Meet the Little-Known Inventor of Vehicle-to-Grid Tech. It is Not a Mere Fad
Under the radar, Willett Kempton is one of the most-cited researchers in EVs
Until the middle of the decade, electric vehicles will cost more on average than combustion. So to attract buyers beyond first-movers, automakers have resorted to sales gimmicks. Among them has been this notional argument: If you have the right technology, you can earn extra dollars by selling the charge in your battery back to the grid. This idea, which goes by the nickname vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, is often touted by EV evangelists who cleverly point out that people’s cars just sit around in driveways and parking lots most of the time.
The result has not been a stampede to showrooms, as most ordinary motorists hold off for big, promised sticker price drops in the middle of the decade when battery technology improves. The theory of a collective fortune to be earned by vehicle-owners, all hooked up to a hungry grid while they obliviously work or sleep, has seemed to just sit there in the annals of hifalutin hypotheses.
Yet it turns out that V2G is no faddish notion, but a term going back to a paper about a quarter century ago. Its inventor, a little-known University of Delaware professor named Willett Kempton, is armed with a fistful of…
