Washington, December 31: An Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay alumnus is working on electric cars that will not only be environmentally friendly, but also give their owners a chance to make lots of money.

Ajay Prasad, currently a member of University of Delaware research team, has revealed that the new system is called "vehicle to grid" (V2G).

He says that the new system will facilitate use of car batteries as electricity "sponges" that soak up and wring out the excess power from Utility Companies.

The researcher says that V2G will benefit utility companies by providing them with a place to store energy, and car owners by giving them a chance to receive a fee for their participation.

"If you can collect 300 cars, that fleet is sufficient for a utility operator to run a V2G operation, " Discovery News quoted Prasad, professor of mechanical engineering, as saying.

People generally drive their cars about one to two hours per day, meaning thereby that a large number of cars remain idle most of the time. Such parked cars may give electric grid operators a brilliant option to generate enough electricity to meet customers’ demands, by using the vehicles’ batteries.

Instead of charging customers for generating energy to meet their demands, a power plant will rather have to pay them to make the batteries available.

"The utilities understand the value immediately, " said team leader Willett Kempton, associate professor of urban affairs and public policy, also at the University of Delaware.

He revealed that communication between the power company and the electric car owner would be enabled through the Internet or some other wireless network, such as a cellular phone network.

Kempton said that for the system to have the most value, electric cars should be installed with high-amp plugs.

Though low-amp plugs work, he insisted that high-amp plugs would be better for selling electricity back to the grid, as a car owner would then want to sell as much as possible.

The V2G team has so far successfully connected one prototype electric car to the grid, and has been able to charge the battery as well as draw energy from it. They are now working to do the same with four to six vehicles. (ANI)