renewz established a phrase long ago, “road to roof”. This was meant to convey the possibility of energy and transportation to meet and work in concert, something never before possible with gasoline powered vehicles.
Today, much research is being conducted on how mobile power vehicles can work in concert with grids (micro, nano, macro, whatever…) to manage energy. We have concepts such as “transactive energy” being touted, where energy is a currency, bought and sold on spot and future markets just like any currency exchange. Will bankers who specialize in currency be the energy managers of the future? Their skill sets in managing currency swaps would certainly be an interesting asset for companies engaged in such power/energy transactions.
And what to make of consumers, who will be driving those electric vehicles capable of bi-directional power, where the reserves in the cars could be used either to power their homes, provide emergency backup in times of grid-outages or even play in the concerto of power management on the grid, offering the potential to car owners to make money off their cars rather than see dwindling value through their depreciation. You getting a picture of an energy and transportation mix in the future that looks nothing like our past?
We can therefore not be surprised when companies like Virgin, Apple and Google are getting into the transportation game. We can understand why Tesla’s Elon Musk has a vision of mobile and stationary power, working hand in hand with rooftop solar, become more important than the distribution companies who will be simply become conduits, like a highway, or if they are really ahead of the curve, learn to manage the whole concert with the various players providing the tools to create, manage or store energy.
The future of clean power is bright and inescapable. I don’t look at it from purely a climate change optic, that would be slightly thin in view. Rather we should consider how we can empower areas that have no grids, that have no capability of stable power, so that communities everywhere can tomorrow have clean transportation mated with reliable, local, storable and clean renewable energy sources. That’s the future I have dreamed of and why every who knows me understand what I mean when I say that I’m living a dream…