Using a Hybrid vehicle as a Generator

You can of course connect any inverter to the 12 volt battery of any vehicle and use AC output. The problem with using the alternator of a standard family saloon is that it is very inefficient. Most vehicles will only output around 300 watts and is insufficient to keep fridges and freezers running.

The energy density of 1 litre of petrol is about 8.7 kWh/L. In a standard vehicle the alternator can output between 300 - 700 watts. ( 1.5 - 7 amps at 12 volts depending on the condition of the alternator). You will also need to keep the vehicle's engine running continuously.

In the Prius, the Dc/Dc converter outputs about1300 watts to charge the 12 volt battery. The High Voltage Battery has a capacity of 1500 watts. As the capacity of this battery is drained down to 50%, the petrol engine will switch on to charge the HVB and switch off when the HVB it is fully charged.

You can connect any 1000 watts inverter to the battery of the hybrid car to use it as a generator to provide emergency power in a blackout or any place where you do not have access to mains power. There is no danger of engine overheating as it will shut down as soon as the HVB battery is fully charged. There is enough power to keep your fridges and lights running in an emergency.

You can also use this setup in your prius to run computers and instruments "on the go". If you do this  you should use a sine wave inverter or you may cause damage to your sensitive equipment.

Below is an example of a situation where this feature was used in a blackout.

[ #priusgenerator - http://bit.ly/VRtz6y  ]

For more information visit The Battery Clinic Ltd
_______________________________________________________

Pressed for Details: Hybrid car powers home during blackout

by John Sweeney  ·  Friday, January 9, 2009

John Sweeney with the inverter that allowed him to power his home with his Prius during the recent power outage after the Dec. 11 ice storm. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

After losing our home’s power in the December ice storm, we used our Toyota Prius as an emergency generator for the four days we were without electricity. The story has spread across the Internet, and many people have asked Mary and me how we thought to use our car as an emergency generator, how we wired it up, and how well it worked. As background, I am an electrical engineer. My senior project in college (during the energy crisis of the 1970s) was a paper design of a hybrid car. This led me to closely follow the development of the Prius, as well as to purchase one of the earliest current-generation Priuses in Harvard. There are several online forums where people discuss the technical details of the car, and I watch and participate in them as time permits. In these forums people have described various means of getting emergency power out of the Prius.
Our summer house is a sailboat and we power it completely with the power of the wind. On the sailboat, we have two windmills that charge very large 12-volt batteries. We run the refrigerator, lights, computer, and navigation electronics from this stored energy. Part of the system is a large inverter that takes 12-volt direct current (DC) and creates 120-volt alternating current (AC), the same as standard household power. We use the 120-volt AC to run many appliances exactly as we would at home, such as a microwave oven, cell phone chargers, rechargeable flashlights, and standard laptop power adapters.
At home, we are very energy conscious, and we have a whole-house electric meter that sits on the counter in the kitchen, as well as several small “kill-a-watt” meters to measure the power used by individual appliances. Simply by being aware of our power usage, we cut our electric bill by roughly $50 per month.
With this background, it seemed like using the Prius along with an inverter would be a simple and cost-effective solution to our power-outage problem.
The 12-volt system in the Prius is slightly larger than that in a normal car because all the accessories such as coolant pumps and power steering are electrical rather than driven off the engine.

One of the components in the Prius is a specialized DC-DC converter that uses energy out of the drive battery at roughly 200 volts DC to create 12-volt DC. Twelve volts is the “nominal” voltage of a 12-volt power system in the Prius as well as other standard cars; in actual usage the 12-volt system runs from 13.7 volts to 14.4 volts. In the Prius, the DC-DC converter (which is equivalent to the alternator in a normal car) is limited to 100 amps. Power = volts × amps, so in the Prius, we can get a total of 13.7 × 100 = 1,370 watts out of the 12-volt system. From the online forums, it turns out that the internal Prius electronics take about 300 watts, which leaves about 1,000 watts available for external use, and I had a 1,000-watt inverter in my basement. How I did it
Because an inverter uses quite a bit of current, I put it close to the 12-volt source and used large diameter wires. In the 2004 and later model years, the 12-volt battery is located in the rear of the car on the passenger side, so I wired the inverter directly to the 12-volt battery, attaching the wires right to the bolts on the battery posts. This location also has an easy way to route the fat 12-volter wires, and leave the inverter sitting in the hatchback area semipermanently.

IF YOU WANT TO TRY THIS AT HOME

Here are some safety tips for readers tempted to try something similar:
1. Do not use an inverter larger than 1,000 watts because this can overload and damage the Prius 12-volt system. Keep in mind that running the inverter close to the 1,000-watt limit could also overload it because the startup power to many appliances greatly exceeds the steady-state power.
2. Follow normal safety procedures when dealing with the Prius 12-volt system. You should feel completely comfortable changing the 12-volt battery in the Prius by yourself before you attempt to make any changes to that system.
3. The Prius is a super low-emissions vehicle with a very efficient catalytic converter. In contrast, a standalone generator lacks a catalytic converter. Although the Prius is less risky than a standalone generator, the exhaust should be routed outside to eliminate the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning. Carbon monoxide is extremely dangerous and has no odor.

I ran a long high-capacity extension cord from the 120-volt plug on the inverter into the house. Inside the house I plugged the “kill-a-watt” meter into the extension cord to make sure I wasn’t over the 1,000 watts the inverter/Prius could supply. From there, I plugged in the refrigerator and freezer that were stuffed full of our frozen food for Christmas dinner (remember that this was a freezing-rain storm, and because the temperature varied around freezing we could not simply put this food outside as many bloggers have suggested). In addition, we ran the woodstove fan, the TV (we get over-the-air HDTV so it didn’t matter that the cable system was out), and several lights at night.
In the Prius, I put the car in “ready” mode, which means it is completely on and ready to drive. I left it in park and applied the emergency brake. I also turned off all accessories, particularly the climate control system, headlights, and stereo because these use the most power. In this mode, the car is fully on, and the gasoline engine will start if the drive battery voltage gets low due to the draw on the 12-volt system. If the climate control system is on, the car will run the engine if it senses the need for heat or cooling.
In this mode, the gas engine ran roughly five minutes every half hour to charge the drive battery. Over the four days we ran the house from the Prius, we used about 17 kilowatt hours of energy, and the car burned about five gallons of gas.
This could have been done using a nonhybrid car, but it would also have to be on, which means the gas engine would be idling constantly. My other car uses about a half gallon per hour idling, so if a normal car had been used it would have burned 40 gallons of gas during the 80 hours of “emergency generator” usage.
I am not the first person to use the Prius in this manner, and I would like to give credit to the other folks in the Prius technical community who have done the research making this possible. Bob Wilson wrote up the same technique for the second-generation Prius (http://home.hiwaay.net/~bzwilson/prius/priups.html). “Hobbit” used an uninterruptible power supply tied into the current, third-generation Prius to run a sump pump (http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=25346). “Hobbit” also explained how to change the 12-volt battery in the third-generation Prius and provided some good pictures of the battery location and hookup (http://www.techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/prius-12V/ela/ela.html).
It would be possible to get much more power out of the car if you wanted to connect directly to the 200+-volt drive battery. However, this technique is probably best left to the car designers because they have the knowledge to design it safely and economically.

In summary, the Prius is ideally suited for use as an emergency generator, in addition to being a great car in its own right. I believe that this use of a car will seem normal in five to 10 years when we have plug-in hybrids and pure electric cars available to the general public. In addition, we will have implemented a “smart grid” that can charge the electric cars during nonpeak hours and potentially store renewable energy from intermittent sources such as wind and solar.

36.5 Kilometers Per Liter ( 2.7 Liters per 100 Kilometers )

The Power Jockey not only stabilizes the terminal voltage of the main battery bank, but further  augments its storage capacity using an auxiliary accumulator based on electro-chemistry of your choice and cost. This will provide larger storage of regenerative and kinetic energy thus reducing cost and emissions of combustion engine usage.

Dr. Patrick Yong
Chief Executive Officer
Yokohama Industries Berhad

Assessment by Dr Patrick Yong who has a PHD in electrical storage systems on the Power Jockey. A scientific explanation as to how and why it works. Test was conducted on 4 Toyota hybrid models with dual 12 volt battery system. The results are as follows

1) 1998 Prius Generation 1. This vehicle was exhibiting weak main battery symptoms. It would turtle (low power) now and then and was returning around 18 kms/L. After installation of the new Power Jockey system there was a perceptible improvement in power and performance and fuel economy was now 21 kms/L. A full tank of gas previously recorded 600 kms but increased to 750 kms. This was a 25% improvement with nothing else done to the vehicle other than installation of the Power Jockey. The occasional turtle also ceased to appear.

2) 2001 Prius Generation 2. This vehicle was doing 20 kms/L. After installation it was returning 25 kms/L.

3) 2004 prius Generation 3. This vehicle was returning 21 kms/L. After installation it was returning 24 kms/L highway driving and 27 Kms/L city driving. The discrepancy here was that in city driving around 50 KPH it was able to run in electric mode alone quite easily. On the highway the petrol engine was engaged more often. Many of these model Prius are only returning 16-18 kms/L due to ageing of the HVB. We can improve it to 24 kms/L simply by installing the Power Jockey system.

4) 2004 Estima Hybrid. This vehicle was recording 10.5 kms/L city and 12 kms/L highway. The hybrid has a 2400 cc petrol engine wand when it starts up to charge the batteries fuel consumption increased. After installation of the Power Jockey we recorded 13.5 kms/L city driving and 15.8 kms/L highway. We believe we can improve highway economy to 17 kms/L as with the bigger engine the regen and inertia issues seem to cancel out and provided the vehicle with better efficiency. Results for the Estima differs from the Prius due to the size of the engine giving it better highway performance.

What this means is that the Power Jockey system can increase the fuel economy of an already very fuel efficient vehicle by 25% or more.

Below is a test done earlier last year. 

Is this the pushing the limit in fuel economy for a Hybrid? We think it is close. In a recent test on the effect of a Power Jockey on a Toyota NHW20 Prius, we managed to achieve 36.5 Kilometers per liter in city driving conditions.




Official Fuel Economy

Reliabilty of Toyota Hybrids

To see why the Toyota Hybrid is so reliable mechanically we must look at the various approach they have taken in design.


Ok. We have electric motors coupled to an internal combustion engine. Suffice to say that on the EV side the electric motors are 100% reliable. In the last 6 years reconditioning and repairing the battery I have not come across 1 instance of EV drive motor failure. Putting this aside we will look at how the internal combustion engine and transmission contributes to this reliability.

Engine

Maximum efficiency of a conventional engine occurs at around half of the engine's peak power output. So if the engine has it's peak power at 12,000 RPM maximum efficiency would be around 8000 RPM. This means that at the low RPM end ( low speeds and idling) and the high RPM end it is not optimum.

Toyota uses the Atkinson cycle engine. Maximum RPM 4500 in the Generation II Prius (2000 - 2003) and 5000 r.p.m in the Generation III Prius (2003 - 2009 ). The lower end of the spin rate 0 - 2500 is taken up by the EV drive, leaving the ICE to work in it's most efficient range of 2500- 4500 RPM. 

Reducing the spin rate also allows lightweight parts to be used, therefore reducing inertia and friction losses. 

The crankshaft is offset from the cylinder axes so that during the combustion stroke the force from the piston is transmitted to the crankshaft through a straight rather than tilted connecting rod.

The valves have narrow stems and low force springs to reduce energy lost in operating the valves. 

Starter Motor
There is no starter motor. This function is taken up by the electric motor MG1


Alternator
There is no alternator. This is taken up by a DC/DC converter. As there is no moving parts in a converter it is more reliable.


Generator
There are no belt driven generators. The same EV motor that drives the vehicle also acts as a generator.


Transmission
The planetary gear system used does not employ a clutch and reduction gears. A chain drive transfers power efficiently avoiding losses through axial thrust. 

No clutch means we are rid of another gadget that requires frequent replacement and poorer efficiency as they wear out.
Simplicity of the design in the transmission devoid of reduction gears makes for a transmission system that I have yet to see fail.

Less is More

The sum of it is that in the Toyota Hybrid design, the system is simpler and less complicated. Coupling an electric motor to the system sounds complicated but in reality they have put in a more reliable drive train to take care of the low end spin and employed an ideal ICE design for the top end spin. This marrying of the best of both world contributes to the efficiency and reliability of the Toyota Hybrid engine.

Honda Hybrid Vs Toyota Hybrid

The Powertrain

Honda's design - Integrated Motor Assist system uses an electric motor between the engine and continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT) to aid propulsion and turn the 1.3-liter i-VTEC 4-cylinder engine off at stoplights. Integrated Motor Assist is a "mild," or "power assist," hybrid system because the electric motor can't propel the car on its own from a stop, though it can do so for a short time in some steady cruising situations.
Honda's EcoAssist, has guidance and scoring functions, as well as an "ECO" mode that dulls throttle response to improve mileage. The guidance function includes a digital speedometer that turns green when you are driving efficiently and blue when you are hard on the gas.
The gasoline engine delivers maximum power of 69Kw at 6000 rpm. It uses 2 spark plugs per cylinder. The two spark plugs in each cylinder can fire either sequentially or simultaneously, enabling more efficient burning during lean-burn mode and more often lean-burn operation. The VTEC cylinder idling system of the engine closes the valves in three of the four cylinders when the car is decelerating, reduces the power lost to the engine by 50 percent and allows the IMA to extract more electrical energy during braking. The rocker arms operating the intake and exhaust valves have two modes: valve-lift mode or idle mode. They are engaged via a synchronizing piston. During deceleration, the synchro piston disengages the lift-mode rocker arm so that the valves remain at rest, effectively sealing off the cylinder.

Toyota's design - Hybrid Synergy Drive system uses a 73-Kw 1.8-liter (ZVW30) 4-cylinder engine aided by two electric motors, one of which assists the engine when more power is needed. Toyota quotes total output at 100 KW and acceleration of  zero to 100 kph in 9.8 seconds.
Hybrid Synergy Drive is a full hybrid system because the motor can propel the vehicle up to 42 kph without the aid of the engine. The Prius also has an "EV" button that allows the car to be driven on electric power alone. The upshot is that drivers can aim to keep the engine off as often as possible.
The Atkinson cycle engine delivers maximum 73Kw power at 5000 rpm and only starts once the vehicle has passed a certain speed and after starting operates in a narrow speed band.

Conclusion :  The electric motor will still be operating at peak capacity long after the engine has given up so maintaining efficiency will depend on the durability of the petrol engine.
Without a doubt the engine in the Honda works much harder. In the Prius the engine only operates from 2500 rpm - 5000 rpm, wheres in the Honda it is working from 0 rpm to 6000 rpm. This means that a Honda engine that has done 100,000 Kms would have significantly more wear and tear than the Prius which would probably only show the wear and tear of a vehicle that has done about 50,000 Kms.
The Honda engine is more complicated and uses 8 spark plugs. This just means more things to go wrong and higher maintenance cost.

We must bear in mind that all comparisons are done with vehicle in peak condition and this is only true when the vehicle is new. My opinion is that overall Toyota's design is far superior. It will still be running perfectly (like new) even after the vehicle has done 500,000 Kms, and it will cost a lot less to maintain.

Our dependency on oil and why we have to move to hybrids

How dependent are we on oil imports
New Zealand imports 97% of its oil. Oil is the lifeblood of our economy. So a vital question must be -- how vulnerable is New Zealand to oil supply shocks? -- Whether from short term disruption, or due to an on-going and perhaps permanent decline in world oil exports?

You would think that discussion about this vital issue would be front and centre of political and economic debate, given the current high oil prices, unrest in the Middle East, and with the UK government developing an oil shock response plan. Instead there is close to zero public discussion about New Zealand's oil security.

What are the key facts?

1. New Zealand imports 97% of its oil. About 39 million barrels was imported as crude oil for the year ended March 2011 and was refined at the Marston Point refinery. ( Read More )

Combining Ultra Capacitors With Lead Acid Batteries — for Hybrids

Yokohama Batteries in Malaysia have released into the market spiral wound capacitors when arranged in 12 volt configurations and no larger than a pack of cigarette, is capable of starting a truck. 

This was originally developed by Boulder Technology which went bankrupt. By combining this technology with a lead acid battery Yokohama hopes that they will be able to create a super battery capable of being used in hybrid vehicles.

With our invention the Power Jockey we are on the lookout for a powerful 12 volt battery that will highlight the power and advantages of our system.

Example of super capacitor battery.


A Lead Acid Battery Capacitor Hybrid—for Hybrids

This article from IEEE Spectrum explains a capacitor lead acid hybrid from AxionEast Penn that addresses the inherent weakness of the lead acid battery.

By Prachi Patel-Predd

First Published December 2008

Engineers give lead-acid batteries a makeover by crossing them with ultracapacitors

Lead-acid ­batteries are relics that haven’t changed much since their invention nearly 150 years ago. Heavy and unable to withstand rapid charge-discharge cycles, they are unsuitable for the automotive world’s killer app, hybrid-electric vehicles. Hybrids instead use expensive nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries or, experimentally, lithium batteries. But a new, souped-up version of lead-acid batteries could change that, cutting the cost of hybrids and also improving the function of power grids and a range of other applications. 


The new design ­combines lead-acid chemistry with ultracapacitors, energy-­storage devices that can quickly absorb and release a lot of charge, which they store along the ­roughened surface of their electrodes. Unlike ordinary lead-acid ­batteries, which are slowed by the movement of ­chemicals within them, these could ­provide quick bursts of power for acceleration and then recharge during braking, a must for hybrid-electric and electric vehicles. A hybrid’s rapid recharging cycles and high currents would destroy the lead electrodes in standard batteries, because lead sulfate would build up on them. The new batteries can go through at least four times as many charging cycles as lead-acid batteries, and, ­crucially, would cost about a quarter of NiMH batteries. 


At least two lead-acid/ultracapacitor ­technologies are now poised for ­market release. Battery giant East Penn Manufacturing Co., in Lyon Station, Pa., licensed the technology for the UltraBattery in September from Furukawa Battery, in Yokohama, Japan, which has already begun ­manufacturing the devices. Researchers at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), who invented the UltraBattery, tested it early this year in a Honda Insight hybrid, which ran for 160 000 kilometers. 


Meanwhile, Axion Power International, based in New Castle, Pa., has ­developed a slightly ­different design, which it will test for U.S. Marine Corps assault ­vehicles; the company got US $1.2 million from the Department of Homeland Security in October for the tests. A bank of 1000 of Axion’s batteries will also soon be tested as a ­utility-grid buffer in upstate New York. Axion CEO Thomas Granville says that the new ­technology “lets us get into markets that have been in the past closed to lead-acid batteries.” 


The new batteries’ advantage over standard lead‑acid batteries comes from ­simple tweaks of the negative ­electrode. Instead of a lead plate, Axion makes the electrode from activated carbon, the highly porous, spongelike material used in ­ultracapacitor electrodes. When a ­regular battery discharges, the lead electrode reacts with sulfate ions, forming lead sulfate and creating protons and electrons. Axion’s activated carbon electrode directly releases and adsorbs protons from the sulfuric acid electrolyte during discharging and ­charging. The batteries recharge four times as fast as conventional ones, Granville says. 


The UltraBattery is slightly different, says Lan Lam, ­project manager of the ­battery work at CSIRO. The ­negative electrode is split into two, one half made of lead and the other half of activated ­carbon. The two halves are connected in parallel so that their ­currents combine. This split­-­electrode design gives the battery the best of both technologies, according to Lam. While activated carbon provides quick energy bursts, it cannot store as much energy as the lead-acid chemistry. The combination gives the UltraBattery an energy ­capacity closer to that of a lead-acid battery than an ­ultracapacitor could get alone, Lam says.


Both designs have a big cost advantage. “Nickel-metal hydride, ­depending on the application, is as much as $800 to $1200 per kilowatt-hour,” Granville says. “Axion’s battery costs $200 per kilowatt-hour.”


These battery/ultracapacitor combinations will have to compete with lithium-ion batteries as the successor to NiMH for hybrid ­vehicles. Cost and safety, ­however, are still a concern for ­lithium. Lithium-ion batteries can overheat, ignite, and even explode if mistreated.


The lead-acid/ultra­capacitor batteries have other advantages. They are ­easier to recycle than NiMH or ­lithium, according to East Penn. Lithium-ion ­batteries don’t have much usable metal, so they are usually incinerated, while the nickel from NiMH batteries is ­consumed in the steel industry. The military, meanwhile, is interested in Axion’s batteries, not so much for hybrids but because they work at temperatures as low as –50° C and weigh less than standard lead-acid batteries, Granville says. 


Future of transportation

Peak Oil

Some may argue that we have already pass this point. What is obvious is that when it does happen the implications will be catastrophic. The US ( pop 450 million) uses about 20 billion barrels of which 14 billion is imported. China on the other hand imports about 4.5 billion and India 1.5 billion. China has a policy of voluntary power cuts in industry because of a shortfall in generative capacity. Russia exports about 6 billion barrels. These fast developing countries will be catching up with the US in per capita usage and as it happens the price of oil will head towards the stratosphere.

It is obvious that the gasoline fuel vehicles cannot continue into the future. Global warming and the cost of oil will see to that. As we come out of this recession and the price of oil peak towards US$70 a barrel the emphasis will be back on hybrids and electric vehicles.

(July 2011 Price of 91 octane is $2.08 a litre and a barrel of Brent crude is US$116 )

(June 2009 Price of 91 octane petrol is $1.62 a litre and a barrel of oil is US$41 )

At the battery clinic we recondition the Nimh battery pack used in the Prius hybrid and Honda hybrid vehicles. We are always asked as to whether the hybrid vehicle is the future of private transportation.

Hybrid vehicles are expensive not only because it is a new technology but more so because there are 2 engines in this vehicle. The petrol engine and the electric engine. I would hazard a guess that even at the high price charged these vehicles are sold at a loss.

Electric vehicles such as the BYD from China and the Volt from GM have an electric motor and a petrol generator to charge the batteries. The battery itself can power the vehicle 60 kilometers. This is more than enough for most trips. The generator can extend the range of this vehicle to 360 kilometers.

Better Place is a company set up to pioneer the development of a smart grid for electric vehicles. It is setting up the system in Isreal. Better Place retains ownership of the batteries used in the electric vehicle and owners can exchange the batteries at charge stations set up around the country. This avoids the down time required to charge the batteries.

Still to come are vehicles that use hydrogen fuel cells as their fuel source.

In my view Hybrid vehicles are only an interim solution with electric vehicles such as the BYD and the Volt taking over in the future. I base this prediction on more than cost alone. The BYD electric vehicle sells for US$22,000 and the Volt should also be thereabouts, while the hybrids are twice that. Fuel economy in the electric vehicles are also much better. The batteries can be charged from the house plug which means home homeowners can also install solar and wind generation to charge their cars.

How hydrogen fuel cells picture in the future is still in question again from the cost angle.

Can a Power Jockey improve the main Hev Battery

This is an interesting question. The purpose of the Power Jockey is to enable a weaker battery to work with the vehicle. It does this by keeping the operating voltage above critical level. (Power Jockey Graph)
In our lead acid battery reconditioning process we use battery desulphators which basically feeds ripple current into the battery to break up the sulphation. Can this process also benefit Nimh batteries? Some people believe that in their experience with Nicad batteries in model airplanes ripple current did benefit the batteries.
The Power Jockey in it's latest configuration was change to introduce this effect. It is difficult to test this phenomenon but I had the chance to drive an NHW10 with a reconditioned battery and a Power Jockey installed from Auckland to Paihia (240 Kms) and back twice last week (24-30/6/2011).
In the first trip the turtle showed up nearing the top of high hills. The vehicle exhibited good power. I was able to accelerate uphill and speeds of up to 96Kph. When the turtle showed I had to slow down to about 70 Kph to allow the battery to recover. When the turtle went away I could accelerate away again. On the way back the triangle appeared possibly due to the delta SOC exceeding 50% and the vehicle went into a different mode. There was more power and acceleration uphill was even better. I could easily hit speeds of 120 Kph on the flat and 97 Kph in hill climbs. ( There are some very long and steep hills between Auckland and Paihia. )
On my second trip back to pick up someone I left behind, as I had to come back to work! I could feel that the vehicle was getting more responsive and there was much more power. Back in Auckland after a short stop the triangle went away!! This happened by itself  I did not reset the computer with our scan tool. I have never experience this before. Hev batteries never improve after the triangle shows up. So did the Power Jockey improve the battery? I can't say and this is just one instance. Maybe others who install the latest configuration of the Power Jockey can add to this.