Ponder the typical list of things one might plug in and charge up: a phone, a tablet, an iPod, an electric razor, an intergalactic communication device.
Randy Brian’s list is similar, space-chatting technology aside. But his contains a few notable earthly additions – his car and his house.
Wait, what? It’s true – and they plug in to each other (sort of. We’ll explain).
Brian owns and operates Converdant, a Concord-based business that installs plug-in and plug-out kits to Toyota Prius cars, the former of which converts the Prius into an electric car and the latter of which turns it into a generator that can power your home.
Suddenly phoning the Milky Way doesn’t seem so far fetched, does it?
“As more of the world gradually wakes up to the fact that carbon is a problem, I believe the industry of this century will be dominated by replacing carbon as an energy source,” Brian said. “Replacing it as an energy source at the utility level is going to be a gargantuan market, and where the spoils go is to people who invent and produce solutions, not those who consume. We need to be proactive in providing solutions.”
Mission accomplished there. Brian started Converdant about five years ago when he began installing the plug-in products, extending gas mileage on the already fuel-friendly Prius. And with an eye on expanding the hybrid appeal even further, he added the plug-out option in the last few years, giving people a greener alternative to a traditional mechanical generator.
The products are installed and work separately. The plug-in kit installs in the trunk of the Prius, where a bucket for holding tools resides in a stock version of the car. There are different options for power, from 2 kilowatt hours to 10, and the larger the battery pack, the longer you can drive on battery power. Brian’s car is equipped with the 10 kWh option, and he drove from his Concord home to the Zakim Bridge in Boston before the car switched over to traditional power.
With a full charge in the larger battery pack, gas mileage on a highway drive is extended to as much as 100 miles per gallon; it could reach 150 or 200 driving around town, Brian said. His tank of gas typically lasts about 550-650 miles, as opposed to the 400 one usually gets out of a Prius, he said. The change typically amounts to getting fuel at 1/3 or 1/4 the cost per mile, with about 1/3 fewer emissions per mile.
The car plugs into a traditional outlet, requiring no dedicated charging station or modifications to a home. Charging more than one car at a time could strain a home’s power supply, but Brian solved that by picking up some basic Christmas tree timers and putting his and his wife’s cars on different settings, allowing them both to charge overnight without ever charging at the same time. It takes about eight hours to fully charge the largest battery pack, Brian said.
Whereas the plug-in product requires the installation of an additional battery, the plug-out option takes advantage of the battery already present in a Prius.
“Tinkerers had used Priuses to power homes, but they connected to a 12-volt battery. But with the standard hybrid battery, if you could connect to that, it would make a much larger power source,” Brian, who said his is the only company currently installing this particular product in the United States, said. “The Prius is an incredible D/C generator, engineered to far higher standards than any (mechanical) generator. But your house needs A/C power. So to get from car power to house power, you need an inverter, or a plug-out.”
As with the plug-in, the plug-out products come with various power options. A 1 kWh box would power a refrigerator, a TV, a home network and most of the other “basics,” Brian said. But a 2 kWh box is more “the sweet spot,” because it also allows for oil or gas heat to be running. The inverter box plugs into the Prius battery in the trunk and features several outlets, into which you plug whatever needs power. Brian has used it to operate his electric chainsaw after a tree was felled in his neighbor’s yard and has powered his entire house through several outages, inviting his blacked-out neighbors over to enjoy drinks and a movie.
Brian’s path to the energy field was a winding one, considering that it included a stint in the oil exploration business. Brian, an electrical engineer and geophysicist out of college, worked for years in the computer business and dabbled in the oil field before deciding it was time to make a change – and that meant altering his lifestyle and finding a way to make a career out of it.
“The oil industry was really fun, but I came to see it as part of the problem,” Brian said. “I was decidedly not green at a time when my wife made me watch Al Gore’s film, and I was intrigued by his message. Heretofore I was part of the problem, and I wanted to be part of the solution. And I thought, if I now understand something and 90 percent of my friends don’t, there has to be a business in there somewhere.”
And so Converdant was born. Brian began by altering a pickup truck before eventually working on his wife’s Prius. That was successful enough for him to purchase and modify another – “I put a bigger, better, slicker system into my Prius” – and the business quickly expanded from there (Weed Automotive in Concord does all of the installation work for Brian).
In Brian’s estimation, there are numerous advantages to installing both products. Since the work is most often done on used cars, it immediately ups their value and can extend their life well beyond original estimates.
As for the generator inverter, the Prius can handle changes in the electrical load coming from a house better than a mechanical generator without damaging appliances, and is significantly quieter without putting any unnecessary strain on the car.
“It’s a pure sine wave, and it’s as clean if not cleaner than the grid,” Brian said. “It’s designed to do this. If you’re in your Prius with all the accessories on and parked in the midday sun, you’re not consuming any more power than we’re asking it to do. You already own the best generator in the world; all we’re doing is giving you the ability to get it into your house.”
Brian admits the installations are expensive – though the plug-out generator adaptation is much less expensive than the plug-in alteration – and may not bring an immediate return on investment, but the clientele he’s seeking is worried more about the green movement than the green in a wallet.
“You are not going to save as much as you spend on this. This is a lifestyle investment; it’s not a payback investment,” Brian said. “The first words out of people’s mouths when they come to see me is, how much does it cost and what’s the payback? That will come some day. When you (move toward less) carbon, the net result will be much more sustainable energy for the country and the world. And we need to develop that stuff here. Name your gravy train, we can’t support them if we don’t produce the stuff the world consumes.”
Which is why Brian has already made the lifestyle switch, and can’t see himself ever driving anything else.
“This is my major expression of green energy and sustainable interest living,” he said.
To learn more about the products, visit converdant.biz.
