, such as making the taxi business more efficient.
“A lot of taxis drive around looking for passengers, and that wastes fuel,” said Hideaki Watanabe, managing director of the zero emission business unit at Nissan and its French partner, Renault SA.
Instead, Nissan’s central data unit, which would be connected to all of its EVs, could indicate which taxis are free at any given time and passengers could “call” them through a reservation center on their computers or mobile phones. Rather than trawling for passengers on the streets, the electric taxis could be parked at charging spots at train stations or hospitals, for instance.
The city’s ambitions go beyond its boundaries. It wants to come up with the best low-carbon society model and export the city-scale infrastructure package in its entirety, first to Asia and later to overseas markets.
“All this would allow us to design a city that is suited for electric mobility,” Nakajima said.
