Imagine that significant amounts of extra power could be stored for later use in your home. Now imagine that you can store it in a battery in your very own electric vehicle.

This PJM video highlights the transmission grid operator’s newest MAGICC car initiative, the Mid-Atlantic Grid Interactive Car Consortium. It lays out a a vision for a system that stores energy and then pulls it from batteries when demand fluctuates and potentially spikes.

“This innovative big battery approach is better, quicker and more environmentally friendly at evening out power running though the grid” than other types of demand response of energy management systems, the video says.

But even more radical is the small battery solution, that divides energy storage into small amounts in millions of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle batteries. These cars save gas money and can keep the power grid in balance, the video says.

The hybrid MAGICC-identified car can supply energy back to the grid on demand and can also work to support wind or solar generation, the video says. More importantly, thousands and even millions of these smart-metered vehicles could revolutionize the way the grid is managed.

For grid operator PJM Interconnect, that program would be a revolutionary change from the hub and spoke model of centralized power generation and storage of energy in fossil fuels that has traditionally dominated the industry’s planning.

This video was originally posted on the PJM Interconnection YouTube channel.