Reliant Energy launches hybrid car pilot project in Houston

18 November 2009

The City of Houston and NRG Energy company’s subsidiary Reliant Energy have launched a programme to bring plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to Houston to demonstrate electric cars.

The programme includes converting ten city-owned Toyota Prius cars to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and installing ten vehicle-charging stations to power them.

The programme is designed to raise consumer awareness, educate the public about plug-in electric cars and promote Houston and Texas as an electric vehicle center. Seven of the ten stations will be available to the public, representing the largest public charging infrastructure in Texas, according to a statement from the company.

‘We’re committed to making Houston the nation’s green energy capital,’ said Houston Mayor Bill White. ‘That commitment begins at City Hall and these clean-running electric cars, and the charging stations that will be available to all Houstonians will get us farther down that road.’

The ten charging stations provided by Reliant will be located around Houston, at City Hall, the Health Department Office and the Mayor’s Citizens Assistance Office. Reliant chose California-based Coulomb Technologies to provide its ChargePoint networked charging stations. Coulomb’s network will enable the city to administer consumer access to the public stations.

‘We envision thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of electric cars on our roads in the coming years, making Houston’s air cleaner and the city greener,’ said Reliant Energy’s president Jason Few. ‘This pilot project gives both Reliant and the city of Houston the opportunity to learn more about the performance of electric vehicles and the needs of drivers, while promoting consumer awareness and education about plug-in electric cars.’

Few continued, ‘Ultimately, this is about providing consumers the tools, in this case the charging infrastructure, and information like what we will get from this trial, so they can make informed choices about how they use energy.’

The vehicles selected for conversion are 2009 Toyota Prius hybrids. The plug-in conversion module is the Hymotion L5 provided by A123 Systems, a developer and manufacturer of advanced lithium-ion batteries and battery systems for use in hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electric vehicles, as well as for the electric grid and consumer markets.

Reliant Energy provides electricity and energy services to more than 1.6 million retail customers across Texas.

Copyright © 2009 NewNet

Tags: electric cars, energy efficiency, hybrid cars

This story was published on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 11:31 am and is filed under North America, deals, energy efficiency. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Reliant Energy launches hybrid car pilot project in Houston”

1. Stoned [Why Hybrid] says:

   18 November 2009 at 12:59 pm

   Lets see are we sure we wish to talk about hybrid vehicle, is adopting hybrid vehicle really a solution and if the era of hybrid vehicle would only be a transiently phase then do we really need to invest into a temporary solution….and why alternate & better solutions being delayed…plug-in electric cars are a far better solution compared to Hybrid from Honda or Toyota that still have fossil emissions…..

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