Zoomi Life

Google is working on a project called RechargeIT at their .org wherein the IT geeks are coming up with some smart charging software to work as a sort of localized smart grid for plug-in electric cars.  The idea is to teach the car when to best charge itself so as not to overtax the grid.

The Google team plans to fix all of this with a couple of lines of code.  Maybe an egg timer.  Not clear on how many levers or marbles rolling down little channels into cups there will be.  If there’s a bowling ball that falls off something to bounce something else in the air?  I totally want one of these.

OK, maybe there’s no Rube Goldberg going on here.  There should be, but I don’t think there is.  I think it’s just software.  You know, that invisible stuff that makes your computer do stuff.  I was really hoping for more excitement than that.  You know?  New software?  Come on.  Gimme a break.   B-O-R-I-N-G

Boring, but vital.  You see, stupid places like California have over-taxed electrical grids. Even now that Enron isn’t running the show, they can’t seem to get it working right.  So they already have problems with an antiquated, overtaxed, under-producing grid shuttling wild electrons into people’s homes and offices in a thoroughly unreliable way.  Add a bunch of new electrical appliances like a big fleet of plug-in Priuses?  Bad.

So the plan is for Google’s new software to integrate with the smart grid and turn charging for the electric vehicle on and off according to the grid’s ability to provide power. If no smart grid exists, the software can be set to be on a timer to not draw power during peak load times of the day.

The team has been hard at work on RechargeIT since 2007.  They are working on some other innovations as well.  Such as using plugged in cars as energy storage units for the grid.  One or two cars won’t ad much, of course, but imagine a thousand of them in one city.

There are obviously some problems with this, which is probably why they haven’t finished their project after two years. You know, problems like how if a person has their car plugged in half the day and then comes out to find it still empty, that person is probably going to rip their code out from under the hood and shove…

Sources: PopSci, Google