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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

#201

Post by sokoloff »

reissbaker wrote: post #179
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.…

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…

> The "evening commute" is mostly during the time when the sun is up

I admittedly live on the eastern edge of my time zone (Boston), but my evening commute is fully past any meaningful solar production for almost half the year (solar is producing under 25% for ~14 hours per day on a year-round basis, more in winter).

As we continue to electrify space heating, more electricity will be demanded on winter overnights (when you lose solar PV but also have increased building net heat loss).

To me, this points towards “use nuclear for base load, dummies…”

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

#202

Post by sokoloff »

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.

A 15-50 outlet is the most straightforward part of the problem to solve here I think.

Paying people the right price for their V2G supply will go a long way to making them comfortable, I think. The ones that aren’t don’t have to.

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

#203

Post by sieabahlpark »

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…

[dead]

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

#204

Post by shagie »

dahfizz wrote: post #185
shagie wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would like to use my car battery as a temporary home battery in the inevitable case of a grid outage. This opens the option to bring energy home from another location. Reduce or eliminates the need for a battery in a grid-tied house. Question is "how long?" and "how much?" Lets take a 100 kWh battery which matches a Tesla Model S battery option and is a nice number for doing conversions from. https://shrinkthatfo…

Anyone expecting regular 4+ day outages is already going to have a generator. What people want is for the car which is already plugged into their house to kick in when the power goes out for an hour or two.

At an hour or two, that's ballpark 3kWh of power you'd need. There are battery backup solutions in this range that are $3k to $6k (that are frankly quite interesting.

Those have the instant on design so that if the power is lost to the house you have a few seconds and its back up and running.

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

#205

Post by sokoloff »

phkahler wrote: post #19
lja wrote: 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…

Pay the right price for V2G energy supplied and a lot of people will want it.

Plenty of people are willing to drive 200 miles of Uber as a second job. V2G is a lot more appealing than that I think.

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

#206

Post by Eisenstein »

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…

> The early ones from ten years ago had no battery management systems

I think you misunderstand what a battery management system is. If a Li-Ion battery had no BMS -- especially one that is large, high power, and composed of many cells, it would literally be an incendiary bomb if not carefully managed by the user. The BMS is responsible for maintaining the cells -- they must be equalized and cannot go below or above certain voltages, and the charge controller is not the unit responsible for doing this while the pack is in use.

By claiming that there were no battery management systems in earlier EVs you are showing ignorance about the workings of these systems to the point where it is difficult to trust the other things you say. What is your background for this knowledge? Can you provide references to your claims?

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

#207

Post by babypuncher »

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.…

> EVs are more like cell phones than ICE cars, which can have lifespans of over 30 years in the right climate. So losing 10% of your cycles to grid support could mean buying a car at nine years instead of ten years.

I feel like we should be mandating easy and near-cost replacement for EVs to make sure that this is less of a problem. Battery wear aside, EV's have the potential to greatly outlast ICE's. We should be treating batteries just like tires and brakes.

I agree that using EV batteries as grid storage isn't a particularly great idea.

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

#208

Post by geysersam »

dokem wrote: post #141
iso1631 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the gas station selling you a tank of gas for $10 and buying it back for $15 later in the day, all while your car sits on your driveway

Imagine thinking the government or big-business would sell a money making machine. Why not capture it themselves?

Car owners already have these huge batteries. For any other actor that would be a huge capital expense.

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

#209

Post by geysersam »

olivermarks wrote: post #101
bryanlarsen wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Then you'll change utility company.

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

#210

Post by ciphol »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #170
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.…

And keep in mind it's to store energy from renewables (minus hydropower), i.e. mainly solar and wind. Solar is nonexistent at night. And although it varies, wind is generally strongest during the day and delivers less energy at night. But night-time is exactly when the vehicles are charged in people's homes, at least currently that's the situation and it would necessitate a ton of new infrastructure to change that. H…

Charging at work seems like the thing to do. Not only is there excess solar energy at that time, but workplaces are more concentrated than homes so the installation costs for chargers should be less.
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