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

nature.com

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

#191

Post by themitigating »

causality0 wrote: post #181
reissbaker wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sibling comment mentions (but maybe doesn't realize the importance of) what battery storage is primarily useful for: night power. Solar is cheap and easy for power when the sun is up, but doesn't exist when the sun sets. The "evening commute" is mostly during the time when the sun is up; where you run into issues is: 1. After the evening commute in the early hours of the night, people are still awake at home using…

A standard US dryer outlet is rated for 30 amps at 240v. For a sustained rating of 80% that's 5760 watts, which at 4 miles per kwh is 23 miles per hour, not 30. Frankly it would take a hell of a lot to convince people to be ok with getting home, plugging their car in, and having the charge level go down instead of up. I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with it.

Why wouldn't you be comfortable?

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

#192

Post by themitigating »

georgeg23 wrote: post #63
hdevalence wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pac…

If you have a high mileage car and the engine blew up would you buy a brand new engine or get a used one?

On US ebay I see model 3 batteries for $5k

A BMW engine (the b58) is about $5k used, about $10k rebuilt, and somewhere above $20k new.

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

#193

Post by jillesvangurp »

deostroll wrote: post #188

This paper covers only one aspect - estimating demand. But the cost of the EV batteries is another affair. Recently it has come to light several human rights violations involved with the lithium/cobalt mining industry. Both are necessary for making batteries and other electrical components that make up rechargeable batteries. But today, at least for the short-term, the only solution to stop those inhuman practices is…

Lithium is one of the more common elements on this planet. It's not a rare earth mineral. And there are ways to get lithium now that don't involve boohoo stories with small children breaking their backs under inhumane circumstances. E.g. Tesla is opening a lithium refining facility in Texas. And there are several battery chemistries that don't use cobalt at all now as well. And of course you can source cobalt from reputable mines as well these days if you do need it. And many companies make an effort to do just that.

And of course batteries can be recycled and this is expected to be a big business pretty soon. Most EV manufacturers are already recycling their batteries. These things won't end up in landfills.

So, it's not the case that all batteries must involve child labor and mass pollution. There are definitely some sustainability issues around battery production of course. Can we do better? Absolutely. But it's not that horrible to begin with. And it pales in comparison to the oil and gas industry. Lots of crocodile tears get expended on behalf of the children in the Congo. But nobody ever wonders where their petrol comes from. Double standards/hypocrisy.

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

#194

Post by coryrc »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #159
manmal wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LFP batteries can do 3k-10k cycles. Assuming a range of 500km per cycle out of an 100 kWh pack, that's 1.5 million km of total range (assuming 3k cycles). Only a small number of people will ever get that much out of a car - maybe 40% that, if maintained very very well. But we're talking Prius/Mercedes level endurance here, most cars won't make it that long. So in most cases, 70+% of the usable cycles in an LFP pack w…

Your range figures seem pretty crazy high. Pretty sure most EV batteries are smaller than 100k--my Model Y is only 75k for instance, and I'm not getting anywhere close to 500km per cycle because (1) my Model Y doesn't actually get 500km on a full charge and more importantly (2) like most EV owners, I don't charge to 100% and run my battery down to 0% but rather something closer to 80%/20%. So for my Model Y scenario,…

When speaking of battery cycles and lifetime, people almost always mean "full cycle equivalent". So when you say "I only go 80%->20%" then that would be considered 0.6 cycles counted against the lifetime.

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

#195

Post by coryrc »

vondur wrote: post #173
jungturk wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a plug-in hybrid, and not data, but I'm down 5-10% total range after 80k miles over 6 years in a plug-in (full) electric vehicle.

What car do you own? I’ve wondered about the Nissan leaf which apparently has no active cooling on the batteries vs others which do.

Only the early model years lack active cooling.

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

#196

Post by zdragnar »

themitigating wrote: post #192
georgeg23 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pac…

If you have a high mileage car and the engine blew up would you buy a brand new engine or get a used one? On US ebay I see model 3 batteries for $5k A BMW engine (the b58) is about $5k used, about $10k rebuilt, and somewhere above $20k new.

1,000 cycles is only 3 years (assuming a daytime commute plus discharging to the grid plus re-charging back up counts as a cycle). Most cars are definitely still under warranty after 3 years of driving (assuming a 5 year / 50k mile warranty).

Regardless, if you do have a high mileage ICE car that you want to save, the used engine is probably the way to go, and won't suffer a crippled range of a used battery.

In general, I like the idea of electric cars, but battery packs are not on the same level as an ICE engine in terms of replacement. If you're in the unfortunate position of owning something like a Volt, odds are you literally will not even be able to get replacement battery- and if you could, it would cost more to buy and install than the car would be worth when you were done. That exact scenario hit the news at least twice in the last year.

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

#197

Post by chii »

sundvor wrote: post #180
fwungy wrote: post #165

1) This only works when the overlap peak electric demand and peak vehicle demand do not overlap. Night time, when the cars sit idle, is also a low demand time of day, and the afternoon energy demand peak coincides partially with the evening commute. 2) The loss of value to the owner based on cycles used needs to take into account that the failure of the battery in a vehicle can be what causes its final retirement, i.…

Absolutely. As an EV owner who wants to keep his car for at least ten years, it doesn't make sense to me to dull out the high capacity batteries to support the grid. It seems to me that it would be better to use recycled batteries for home PV storage etc. I'm not too obsessed but it was easy enough to look up the data on what charge states result in the least loss of range over time.

or not just recycled EV batteries, but alternative batteries that don't need to have good weight ratios. PV storage should maximize the cost-efficiency, since that is the determining factor, not weight ratios like in a car would optimize for.

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

#198

Post by [deleted] »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #189
fwungy wrote: post #165

1) This only works when the overlap peak electric demand and peak vehicle demand do not overlap. Night time, when the cars sit idle, is also a low demand time of day, and the afternoon energy demand peak coincides partially with the evening commute. 2) The loss of value to the owner based on cycles used needs to take into account that the failure of the battery in a vehicle can be what causes its final retirement, i.…

V2g has a a few challenges of course but people seem to not be aware that their EV batteries are much better than they think. The early ones from ten years ago had no battery management systems and had issues with wearing out relatively fast. But the newer ones have battery management. So, the wear and tear is a lot less these days. A typical car battery is rated for thousands of cycles. 3000 cycles is a number you h…

[deleted]

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

#199

Post by fomine3 »

zdragnar wrote: post #196
themitigating wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a high mileage car and the engine blew up would you buy a brand new engine or get a used one? On US ebay I see model 3 batteries for $5k A BMW engine (the b58) is about $5k used, about $10k rebuilt, and somewhere above $20k new.

1,000 cycles is only 3 years (assuming a daytime commute plus discharging to the grid plus re-charging back up counts as a cycle). Most cars are definitely still under warranty after 3 years of driving (assuming a 5 year / 50k mile warranty). Regardless, if you do have a high mileage ICE car that you want to save, the used engine is probably the way to go, and won't suffer a crippled range of a used battery. In gener…

Cycle count is counted for every 0-100 charge/use. 1000 cycles in 3 years is unlikely for normal home use.

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

#200

Post by prawn »

martinflack wrote: post #43
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #32

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...

In Australia, you generally get paid for your panels contribution to the grid, but with any recent installs/contracts the feed-in tariff is puny.

Early adopters sometimes got long-term contracts with much more attractive feed-in tariffs, but that was back when people were installing fewer panels. Now those people usually have to decide between maintaining the great rate or upgrading their systems and having to create a new contract.

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