Khaligh Collaborating with Genovation on Novel Energy Storage System

ECE Assistant Professor Alireza Khaligh is working with Genovation, a Rockville-based, green car company, to design a novel hybrid battery/ultracapacitor energy storage system for Genovation’s G2 Electric Car. Genovation's objective is to provide its customers with safe, sustainable automobiles that do not compromise their driving independence.

The recent public interest in using alternative fuels to power automobiles has created investment in a huge variety of technologies that could reduce the planets dependence on oil for transportation. Unfortunately, these technologies are diverse and disjointed, and while each one shows promise they need to be focused on working together to produce a system level solution that actually saves energy and reduces Green House Gas (GHG).

Fuel cells, fed by hydrogen and producing electricity and only water as a byproduct, have been in development for two decades and although the technology has improved tremendously the economic and safety aspects of producing and transporting hydrogen have not.

The G2 Electric Car is Genovation’s first foray into sustainable automobiles and allows for two variants; Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) and Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle (PHEV). The G2 features a fully integrated thermal management system as well as a drag coefficient (Cd) of 0.2 that was measured using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and by testing in the University of Maryland’s wind tunnel.

For more information on Genovation or the G2, visit Genovation's website.

Published February 15, 2012