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Wifi HPWC & its application as a Distributed Energy Resource (DER)

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With the addition of wifi to the HPWC i'm wondering if this is Tesla's step into offering their home chargers up as a DER to the electric utility. Distributed Energy Resources are the hot topic in the industry as regulatory agencies are pressuring utilities to explore non-wires alternatives when looking at system upgrades. With a wifi connected charger this can allow communication between the utility and the charger to determine optimal charging schedules & rates.

EVs are one of the largest single residential loads on the system. As more EVs are purchased, utilities will want to have the ability to adjust charge rates & times to shift this additional charging load away from peak times. The benefit to the utility is two-fold:
  1. This reduces peak system load thus avoiding having to spend money on infrastructure upgrades.
  2. Moving load to off-peak times will increase overall base load allowing more generation assets to stay online and lessens the need for expensive peaker plants. The ideal load profile for a utility would be a flat, constant load.
The benefit to the customer would be cheaper electric rates for a lower bill. Now many utilities already passively do this by offering different rates for on/off peak times. However this is not quantifiable from the utilities' standpoint. By having customers opt in they can have more confidence in saying that participation in this charging program will reduce peak load by x% thus negating a $xxx,xxx infrastructure upgrade project.

Obviously this won't be handing complete charging control over to the utility as this won't work for everyone. In this scenario the default charging rate/schedule would be set by the utility and could be overridden at anytime by the customer. However customers will be incentivised to limit their charging to off-peak hours.

Other 3rd party chargers already offer this ability and some utilities are taking advantage of it. This is just my speculation that Tesla is looking to enter this domain.

Thoughts?
 
I agree with what you are saying and I am actually in a DER program. I live in Sonoma County and the generation portion of my consumption is served by Sonoma Clean Power. They pay me $5 per month to allow them to control my Clipper Creek EVSE. I also purchased that WIFI enabled EVSE for $100 through SCP.
 
How do you mean control your EVSE?

PG&E here in my part of SF Bay area switched out our meters maybe last year or so to ones they can read remotely (smartmeters) and our monthly bill shows usage each day. As of November they changed up time usage rates, cheapest during week now I think is midnight to 3pm, which allows me to charge later in morning if I didn’t plug in overnight so I do like that. We are awaiting our Tesla Solar/PowerWall contract so should have that done on Monday hopefully. I believe PG&E will come out and swap our current smart meter for a Net Meter?? I think, but not really sure what we end up with. Still too new to this and learning.
 
Basically the utility defines the window of time that allows you to charge your EV, for example 11PM-7AM on weekdays and 24 hours on weekends & holidays. By default, your car won't charge outside of those times unless you intervene. Many utilities also offer a similar program for smart thermostats that allow them to temporarily increase the set temperature by a few degrees (or cycle your A/C unit) during peak times.

Net metering is just a term that compares your generation (power you send to the grid) vs your consumption (power you take from the grid) and bills/credits you for the difference. Your smart meter likely is already capable of this so you shouldn't need a new meter unless you have considerable generation/load that exceeds the rating of your current meter. And that is exciting you're getting Tesla solar & powerwall! I wish it would be more beneficial for me to invest in something like that, I think it would be pretty awesome.
 
One of the reasons I got solar in 2015, and then a powerwall was to NOT have to deal with the exact thing you are talking about. My local utility (Southern California Edison, or SCE as its known), like many others, had a program to pay a small amount of money (like 60-80 for the summer season) to allow them to partially control smart thermostats like my Nest.

What I found was, because the nest would see a "rush hour" as it was called, or a high demand time, it would auto shift to cooling the home before the rush hour, then turn itself off during the rush hour. Sounds ok, right? Well, because the thermostat would basically be off because it cooled before the rush hour, then during the entire "hot time" it would be overridden so I couldnt turn it on, my house would get as high as 87 -88 degrees inside. This is because the rush hour would go until around 8pm but my thermostat would have stopped cooling around 1-2pm.\

I got rid of that program and was much happier, even though I still let my home get up to 83-84 during the summer on the inside... I am in control of it.

It simply wasnt worth it for the small amount of money they were providing me for that control over the device. Same deal with charging. I dont want the utility controlling when I can charge, they wont pay me enough to give up that control. They can incentivize me to charge some other time but I dont want THEM electronically doing it. I dont mind doing it myself but I dont want them having that control.

Thats one reason I got the powerwalls just now to go with the solar I had. I am now even more in control of the power I am generating, and I am not interested in the SLIGHTEST in giving the utility that amount of control. It certainly isnt worth the amount of a wall charger to me (meaning, a free wall charger would not make me give up that control). Maybe others are different.

They can continue to incentivize behavior with charges, to try to get what they want, thats business. I want to control my own stuff though. If the choice was "take this wall charger for free, and we can control it sometimes, or pay for it and we cant touch it." I would pay without even blinking.

Maybe others are ok with it, and as long as something like that is a "choice" im ok with with it.. to each their own. I personally choose "no" however.
 
How do you mean control your EVSE?
They can turn it off when the grid is stressed. Since that usually happens during the neck of the duck curve (4-9PM) and I usually charge after 11PM it has never been an inconvenience.
PG&E here in my part of SF Bay area switched out our meters maybe last year or so to ones they can read remotely (smartmeters) and our monthly bill shows usage each day. As of November they changed up time usage rates, cheapest during week now I think is midnight to 3pm, which allows me to charge later in morning if I didn’t plug in overnight so I do like that. We are awaiting our Tesla Solar/PowerWall contract so should have that done on Monday hopefully. I believe PG&E will come out and swap our current smart meter for a Net Meter?? I think, but not really sure what we end up with. Still too new to this and learning.
Your Smart meter should be capable of Net Metering. All they did when I got my PTO was toggle something in their billing software to accumulate my generation on their system. The meter was accumulating my generation but I received no credit until then.
 
All of that can be done without WiFi on the WC.

I really don’t get how people are trying to justify the need for WiFi on a charger that only gets used when a car, that ALREADY has WiFi, is connected to it. It’s redundant.
 
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I really don’t get how people are trying to justify the need for WiFi on a charger that only gets used when a car, that ALREADY has WiFi, is connected to it. It’s redundant
No justification needed for me. I bought the WIFI enabled Clipper Creek because it only cost $100. The balance of the cost was subsidized by my CCA, Sonoma Ckean Power. In addition, because it is WIFI enabled I joined Grid Savvy which gets me $5 per month. In two years, that means I got a free EVSE.

There are a lot more things I can do with the EVSE that I can't do on WIFI with my MX or M3.
I can toggle between scheduled charging and ON.
I can adjust the charging rates on the fly.
I can see how much I have charged each car over a week, month or YTD.
I get a credit on my bill each month.
Those are the things that work for me. Your mileage may vary.
 
No justification needed for me. I bought the WIFI enabled Clipper Creek because it only cost $100. The balance of the cost was subsidized by my CCA, Sonoma Ckean Power. In addition, because it is WIFI enabled I joined Grid Savvy which gets me $5 per month. In two years, that means I got a free EVSE.

There are a lot more things I can do with the EVSE that I can't do on WIFI with my MX or
Those are the things that work for me. Your mileage may vary.

“I can toggle between scheduled charging and ON.”

-Already can be done in the car. If it’s scheduled, why would you need to constantly toggle on/off?

“I can adjust the charging rates on the fly.”

-Again, can be done in car. Again, why would you need to?

“I can see how much I have charged each car over a week, month or YTD.”

-Can be done through apps. Did you track your week/month/ytd gas usage? I doubt most people who can afford Tesla’s are price sensitive enough to even care. Business use is a two second calculation.

“I get a credit on my bill each month.”

-There’s a dozen other ways to incentivize charging habits.

Please don’t take this as a personal attack, it isn’t. My point is WiFi as part of the WC accomplishes nothing that couldn’t already be done through apps/coding.

The “OMGz the new WC has the WiFi’s!!!” reaction is what has me scratching my head. For a supposedly tech savvy crowd the excitement about that feature being added to a WC that will be dormant 95% of the time is IMO a little over the top.
 
Please don’t take this as a personal attack, it isn’t. My point is WiFi as part of the WC accomplishes nothing that couldn’t already be done through apps/codin.
No offense taken. My discussion is directed at the lurkers who may want to hear several viewpoints. I can't speak to the ability of the WC but none of what you have mentioned can be done remotely. You have to be in the car to do most if that. As far as other incentives, I did once Use Ohmconnect with my Tesla but never got a payback because i never charged during an Ohm hour. With Grid Savvy I get the incentive every month.
The “OMGz the new WC has the WiFi’s!!!” reaction is what has me scratching my head. For a supposedly tech savvy crowd the excitement about that feature being added to a WC that will be dormant 95% of the time is IMO a little over the top.
You missed the point of the DER. My reaction was not, "OMG", since I was merely trying to point out to others how someone like me uses those features without having to go to the car or use another app or learn some code. Your mileage may vary.
 
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“I can toggle between scheduled charging and ON.”

-Already can be done in the car. If it’s scheduled, why would you need to constantly toggle on/off?

“I can adjust the charging rates on the fly.”

-Again, can be done in car. Again, why would you need to?

“I can see how much I have charged each car over a week, month or YTD.”

-Can be done through apps. Did you track your week/month/ytd gas usage? I doubt most people who can afford Tesla’s are price sensitive enough to even care. Business use is a two second calculation.

“I get a credit on my bill each month.”

-There’s a dozen other ways to incentivize charging habits.

Please don’t take this as a personal attack, it isn’t. My point is WiFi as part of the WC accomplishes nothing that couldn’t already be done through apps/coding.

The “OMGz the new WC has the WiFi’s!!!” reaction is what has me scratching my head. For a supposedly tech savvy crowd the excitement about that feature being added to a WC that will be dormant 95% of the time is IMO a little over the top.

My guess would be the potential security/privacy issues of automakers opening up their customer's cars to utilities (& potentially unwanted others). With a direct connection to the charger itself, utilities will not need access to anything related to the vehicle. If the connection gets compromised then attackers don't have access to the car itself, just the charger. It may reduce complexity and other issues with giving 3rd parties access to automaker's systems. Like if they updated their API or something and it breaks things, now the utility it waiting on them for a fix before they can use this feature that they're counting on being in working condition.

I do agree though that it is otherwise redundant, and now you're relying on the customer's internet connection for everything to work instead of the always on wifi/LTE connection of the vehicle.
 
You can already do DER programs without the need for any specific EVSE with a Tesla.

I've been using Ohm Connect in California for a few years and they are already linked up to my cars via a Tesla API to turn charging off if they call a reduction event.

Ohm Connect aside (way more lucrative than utility based ones), the utilities can already do this themselves as far as Teslas are concerned without the need for specific EVSEs via Teslas API.
 
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All of that can be done without WiFi on the WC.

I really don’t get how people are trying to justify the need for WiFi on a charger that only gets used when a car, that ALREADY has WiFi, is connected to it. It’s redundant.
The connector is a cheap, simple, static, low-power device, the car is an expensive, complicated, mobile, high-power device.

I think that having charging smarts in the connector is a good way to go. It should be easier to iterate and update.
 
You can already do DER programs without the need for any specific EVSE with a Tesla.
Yes, I mentioned my experience with OhmConnect in an earlier post. There are many options. In my case, Gidd Savvy made the most sense for my circumstances and was the best option available in my service area. They will soon connect to my heat pump water heater as well. The more DER options we have the better will be our future. I am looking forward to the day in California when instead of curtailing solar they send me a notice to add some load to the grid. On an aggregate basis that could be significant whether it come through a HPWCs, other EVSEs, HPWHs or other loads such as a PowerWall or my Hybrid inverter.
 
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