[HN Gopher] EV batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid sto...
___________________________________________________________________
EV batteries alone could satisfy short-term grid storage demand as
early as 2030
Author : rntn
Score : 139 points
Date : 2023-01-17 20:21 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| 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 the grid.
|
| We would need a federal mandate to get there, and I don't see it
| happening.
| martinflack wrote:
| > They won't even let people with solar panels feed their
| excess power to the grid.
|
| Is that true? If so, TIL...
| chucksta wrote:
| Depends on your state
| https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2020/03/which-
| states-o...
| burkaman wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway892238 wrote:
| 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...
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I opted NOT to sell my excess to PNM (New Mexico), because
| the agreement allowed them to claim my 6.7kW array as part
| of their own progress towards renewable conversion.
|
| What I didn't understand was that I ended up with an even
| better deal! I get back the excess kW/h on a 1:1 basis.
| This is much better "pricing" than I would have received if
| I had sold it for cash.
|
| Granted this model only works if there's a part of the year
| when you produce more than you need and another part of the
| year where you produce less. Since we heat more or less
| exclusively with electric air source heat pumps, but need
| no heat or a/c during summer, this works extremely well for
| us.
| burkaman wrote:
| What's wrong with them counting your solar as part of
| their conversion? Nothing wrong with you declining if the
| price isn't high enough, but if they're paying someone
| for solar power, whether it's an individual or a company,
| I think they should count that as part of their renewable
| portfolio.
| cinntaile wrote:
| 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.
| nawitus wrote:
| Are you saying the price is negative during high PV
| production? In sane markets like Finland solar panel owners
| need to pay for generating electricity to the grid if the
| price is negative (which is it sometimes).
| ratboy666 wrote:
| 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 the rates being
| bandied about here... if anyone EVERY offers, say, $1/KWh - That
| grosses me $70 per $30 of gas. I would take that incentive. Note
| that the generator would pay for itself every 10 days by my
| reckoning.. And the recycling of the motor is already a solved
| problem. So... $1/KWh is way too much. $0.50/KWh is also too much
| (and note that my gasoline pricing is around $1.50/litre at the
| pump -- $22.41 US for 20 liters ...
|
| So the actual amount should be around 32 cents per KW/h... 50
| cents work fine because that factors in "wear and tear" -- do
| those numbers work for batteries? Of course, buying electricity
| is 7 to 15 cents/KWh here.
|
| I would want LiFePo4 for this application; at current rates, a
| 10KWh battery runs $10,000. From that, I determine that I can
| "just" buy much more effective gas/natural gas/propane burning
| generators. Something like the Generac 6551. Natural gas is
| .23/c3 or around $1 for one hour of 7000W operation... actually
| looking competitive with electricity grid rates (except wear&tear
| on the generator).
|
| Note that I do have a hybrid car. So, not "anti-electric" by any
| means. I just don't think that enough batteries can be made for
| this application. Certainly NOT be 2030 (6 years? Oh really?)
| tuatoru wrote:
| > 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.
| reportingsjr wrote:
| > 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...
| joshe wrote:
| 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 the fastest route to
| a low carbon future is a lot of factories producing ev cars,
| appliances, and batteries.
|
| There are many zombie environmental groups that will continue to
| fight against anything humans try to change about the built
| environment, but over time the astonishingly good economics will
| move them to the side.
|
| One of the nice thing is they don't really have much power other
| than stopping solar farms and stopping clean energy transmission.
| For 80% of the things we need to do, it's just people going to
| home depot.
|
| And in many ways old school environmentalists are already losing
| the policy wars, the inflation reduction act is chock full of pro
| growth, pro abundance carbon reduction.
|
| If you are looking for startup inspiration...
|
| Super powerful battery augmented induction stove, hotter than
| gas: https://www.treehugger.com/impulse-electric-cooktop-gets-
| a-b...
|
| In window heat pump 80% more efficient at heating and cooling.
| Helps with the big ticket/renter problem for heat pumps.
| https://www.gradientcomfort.com/
|
| The coming abundance of energy...
|
| Economic growth and solar:
| https://mobile.twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/157068814444987...
|
| Solar economics: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-im-so-
| excited-about-so...
| Timshel wrote:
| 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 ...
| microdrum wrote:
| EVs with BrakeFlow resistive protection against thermal runaway
| also will have a big impact -- allowing for faster discharge into
| the grid. Increasing cRate for grid services can "bring forward"
| the point in time -- so 2030 could even happen a few years sooner
| if these high performance batteries from Enovix come to the EV
| market soon.
| RetpolineDrama wrote:
| I assumed this meant selling EoL EV batteries back to providers
| who convert them into grid storage.
|
| An EoL EV battery still has a decade or more of life as a grid-
| scale battery.
| sp332 wrote:
| It includes both. But since EV manufacturing capacity is
| ramping up so fast, the amount of battery capacity in cars is
| going to be a lot larger than the amount in EoL car batteries
| for a while.
| bottlepalm wrote:
| 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
| yodsanklai wrote:
| This seems high(?): for comparison, average power of French
| solar panels is 1.6GW (and a bit more for wind power).
| p1necone wrote:
| 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.
| cschmid wrote:
| The Taiwanese scooter company Gogoro recently announced something
| similar: Their scooters come with swappable batteries that you
| rent. The swapping station they have throughout the city are
| basically walls full of batteries. Since the company owns all the
| batteries, they can then use them to provide power to the grid
| during peak load.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| That makes more sense as it can be better planned based on
| projected demand. They also have more batteries than customers.
| With individual car owners, they often can't charge when it's
| convenient for the grid because they drive their car and need
| it when they need it.
| fit2rule wrote:
| [dead]
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| Imagine the government draining your tank at the gas station
| instead of filling it.
| TruthShare wrote:
| [flagged]
| iso1631 wrote:
| 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
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| 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 $100 for it.
| Same thing will happen for this.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| The difference is with the book your alternative is to not
| sell it back and getting 0$, assuming you've extracted all
| value.
|
| In the case of the car, you can choose to not sell it, and
| use it for driving instead.
|
| The incentives are completely different. You're comparing a
| scenario where they have you by the balls with a case where
| both parties are more or less equally powerful market
| participants.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| 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.
| olivermarks wrote:
| But then you won't be able to drive your electric car
| because it's not charged up...
| [deleted]
| eddhead wrote:
| How did BritishVolt go bankrupt then?
| amalgamated_inc wrote:
| Slowly, then suddenly.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Manufacturing battery cells is very energy intensive, so I'm
| guessing that the recent sky-high UK energy prices spooked
| their investors and made UK battery manufacturing look
| unviable.
|
| Something like NorthVolt, on the other hand, works because they
| have access to reliable low-cost hydro in Northern Sweden.
| pandama wrote:
| Please say a prayer for the people of the Congo who will have to
| mine the cobalt we want.
| PeterCorless wrote:
| 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 storage systems, like graphene supercapacitors.
|
| https://www.laserax.com/blog/ev-battery-cell-types
| karamanolev wrote:
| 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.
| ericd wrote:
| Sorry, how is the size of the individual cells relevant? Big
| cells are just the same sorts of cathode/anode sheets, but in
| larger rolls, no?
|
| Duracells are typically single-use alkaline, so I'm also not
| sure why that comparison makes sense?
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Love subsidizing public infrastructure directly as well as paying
| taxes!
| meltyness wrote:
| It's possible for market forces to drive batteries out of
| consumer reach, and then you'll own the car and rent the
| battery. Is that better?
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Not even a little bit!
|
| Renting sucks!
| criley2 wrote:
| I'm all for battery rental because I think battery-swaps
| instead of recharging is the future. The model already works
| in a number of other vehicle sectors.
|
| 30 minute quick charges are not the future
| grecy wrote:
| Gotta make sure those giant energy companies keep making more
| profit than ever before!
| comte7092 wrote:
| I too love living in a society.
| sp332 wrote:
| As this gets more popular, I guess net metering will be offered
| less and less. But you should still get some credit for
| supplying electricity to the grid.
| function_seven wrote:
| On the contrary, I would expect to be paid higher rates for
| the energy I'm supplying to the grid than those I paid to
| charge it in the first place. Otherwise, what's the point?
| I'm not going to buy a kilowatt-hour high, then sell it low.
|
| Only way these grid balancing schemes work is if the pricing
| is real-time, and I have an opportunity to supply marginal
| peak demand at rates that are higher than what I paid to
| charge (while still being lower than what peaker plants would
| cost)
| gopalv wrote:
| > I would expect to be paid higher rates for the energy I'm
| supplying to the grid than those I paid to charge it in the
| first place
|
| The Tesla VPP[1] model was 1$ KWH to send it back, better
| than Net Metering which should have paid only 42c.
|
| However, this was coordinated with PGE to match the lack of
| production (in advance, which is its own miracle) and
| unlike a car, the battery doesn't change locations or need
| to be unplugged at random.
|
| [1] -
| https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/powerwall/own/tesla-
| pge...
| jlmorton wrote:
| It's worth pointing out that Tesla's Virtual Power Plant in
| California -- which is used primarily in emergency events
| -- compensates owners $2/kWh. [1]
|
| Obviously, that rate is not going to be sustainable for
| routine energy storage, but PG&E is already compensating EV
| owners a substantial amount for peak electricity needs.
|
| [1] https://electrek.co/2022/09/02/tesla-virtual-power-
| plant-gro...
| zahma wrote:
| This is the future, like it or not. There's a lot of energy
| tied up in batteries, or at least their can be. And until we
| solve the problem of harnessing intermittent energy sources for
| when they aren't generating energy, we aren't going zero
| emissions.
| [deleted]
| meltyness wrote:
| That this is still only an academic rumbling / home of the
| future[0] talk speaks volumes about how out-of-touch global
| finance remains.
|
| [0] https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/tech-news-briefing/tapping-
| elec...
| mikaeluman wrote:
| Did I read too sloppily or did they simply not discuss actual
| availability, that is supply, of metals needed?
| martini333 wrote:
| I would not sell cycles from my EVs NMC battery.
| maliker wrote:
| Hmm, but how often and for how much? If you could get $500 to
| discharge 50% would that make it worth your while? If you only
| did it once a month? There are price situations like that on
| the grid already.
| oittaa wrote:
| As others have mentioned power companies in California pay a
| lot for virtual power plants when the demand is high. If
| power companies can avoid running an expensive peaker plant
| once a month, everybody wins.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Texas was paying $9/kWh for electricity during their
| blackouts. If you had 72kWh of electricity in your Tesla
| that'd be a nice payout...
| JakeAl wrote:
| I wouldn't take that bet until solid state batteries get better.
| This is a disaster in the making.
| lja wrote:
| 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.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| We also need EV designs where the batteries are modular and
| easy to swap out. I wouldn't be interested in a deal where I
| was compensated financially for quickly wearing my non-
| replaceable car battery out, because the battery wear alters
| the usability of the car, e.g. I might find I can only take my
| family on shorter trips than planned, if my battery is now 80%
| of what it would have been.
|
| I also wouldn't want the battery level timed around the grid vs
| my own transportation needs. What if there is suddenly a heavy
| demand on the grid, and now I can't take my sick family member
| to the hospital, because the charge was sold to the grid?
| prottog wrote:
| I agree. This further degrades the meaning of owning private
| property.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Unless it's voluntary (which it darned well better be).
|
| I envision a future where individual appliances (including
| EVs) can opt in to spot pricing for the electricity they
| consume (or produce). That would naturally incentivize
| charging during off-peak hours and discharging during peak
| hours, all without requiring any government incentives or
| coercion. It could also be useful for other major appliances
| which could benefit from the lower prices afforded by load
| shifting, such as hot water heaters.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| >> I envision a future where individual appliances
| (including EVs) can opt in to spot pricing for the
| electricity they consume (or produce).
|
| I remember when high speed internet was coming into being
| and there were a lot of pundits talking about how high
| speed bandwidth would be sold as a commodity on the NYSE.
| If someone needed say an hour of high bandwidth for a video
| conference, they could do what you're saying, buy an hour
| of high speed access. Of course, high speed internet
| eventually became so cheap and so readily available, those
| ideas faded pretty fast.
|
| I might be remembering this wrong, but wasn't Enron doing
| what you're talking about?
| tguvot wrote:
| a bunch of appliances already can be aware of TOU pricing
| and run when it's atlowest. Many thermostats can be "auto-
| adjusted" based on grid load
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Lots of now-compulsory things started out as voluntary.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Pretty hard to make it compulsory if you can avoid it by
| (at worst) unplugging your car.
| wjnc wrote:
| Energy price volatility will probably increase because
| natural sources are more volatile and other sources have spin
| up / down cycles. A car battery is like 3-4 days of
| continuous house usage. The car battery being used to top off
| the top 10% in short term pricing for energy would give a
| very nice ROI I expect. The rest is software? Don't
| overcharge, don't go under the limit I set for continuous
| availability as a mode of transport. And that's all within
| reach in front of the meter, thus under my ownership. Heck,
| without self driving becoming common a family might even have
| 2 EVs on the driveway, giving a week of off grid potential.
|
| Come to think of it - a harder part is how super local the
| grid is and energy pricing should become. In my somewhat
| affluent neighborhood in high summer the voltage rises too
| high and the supply of solar falls. And tragedy of the
| commons - we are still installing solar because it's
| massively incentivized (2 years before investment returns
| itself). To solve this with EVs requires very granular
| prices. There might be clouds 50 km away. But again, those
| are software solvable issues. (I'm not holding my breath.
| It's like IoT-superplus.)
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| The distributor should just pay the generation fee to the car
| owners just like they would a power plant.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Assuming Tesla prices and full cycling of battery (aka from
| 100->0), draining a kWh puts about 2cents wear on your battery,
| so compensation would need to be above that price.
|
| In practice you'd never allow your operator to drain you to 0,
| so 2 cents is very much on the high side.
|
| In the California Tesla VPP trial, they pay 50 cents per kWh.
|
| (correction: 20cents wear, not 2cents)
| georgeg23 wrote:
| 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_
| xyzzyz wrote:
| 18 cents per kWh is something like 5-6 times the wholesale
| price of kWh. This means that using EV for large scale
| storage is highly uneconomical.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| It's only used for those periods when demand exceeds
| supply. In Texas, the wholesale price of electricity is
| $9/kWh during those periods.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| 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.
| georgeg23 wrote:
| 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.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Your whole car depreciates, not just the battery.
| Depreciation cost for driving a mile is a _lot_ more than
| the electricity cost.
| dtech wrote:
| 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.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| They'll only want to buy back electricity at times when
| demand exceeds supply. In Texas the price of electricity
| is $9/kWh during those times.
| rtkwe wrote:
| 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.
| ErikCorry wrote:
| Petrol engines get worn too.
| Tade0 wrote:
| It's not per cycle, but per kWh.
|
| In any case I'm getting 10-20 cents depending on battery
| pack size and chemistry.
| hdevalence wrote:
| 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, but battery manufacturers commonly warranty
| 3,000-5,000. In addition, cycle count is only one variable
| affecting degradation, others include the depth of
| discharge, the charging and discharging profiles, the
| thermal management, etc.
|
| (This is one reason why a 10-year-old Tesla has noticeably
| different battery degradation than, say, a 10-year old
| Nissan Leaf, which has no thermal management and a very
| poor BMS)
|
| Finally, even when battery degradation occurs, it doesn't
| remove the battery's entire capacity, so degraded batteries
| can still be used for stationary storage applications.
| While an extreme degradation like 50% is very bad for an
| automotive application, it doesn't matter so much for
| small-scale grid storage, since space is usually not the
| limiting factor.
| georgeg23 wrote:
| 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...
| phkahler wrote:
| 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 stupidly complex and
| they're still trying to use cars as storage without much
| consideration for what vehicle owners want.
|
| Sure, offer variable rates. Offer interruptabke service. But
| stop wanting V2G, nobody actually wants it.
| jackinloadup wrote:
| Assuming V2G means Vehicle to Ground, this is something I
| would like to see for the following use-case.
|
| 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.
|
| Am I crazy?
|
| Edit: Granted that doesn't mean the energy company can use my
| car's battery at it's whim. I think compensation would be
| required and would actually make a lot of sense. It isn't
| like the electric company could build out a battery system
| for cheaper. It would need to be a higher compensation than
| to PV though. Batteries are more expensive and should be
| compensated as such.
| Reason077 wrote:
| V2G = vehicle to grid. It's quite possible for this to
| operate as a backup battery, but like a Powerwall it
| requires extra "gateway" hardware to ensure that your house
| is isolated from the grid when the battery is discharging.
|
| V2L (vehicle to load) is a simpler form that lets you power
| 115/230V appliances directly from the vehicle. Quite a few
| EVs (Hyundai, Ford, etc) already support V2L.
| toast0 wrote:
| That's not crazy, it's actually a publicized optional
| feature on the F-150 Lightning, and the F-150 hybrid has an
| optional 240V 30A output that can be used as a home backup
| as well (although that'd be a bit more manual).
| dublinben wrote:
| >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...
| ralph84 wrote:
| 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?
| nemomarx wrote:
| 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.
| ralph84 wrote:
| When are they supposed to charge if they're operating
| during the day and powering the grid at night?
| whazor wrote:
| 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.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| 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.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| 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.
| cwkoss wrote:
| 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 < $Y", charge to 100% if < $Z", "never
| sell below X%"
|
| The aesthetic vibe of having an autonomous energy trading
| bot in my garage is attractive to me.
| rtkwe wrote:
| 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.
| mhb wrote:
| That's what a market is for.
| jahewson wrote:
| There is no market. I can only sell electricity to PG&E
| and only at a flat rate.
| mhb wrote:
| That is a market. You can decide to sell or not. Whether
| PG&E offers a market clearing price is a separate issue.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Yeah, I'd try to model the deprecation cost of the
| battery to some extent while tuning my magic numbers in
| the trading bot settings.
|
| ~1,500 cycles per $16k battery replacement. Shouldn't
| sell a full cycle for less than ~$15. Don't arbitrage a
| 1% point of battery life unless it yields at least $0.15.
| Might just set it at $0.20 per 1% for healthy
| margin/price in hassle of battery replacement.
| rlpb wrote:
| > I doubt the hourly price will ever truly be fair to
| individual car owners.
|
| If it's not fair to them, then they won't participate, and
| the market will adjust.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| It's not likely that the pennies offered will offset the much
| larger loss of value in the battery, though.
| 0cVlTeIATBs wrote:
| 1. Core charge when recycling 2. Time-of-use electricity rates.
| Up to the customer to choose to install load shifting equipment
| nkingsy wrote:
| 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
| the edge into profitability.
|
| If off-grid is competitive, selling at peak prices is a no
| brainer.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > If off-grid is competitive, selling at peak prices is a no
| brainer.
|
| So why isn't the utility managing the storage directly then?
| Aren't they best suited to do this???
|
| Or is this article just saying that EV car batteries _could_?
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Utilities buy most of their power at wholesale rates, which
| are lower than the consumer rate they charge the end user.
| Net metering rules in some jurisdictions obligate the
| utilities to buy solar/battery power from users at consumer
| rates. That can be a good financial opportunity for
| homeowners and it's driven a lot of the investment in home
| solar setups. But local policies can change. The rules are
| changing in California and it's not going to be such a good
| deal anymore in the future.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > Aren't they best suited to do this???
|
| They don't have a million EV batteries, purchased outside
| the scope of this program, sitting around idle and
| connected to the grid.
|
| Their customers do.
| tuatoru wrote:
| Utilities don't _yet_ have a million EV batteries laying
| around, but they (or specialist EoL battery companies)
| will soon.
|
| From the abstract:-
|
| > Participation rates fall below 10% if half of EV
| batteries at end-of-vehicle-life are used as stationary
| storage.
|
| Half seems conservative to me. There are already lots of
| startups wanting your end-of-life EV battery.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| 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 counts, but the
| evidence shows in general that these packs are built for
| longevity (with very occasional early failures). You could
| probably do well buying a salvage Tesla and shucking the pack
| for working modules and coming out ahead economically (safety
| warning, do at your own risk, etc) if you don't want or can't
| get dedicated stationary storage (although it comes with
| generous federal, state, and utility subsidies in
| California).
| danans wrote:
| > 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...
| jackmott wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| claytongulick wrote:
| 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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