Volkswagen's charging unit Elli and re.alto, a startup owned by Brussels-based Elia, signed a memorandum of understanding on Friday to collaborate on ways to integrate EVs into the electricity system.
The multiyear partnership plans to identify barriers to EV integration and explore how powering the grid with EV batteries can help stabilize electricity costs and reduce energy prices.
The vehicle-to-grid concept allows customers to inject the electricity stored in their EV battery back into the grid, drawing energy from it when necessary. Volkswagen said the partnership will explore price incentives to encourage drivers to contribute to the electricity system when the vehicle is parked.
"The rapid rise in electric vehicles is reinforcing the need for cooperation between the electricity and mobility sectors," Elia Group CEO Chris Peeters said in a statement. "We want to enable the increasing number of EV users to charge their EVs while keeping the electricity system in balance.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by XivLacuna on Monday September 26 2022, @07:12PM (3 children)
This is dumb. To send energy back into the grid means you'll need an expensive grid disconnect to not send energy back into the grid when some line workers are fixing stuff. Then there is the wear and tear on the lithium batteries. Now you might already have the grid disconnect if you have solar panels on your residence but it'll still lessen the life of your expensive car battery.
Just build out more nuclear than you need and use compute farms to use extra power instead of having peaker plants.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday September 26 2022, @10:38PM
You'd pretty much use existing PV inverters (with some minor design changes) to do this with an EV. PV inverters already have grid disconnect built-in. It's a relatively trivial thing in the design / electronics.
I grant you wear and tear on the EV batteries, and for that reason I'm not a big fan of the idea. ... Unless someone (finally) came up with a standard easily replaceable EV pack design that would have a relatively inexpensive exchange program, and / or some kind of subsidy program to pay for the grid use wear and tear, which might be needed.
I've always advocated for nuclear, but I've always advocated for safer designs.
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Tuesday September 27 2022, @03:11AM (1 child)
the partial use of batteries has less wear than full cycling them.
using people's cars as a grid backup system at times of spikes helps everybody out and it makes the grid cheaper to manage; in the end people are paying either way.
If you pay for feeding the grid, as they already do for solar ... then you are not doing this for free you get some money for that wear. batteries will improve over time and some will make money simply by leveling the power grid and buying/selling power from the grid; we need to create that kind of market! even if we subsidize it! (it's not like we don't subsidize many parts of the grid / oil / coal etc.)
I'd be for non-profit gov run grid system marketplace and I'd also want some gov run non-profit base load generation like dams or nuclear or big batteries. We pay for the roads and some even tax based upon wear (but not here-- when F=ma we should have mass and miles determine road tax. mass transit should be FREE.) It's not like our private versions of all of these have done any innovation or fully paid for their damages and mistakes instead of them gladly socializing it unto us all. Just have the gov take over. if they mess it up, its OUR fault for not being better citizens. government works. seriously. when it doesn't it's YOUR FAULT! stop shifting blame people!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday September 27 2022, @03:34AM
I'd rather incentivize people to install stationary batteries as a buffer instead of using the one in their car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by Sjolfr on Monday September 26 2022, @09:52PM (2 children)
How silly. "My neighbor charging his EV off of my EV batteries because his job is more important than mine" is what comes to mind. I'm sure there are ways to prevent such silliness but what would you power by stealing back the power from a bunch of EVs? Is my EV going to die in the middle of the road because the street lights needed my electricity? Is my EV going to be dead in the morning because people needed power to run AC?
Battery technology isn't there yet. Even in datacenter power-outage-plans the batteries required for just a 5 second power blip between when the power goes out and the generators kick in is enormous. Not to mention wasteful (because these battery packs go bad all the time and need replacing).
However, leaching from EVs is a good risk mitigation plan. If the batteries explode or cause a fire it's on the EV manufacturer. If government installs batteries/solar in every home then the government is liable for that stuff.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RS3 on Monday September 26 2022, @10:54PM
Firstly, as to whose car is getting charged and whose is getting discharged- that would all be controlled. You'd have to have some idea of when you might need the car. Worst-case- the system would be programmed to never draw your battery so far down as to leave you unable to get home or school or work or whatever, with a good safety margin.
Most datacenter UPSes that I've dealt with (small to medium) have (cheap imported) lead-acid batteries that generally get overcharged (very poor designs), which causes them to lose their electrolyte water, leaving too high of a sulfuric acid concentration which pretty much kills them due to sulfation [batteryvitamin.net].
In the small datacenter I admin I did some tests with various UPSes and found some particular ones that are awesome and do not kill the batteries. Present batteries are 3+ years old and pass tests 100%. Big clue: the batteries remain at room temperature in standby mode. The batteries in the bad UPSes stay quite warm.
As to the ampere load during UPS run- it's okay, lead-acid batteries are particularly good at high current drain for short times. Ultracapacitors are really good for that too. A hybrid of battery + ultracapacitor is a really good solution for "spiky" loads.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 27 2022, @12:05AM
Won't bring back the dead... ashes to ashes...
Like the first post said, we should be using nukes, but I say use the extra power to pump water where it's needed, not for computer farms to churn out bitcoins