DrFfybes wrote:Tedx wrote:After Dr Fybes mentioned it the other day, I had a look at 'Vehicle to House' and Vehicle to Grid' electric cars. There are a few on the market, but wholescale adoption could be a game changer. The average leccy car has a 40KWh battery. There are 31 million cars in the UK. Thats a lot of storage, And if Highview can build 2.5gWh of liquid air storage plants using off the shelf parts across the country then we have a decent chance
Coincidentally we were discussing this elsewhere recently. A friend has a home built off-grid setup with about 30kW of panels and circa 18kWh of storage. However this is not enough - unsurprisingly in winter there is virtually no solar generation and his batteries last 4-5 days.
I joked that for £10k he could get another 40kWh of battery, and it comes with a free Golf
This set him thinking.
One thing we discovered is the smart 2-way chargers are about £6k at the moment - doubtless this will fall, but is a significant hurdle. However for him, getting an old leaf for £2-3k with an inverter is a remarkably cheap (and slow) way of relocating energy from his house to the off-grid site to top up the batteries.
scotview wrote:I take on board your comments about using car batteries as backup but to do this on a UK wide scale assumes that all cars will be fully charged and ready to go and that owners will be willing to "give up" their precious charge , which I very much doubt they will.
I think that what will develope will be a very , very selfish approach by BEV owners (my approach) whereby they will use their EVs for personal off peak charging and peak time supplemental supply. If we get enforced rolling blackouts due to rationing or low wind production, BEVs could be even more indispensable and priceless, as a personal resource.
I pity the poorer in society with little access to such technology, another example of our growing societal disparity.
What you have described will be enough to smooth the peaks and troughs, at least in the short term. If the 'wealthy' can smooth their consumption then the requirements for the rest will be reduced. A car coming home with 60% charge will run the house through the evening then top back up overnight. However the economics need to make it work.
Octopus gave me free electric the other morning - I spent 20 or so mins changing battery settings, hot water timers, preloading the washer and dishwasher. I made 91p.
For the V2H to work we need a tariff where offpeak is virtually free, but 5-7pm (or whenever) is punitively high for those who choose such a tariff. Octopus Flux is a step towards that.
However we still need a reliable offpeak base supply for drivers to top up for Dunkelflaut, Gas for now but then Nuclear or import connectors (which IMO are a poor option).
At the moment people are still a bit 'precious' about their BEV charge, cycling to the grid will reduce batterty life, but already Vovlo offer V2V charging like samsung do with phones. As 'charge' becomes less hard to find and people get used to not filling their tanks up every evening then sharing the energy is an option.
Sadly the moment things look even vaguely like getting scarce, people panic buy and cause shortages, It happens with petrol/diesel, so it will doubtless happen with Electricity, although political will and technology could address this.
Paul
Paul