Nissan partners with GE on electric infrastructure

Nissan signed an agreement on Sept. 30 with General Electric to speed up the production of charging stations and to accelerate other projects to ease the transition to electric cars. The focus now is research and development.

The areas that the companies will work on together are the integration of electric vehicles with homes and buildings and looking at the future impact of cars on the electric grid.

"As a major provider of power-generation equipment and energy services, GE is in a great position to help the automotive industry bring millions of electric vehicles onto the grid," said Mark Little, senior vice president and director, GE Global Research.

Two projects of the joint venture are under way. One endeavor is using aggregate usage data along with computer simulations to analyze the effects that millions of electric cars would have on our aging grid. Another project involves how cars could fit into GE's Smart Home strategy. Nissan engineers are looking at methods to connect a Leaf to a household and integrate it into the power system. It also will look at how the electric car impacts the cost of electricity.

Questions being answered, according to the companies are:

-- How can smart energy-management systems for homes and buildings be leveraged to support the management of EV charging?

-- How can we take advantage of energy storage and renewable power, such as home solar arrays, to reliably manage and meet the power needs of electric cars?

-- Are there innovative ways to directly link charging stations with renewable power sources?

Much of the work is being done at GE's base in Niskayuna, N.Y., while Nissan works out of its research and development center in suburban Detroit and its headquarters in Japan.

By Jake Lingeman