Honda Power Manager Concept plugs EVs into smart electricity grid
The Honda Power Manager Concept made its debut alongside the well received Urban EV Concept at the 2017 Frankfurt motor show.
Described by its maker as a “fully-integrated energy transfer system”, the Power Manager Concept is designed to regulate the flow of electricity between a home or office, and the rest of the electricity grid.
In its envisioned use case, the Power Manager “intelligently [balances] demand and efficient storage of energy”, deciding what to do with energy generated by a roof-top solar panel array, as well as when to charge and discharge an EV’s battery pack.
Ideally, an electric vehicle would charge overnight when overall grid usage is low and prices are cheaper, and feed surplus energy back into the grid during the day when demand is higher.
The Power Manager will get its first large scale trial run in the west of France in the SMILE (Smart Ideas to Link Energies) pilot project being run by the country’s ministries of industry and energy. The project hopes to create a large smart power grid in the west of France by 2019.
According to Philip Ross, a senior vice president of Honda Motor Europe, the “Power Manager system supports and reinforces our commitment” to electric vehicles, and “it uses advanced technology to intelligently integrate the electric vehicle into the wider power network, so it is no longer just a consumer but also a contributor to the grid”.
No word, yet, on when the Power Manager will become available to the public.
Honda plans to have an electrified variant available in every new car it launches in Europe from here on out. By 2030, the company expects two-thirds of its global sales to have an electrified drivetrain.