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EV batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand as early as 2030

nature.com

61–70 of 278 posts

Re: EV batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand as early as 2030

#61
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds similar to Uber using a contractor vehicle's hidden depreciation and maintenance to shift the real cost of their service. I doubt the hourly price will ever truly be fair to individual car owners. Maybe we'll start to be asked whenever we plug in our phones to tip the owner of a car our electricity is coming from.

If there are consistent price cycles and a good API for reading price, it should be pretty easy for an EV owner to control how much they interact with the arbitrage opportunities with some simple rules. Ex. "only sell if it cost at least 15% less to charge", "always charge to X%", "charge to 70% if The aesthetic vibe of having an autonomous energy trading bot in my garage is attractive to me.

Part of the issue isn't the controls to do that it's that the prices to compensate wear on a battery are a) likely significantly higher than the base price and b) pretty hard to calculate.

Re: EV batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand as early as 2030

#62
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling electricity is compensation, like with solar panels. You only need hourly energy prices to make it profitable. Plus an app that does the profitability calculation and discharging.

Sounds similar to Uber using a contractor vehicle's hidden depreciation and maintenance to shift the real cost of their service. I doubt the hourly price will ever truly be fair to individual car owners. Maybe we'll start to be asked whenever we plug in our phones to tip the owner of a car our electricity is coming from.

I already get paid by my utility for the electricity my solar panels generate, and it's 1:1 with what they charge me for their generation.

Re: EV batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand as early as 2030

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I calculate about $12 per Model Y full battery cycle, how did you get 2 cents? $12,000 (Model Y bat replace cost) * 300(miles for full drain)/300,000(total miles per pack) = $12 per cycle Edit: or 18 cents per kWh

The 2 cent figure is per kWh, not per cycle. Multiplying by the 75kWh pack size gives $1.50. What about the remaining 10X? The calculation you’re doing isn’t the right one, because the battery wear isn’t directly related to miles driven; Tesla’s battery warranty is pricing in a “full stack” picture of battery degradation while actually driving. Your computation implies that the battery has 0 value after ~1000 cycles,…

The nature paper seems to assume the car is doing a fast discharge to supply enough energy to the grid, so something like supercharging-- probably not the best on the battery. Tesla only warranties 375 cycles, so not sure what you mean? The 18 cents/kWh already assumes a more generous 1,000 cycles.

The $12,000 battery pack replacement cost is current market price, including any recycling or potential reuse of old pack.

Edit: actual battery replace including labor is $16,550 from a receipt https://www.currentautomotive.com/how-much-does-a-tesla-mode...

Re: EV batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand as early as 2030

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using your numbers: 300000 miles / 320 miles/cycle = 938 cycles. 938 cycles * 72kWh = 67500 kWh. $12000 / 67500 = 18 cents. Dunno where I got my 2 cents from, that calculation was done 2 months ago.

I agree with your 18 cents/kWh. That's slightly more than the average cost of electricity in the US?.. That is interesting, that means for home-charging your electric cost (per mile) is about equal to the battery degradation cost. Thats 2x cost than most think.

the "real" time-based prices have much more variability, if you have time-based prices you can buy for a lot less and sell for a lot more during peak. That difference can easily be double that 18 cents/kWh.

Re: EV batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand as early as 2030

#65
post #2

I think EV owners would need to find some level of compensation for the additional cycles they would incur. Electric vehicles are expensive because of the battery so deteriorating the life of one of the most costly parts of the car doesn't feel like a great solution.

Did you know that the standard DC chargers communicate with the vehicle using PLC (Powerline communication) chips even though that communication is not over the high power conductors? I've always had the feeling the grid operators got that included because they thought they were going to communicate directly with the battery management system to control it as they wish. It never happened and now the standard is stupi…

>stop wanting V2G, nobody actually wants it.

Utilities really want V2G, so it's probably going to happen one way or another. It's probably less applicable to an individual homeowner, but commercial and other fleet operators are going to find this appealing at the right price.

For example: https://www.proterra.com/press-release/massachusetts-electri...

Re: EV batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand as early as 2030

#66
post #61
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are consistent price cycles and a good API for reading price, it should be pretty easy for an EV owner to control how much they interact with the arbitrage opportunities with some simple rules. Ex. "only sell if it cost at least 15% less to charge", "always charge to X%", "charge to 70% if The aesthetic vibe of having an autonomous energy trading bot in my garage is attractive to me.

Part of the issue isn't the controls to do that it's that the prices to compensate wear on a battery are a) likely significantly higher than the base price and b) pretty hard to calculate.

That's what a market is for.

Re: EV batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand as early as 2030

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using your numbers: 300000 miles / 320 miles/cycle = 938 cycles. 938 cycles * 72kWh = 67500 kWh. $12000 / 67500 = 18 cents. Dunno where I got my 2 cents from, that calculation was done 2 months ago.

I agree with your 18 cents/kWh. That's slightly more than the average cost of electricity in the US?.. That is interesting, that means for home-charging your electric cost (per mile) is about equal to the battery degradation cost. Thats 2x cost than most think.

For you though that cost is just part of the normal depreciation of using the vehicle. Allowing the utility to discharge your battery isn't part of the normal utilization for yourself so the cost should get included. We also don't usually think or talk about how much depreciation using a particular gallon of gas costs you so it muddies comparisons.

Re: EV batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand as early as 2030

#69
post #20
post #2

I think EV owners would need to find some level of compensation for the additional cycles they would incur. Electric vehicles are expensive because of the battery so deteriorating the life of one of the most costly parts of the car doesn't feel like a great solution.

Selling electricity is compensation, like with solar panels. You only need hourly energy prices to make it profitable. Plus an app that does the profitability calculation and discharging.

It's not likely that the pennies offered will offset the much larger loss of value in the battery, though.

Re: EV batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand as early as 2030

#70

We're nowhere near close to home charging for the number of EVs estimated by 2030. Go ask around, very few organizations are working on it compared to public chargers. Apartment managers and condo associations aren't demanding them and only homeowners have a say, after they pay for the upgrade. Not to mention, the power companies hate the idea. They won't even let people with solar panels feed their excess power to t…

> They won't even let people with solar panels feed their excess power to the grid. Is that true? If so, TIL...

This has to do with lack of demand during high PV production. This excess energy still has to go somewhere, it doesn't just disappear. This costs the grid operators money, so either they charge you or don't let you feed the excess power to the grid.
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