V2Grid not really needed

[user212_nr]

I was thinking that most of the advantages of "vehicle to grid" ie. grid stabilization could be gained without actually drawing on the battery. How? Simply by temporarily shutting off power. Lets say that the grid does not have enough power to meet demand and needs "x" seconds to get the extra supply. If electric vehicle charging was more popular than it is now, then the utility could simply tell the chargers (via internet) to self-shutoff for x seconds. The effect on the grid would be the same as if a similar number of vehicles had supplied that power, except that for those x seconds the vehicles would not have been charging.

In the reverse situation, where the grid has too much power and needs x seconds to adjust, then the cars which are at 80-90% SOC can take up the excess power.

You might say, what about storing extra solar power? Well the cars can store the extra power by leaving some space in the battery and charging when "extra" power is available. The energy can be dissipated by driving and does not need to feed back into the gird.

The same concept could be applied to heating and cooling systems, allowing them to raise (in the case of heat) or lower (in the case of a/c) to suck up excess power and/or temporarily reduce demand.

There's no need to store solar power for night-time usage when you have 30-40% natural gas or coal usage. Instead, drop the gas usage by 50% and better manage the energy demand. There's no reason to be cycling car batteries just so that you can run an extra gas plant along with your solar.

Obviously, using batteries to store solar/wind power is a great idea for the future when (hypothetically) you have enough solar/wind to cover all the day's usage, but batteries like Tesla's experiment in Australia don't really need to exist to balance the grid when the same thing could be done by cutting off a large demand customer(s). Storing solar in car batteries for night usage would work for some people who have extra range for long trips only, but as long as you have 40% of power by natural gas there's no real need for it.

 

[israndy]

This is how I treat my solar power. I am on the Tesla app when there is too much power generated I turn on charging, and when there isn't enough I turn it back off. Seems like Tesla could add a setting that allows individual cars to be turned off when it is requested of Tesla. Think of all the power they wield. They know where their cars are and what they are doing. If a setting was added, offering up the car charging to be controlled as a demand charge Tesla could start and stop the charges to help local utilities to spin up or spin down a peaker plant.

But I still want the ability to plug in and charge and when the power goes out, have it come back to some sort of mini-panel for my fridge and furnace. We have lost power 3 times since the storms started here in California and I am not able to get in or out with the Tesla (until I get my CyberTruck) unless I shovel my 1/2 mile long uphill driveway. My neighbor's generator comes on when the power goes out (and usually wakes me up) but I just ride them out. Last year I was w/o heat for 2 days and finally took the emergency $2000 Jeep out and drove it home instead. It was 19° that night and the fireplace was not getting the house warmer.

But I would have been in hog heaven if I could have tapped into that giant battery in my car and enjoyed the crazy winter wonderland storm in comfort. It's so hard to own all these electric vehicles and then put in a fossil fuel generator at the cabin.

 

[user212_nr]

Think of all the power they wield. They know where their cars are and what they are doing. If a setting was added, offering up the car charging to be controlled as a demand charge Tesla could start and stop the charges to help local utilities to spin up or spin down a peaker plant.

Exactly. Its probably not quite there yet in terms of making a dent in the electric grid, but it certainly will be someday, and this is all done without ever discharging the battery into the grid. That means 0 battery degradation. The same could also be done with major appliances like A/C units and water heaters with a small LTE or Wifi modem, though the Tesla has the advantage with having all that installed already.

Its just a situation where no one is taking the initiative to build the smart grid, and everyone is talking about "the cost of battery storage" as if you can't build a smart grid without a battery. No small feat, but very feasible.

But I still want the ability to plug in and charge and when the power goes out, have it come back to some sort of mini-panel for my fridge and furnace.

I think people conflate "vehicle to grid" and "battery backup" as if they were related concepts, even when they know better. The only thing that they really have in common is that there is energy coming out of the battery to an inverter at 120v (although the system I described only uses the energy coming IN). Everything else is different - especially the idea of using the battery as a temporary solution for X appliances, vs storing power during the day and discharging it all at night. Also, there is the obvious fact that battery backup does not send power to the "grid" when it powers your home and does not act as a mini-grid, etc.

What Tesla needs to do is to add a kWh limitation - instead of "8 years or 120,000 miles", they should have "8 years or 120,000 miles or 10MW if using external power" (replace 10MW with the equivalent of 120,000 miles in kWh). That way the user can discharge their battery without Tesla having to pay for it, or conversely voiding their warranty.