YOKOHAMA (Kyodo) -- Nissan Motor Co. said Tuesday it has developed a system to supply electricity to ordinary households from batteries installed in its Leaf electric vehicle, showing that the car can serve as a power storage device at times of power outages.
The Yokohama-based automaker plans to commercialize the system by the end of this fiscal year through March in Japan. But Nissan withheld announcing the price of the device called the Power Control System, which can also be used to supply electricity to the vehicle.
In this system, electricity stored in the EV's lithium-ion batteries can be supplied to a house by connecting the car to the home's electricity distribution panel using a connector linked to the Leaf's quick-charge port.
The lithium-ion batteries are capable of storing about 24 kilowatt-hours of electricity, sufficient to power an average Japanese household for about two days, according to Nissan.
Nissan said the system can also contribute to energy saving as the batteries can store electricity via such renewable energy sources as solar power generation.
"There are growing calls for launching the system especially after the (March 11) disaster," Nissan Corporate Vice President Hideaki Watanabe said, adding that the system creates value for the car even when the vehicle is not used for transportation.
"There is growing interest in how to use the energy (stored) in cars when they are parked," he said.
Nissan said it still has some legal hurdles to overcome for households to make use of the device, since such a system has never been utilized before.
Watanabe said the automaker intends to cooperate not only with power companies but also house builders and electronics companies to develop the necessary laws.