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US 2025/0158409 A1Published application
Virtual power plant
AssigneeCummins Inc.
InventorsJohn K. Heichelbech, John M. Monaghan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present disclosure relates to the use of power-agnostic mobile vehicles, including internal combustion, hybrid, fuel cell, and battery electric vehicles, which can collectively transfer power back to the grid in ever larger and growing quantities of power. In other words, the present disclosure relates to the use of a network of vehicles to act as a grid.
Claims20
A power-generating apparatus, comprising:
- a charge controller;
- and
- an inverter, the inverter configured to:
- receive a signal transmitted by the charge controller;
- convert DC power to AC power;
- and
- export 5-500 kW of AC power from the power-generating apparatus to a grid electrically coupled to the power-generating apparatus.
4 more elements
A system for aggregation and exportation of power to the grid, comprising:
- a controller configured to:
- monitor a grid stability of a grid and a cost of a unit of energy;
- monitor a status of a plurality of nodes within a fleet, wherein the fleet comprises a combination of mobile and stationary resources;
- and
- selectively receive and execute remote instructions from a user for transferring energy from at least one node of the plurality of nodes within the fleet to a grid.
2 more elements
A method of using an interconnected system with a grid, the method comprising:
- monitoring a connection status of one or more nodes within an interconnected system with a processor communicatively coupled to the one or more nodes;
- detecting a triggering event with the processor, wherein the triggering event is at least one of:
- an emergency event, an insufficient grid power event, or an event in which a price of an energy unit meets or crosses a predetermined threshold;
- receiving, with a charge controller of at least one node of the one or more nodes, a signal generated by the processor instructing the charge controller of the at least one node of the one or more nodes to transfer power from the at least one node of the one or more nodes to the grid;
- and
- transferring power from the at least one node to the grid.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.