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

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

#101

Post by olivermarks »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #42
ThunderSizzle wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will never work that way, except for the lucky few. Have you ever tried selling books back to the school store? They'll buy it from you for $10 when you paid $100 for it. Same thing will happen for this.

It's trivial to prevent the power company from doing this -- just unplug your car. They can't force anybody to participate, so if they want participation they'll have to pay and pay well.

But then you won't be able to drive your electric car because it's not charged up...

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

#102

Post by Timshel »

joshe wrote: post #85

It feels like an iceberg has been slowly turning over for the past 10 years, and is now flipping quickly. Economic growth is now more correlated with carbon reduction than increase. The useful work of preventing coal plants is over and we need to switch gears to get home appliances, ev cars, solar, wind and transmission out as quickly as possible. Environmental groups and common knowledge haven't caught up yet, but t…

Meh when I see that we are barely able to stop the growth of fossile fuel usage ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_cons... ), I'm not sure why peoples are so optimistic.

And it's not like Enr and other suggestion you propose will not need insane amount of ressource extraction.

Heat pump usually need a well insulated home, just isolating all the needed house in the next 25 years is probably a challenge itself between cost and having enough workers. And it's not like there was an article last week on electrician shortage ...

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

#103

Post by throwaway892238 »

burkaman wrote: post #57
martinflack wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It is not true, but they do make it very hard in some places and as a group utilities do kind of hate the idea. Almost all states require net metering, which what allows people to sell their solar to the grid, and there is some federal regulation too ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005 ). Despite these requirements most utilities make it pretty hard to set up.

florida's been trying to kill net metering for years: https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2021/12/20/fl... https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/power-bills-could-rise-ev... they even allegedly derailed a democratic election using a fake candidate: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/politics/os-ne-florida-power...

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

#104

Post by nemomarx »

ralph84 wrote: post #93
dublinben wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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...

School buses seem like possibly the only real use case here, since they have a very seasonal usage pattern. For other commercial vehicles, the operators buy them to operate, not sit around and power the grid. When are they envisioned to be powering the grid?

Municipal buses are parked in depots overnight, right? That would kind of make sense - they already have to own the land for that, the vehicles already have to stay there in specific conditions, etc.

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

#105

Post by tuatoru »

ratboy666 wrote: post #98

The elephant in the room -- unfortunately, there cannot be enough batteries made to support this. That is why I invested in Tesla -- don't care about EVs, but the battery play is good! Backup power for personal/family use? I use a Firman generator - 20 litres of fuel per day of operation at load. (here, $30 Canadian). Since the generator was only $300 and load is 3000W, this is a much better deal for me. And... at th…

> unfortunately, there cannot be enough batteries made to support this.

Why do you say this? It contradicts what everyone in the industry thinks.

There are no material shortages for the materials used in lithium batteries, and there are several alternative chemistries under active development, that are at least two of cheaper, more durable, or higher power-to-weight than lithium.

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

#106

Post by danans »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #25
nkingsy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes much more sense with large lifepo4 chemistry batteries that are expected to outlive the car by a wide margin. Lifepo4 batteries > 50kwh should easily handle 500,000 miles. Higher performance lithium ion will degrade at a rate faster than any expected return from a scheme like this. At least in Northern California it’s now cheaper for me to run solar+battery off grid than to pay pge. Lifepo4 pushes it over…

I have 100k miles on my 2018 Model S having Supercharged it the majority of the time the last four years. It has only 6% battery degradation of the 100kw pack. Tesla warranties their powerwalls for 15 years when configured as part of their aggregated virtual power plants. The batteries are demonstrated to be durable. New LFP chemistries that are heavier but more stable are ideal for stationary storage and high cycle…

> if you don’t want or can’t get dedicated stationary storage (although it comes with generous federal, state, and utility subsidies in California).

I installed stationary LFP batteries (from Enphase) on my house in CA 1.5 years ago, but I then discovered that the state and utility subsidies [1] only apply if you are in a very low income (for CA) bracket, have a health condition that requires backup power, or live in a high fire risk zone.

I don't qualify for the first 2 categories, and my luck is that the high fire risk zone starts about a mile away from my house, so good from the fire risk perspective, but not for the subsidy. Still got the 26% federal tax credit (with IRA, it's now back up to 30%).

1. SGIP: https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/industries-and-topics/electrical-ene...

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

#107

Post by reportingsjr »

ratboy666 wrote: post #98

The elephant in the room -- unfortunately, there cannot be enough batteries made to support this. That is why I invested in Tesla -- don't care about EVs, but the battery play is good! Backup power for personal/family use? I use a Firman generator - 20 litres of fuel per day of operation at load. (here, $30 Canadian). Since the generator was only $300 and load is 3000W, this is a much better deal for me. And... at th…

> I would want LiFePo4 for this application; at current rates, a 10KWh battery runs $10,000.

Where in the heck did you get that number? 10kWh of LiFePO4 batteries is more like $3k at current prices: https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-lifepower4-lithium-battery-48...

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

#108

Post by karamanolev »

PeterCorless wrote: post #90

Considering that most "EV batteries" are actually just smaller batteries glued together to bigger cells, modules and packs, I don't think this is as much of a win as people think it is. It's like saying "We can green the planet with Duracells." Ignoring what's in the batteries or what it takes to manufacture them. Or how they degrade over time. We may need to look at hybrid battery solutions with alternative energy s…

It's not as black and white. EV batteries are getting produced and will get produced quite a lot it seems. We'll be using them for transportation, but if we can also use them for short-term grid storage, that certainly improves the sustainability math. Using things better is a win, so let's do it.

We can't green the planet with Duracells, but it's certainly better than producing and not fully using the Duracells.

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

#109

Post by p1necone »

yodsanklai wrote: post #87
bottlepalm wrote: post #36

This is already happening today in California, a couple gigawatts of batteries are charged during the day and released in the evening to offset peak demand. https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html

This seems high(?): for comparison, average power of French solar panels is 1.6GW (and a bit more for wind power).

The population of California is ~ half that of France, and presumably California sells power to neighbouring states too, so it doesn't seem that out of whack.

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

#110

Post by claytongulick »

Maybe before we get too excited about scaling production of EV batteries, we should solve the horrific abuses in the cobalt mines in the Congo [1] which provide 70%+ of all cobalt for all lithium ion batteries.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIWvk3gJ_7E

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