MCRP candidate Max Toth (2023) was recently awarded the New York City Metropolitan Section of the Society of Automotive Engineers Section Fellowship. The award was established to provide financial assistance to students enrolled at the Bloustein School who have an interest in electric vehicle infrastructure issues. This is the first in a series of cash scholarship awards that the SAE Met Section has pledged to Rutgers honoring the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center over the next several years.
As part of his award, Max presented his research, “Onramp to our Clean Energy Future: Merging Transportation and Energy with V2G + V2X” at the SAE Metro Section Brown Bag Lunch on January 19.
Vehicles are already a substantial end-use of our energy systems, and the shift from fossil fuels to electricity brings with it many opportunities and challenges for both electricity distributors and the automotive industry. To meet carbon reduction goals may require tighter integration between the electricity production system and vehicles, which can be transformed from end-use to active participant in the system using bidirectional charging with known as V2G (vehicle-to-grid) or V2X (vehicle-to-many: buildings, homes, grid, emergency shelters, etc.). In his talk, Max traced key moments of public policy interventions that led to increased models of electric school buses with onboard bidirectional charging, and pilot programs currently underway with utilities for V2G applications. He also looked at the challenge and promise of V2G from the grid management perspective.
Electric school buses have long represented an ideal test case for exploring the formal integration of vehicle batteries into the grid, as fixed-route, limited-schedule fleet vehicles with large battery requirements. His research also examines the implications for passenger cars, where pilots are underway both for managed fleets and for private cars, and key elements of technology enabling the merger of our electric grid and transportation network. Researchers believe that together, we can explore the challenges and opportunities of vehicle electrification for the energy and transport systems of the future.
Max has been the principal for his own consulting firm since 2016, leading progressive nonprofit organizations through critical operational and technology decisions, including selection and migration to new data and business systems. He also facilitates internal stakeholder decision processes, performs and presents research, and designs and recommends systems improvements. His clients have included MoveOn.org, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Main Street Alliance, Clean Energy Works, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Jews United for Justice (DC/Maryland/Virginia region).
This past summer, he was a Clean Energy Intern for the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) in Trenton, NJ. During his internship, he provided support for clean energy finance projects, including the Clean Energy Business Financing program. The program is a proposal to make $80 million in loans available to support small businesses in New Jersey’s clean energy economy as part of NJEDA’s application to the SBA’s State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI).