Recent California heat wave and grid crisis - a personal perspective on EVs giving back their power to grid emergencies

[Torv]

I'm hoping the batteries will smooth the occasional outages and brownouts we have in my area. I have a lot of computers and while most of them are on UPS the outages create temporary havoc with my smart home devices.
SSVEC is not “Anti-Solar”
We are “Pro-Member”
My power company is so hostile to customer Solar they felt it necessary to post the above on their website. Apparently Members that use Solar are not "good members" Pretty much all of the AZ power providers have been agitating, successfully, to decrease the power buyback and other incentives for installing Solar for years. One can only hope that will start to change going forward.

That's outrageous!

I've always believed that utility companies should be owned by either the municipality or the state. For-profit utilities are inherently antithetical to good customer service or civic responsibility as maintenance suffers because of shareholder greed and the drive for profits. It just ain't right!

Sponsored

 

[daveo4EV]

https://www.wired.com/story/califor...3b34a6-1f54-4d46-8581-9ccf81d127b3_popular4-1

my home powerwall system was "allowed" to provide power to the grid for 3-4 hours every day for the past 8+ days - I've been delivering 18-24 kWh from my powerwalls each day during peak loads - Tesla claims I'm getting $2/kwh for the peak-grid events - I'll believe it when I see it...but between solar and my local batteries my home was net-positive impact to the grid - since the batteries both covered my usage and provided an additional 6 kW to the grid for the 3-4 hours of "peak demand".

normally I'm only allowed to send actual honest to good solar power to the grid - so I can send the grid any 'excess' solar at the moment - but can't send "stored" power to the grid - I can only use my batteries to power my home usage - the don't want me charging my batteries from the grid during low cost TOU and then selling their power back to them later at higher TOU prices

but during "grid emergencies" I'm allowed to send "stored power" to the grid but no more than my solar system would normally produce - my solar system max output is 6 kW - so I'm allowed to send 6 kW of battery power to the grid during grid-emergencies...

or 6 kWh per hour of stored capacity.

tesla calls this a vritual powerplant - and they used it 8+ times these past few days - during peak load the virtual powerplant was collectively producing 3-6 megawatts - it was interesting to watch and the Tesla app showed in real time the "output" of the virtual power plant "fleet" - ~3500 other Tesla victims were participating in providing power from their batteries to the grid.

if we could get these "idle" EV's to give back their power during "grid emergencies" it would interesting to see what it would do for/to the grid.

the "grid emergency" also allowed my batteries to charge from the grid earlier in the day for later use - normally I'm onlly allowed to use solar power to charge my batteries - but during grid emergencies they relax that policy and allow me to charge my batteries from the grid earlier in the day so that I have max battery power to donate to the grid during the anticipated "peak" load time window…

all in all - I find this very interesting and personally satisfying - duiring these time windows I lived my life and didn't change my power usage at all - but was a net-positive for the grid during the peak load time periods.

I'm optimistic about what could be done with a little more software and hardware for all EV's to allow co-ordinated vehicle-to-grid "give back" during periods of grid stress

even in it's infancy the potential for storage+renewables makes me optimistic that while our challenges are great - there are some solutions that we can deploy - and frankly some of this stuff isn't that hard if we just put our minds to it…we know it can be done and pushing the necssary changes into hardware/software could have a major impact…

overall it's been a very very interesting week…and an impossible week that would've gone very differently if it had happened even 3 years ago…

my Taycan for example could've provide 11 kW (48 amps) worth of power from it's 83.4 kWh worth of capacity during these grid emergencies…44 kWh is a significant amount of power and if you mutiply that by 1000's (the Taycan _IS_ a successful product) of idle Taycan's - the impact would be larger than the Diablo Nuclear powerplant's output - 3 to 4 hours of vehicle to grid "output" 10-30 times a years for a zero impact dynamic powerplant seems to be an interesting idea and one worth pursing - at least in my opinion.

frankly my Taycan's battery dwarfs my 4 powerwalls…and has higher output capability - seems like we should use it…

maybe we provide tax incentives for that EV your purchased only if it has V2G capabilities and you provide you've installed a V2G system in your home and register to be a participant…now there is some "net good" for EV's right there - less emissions, fewer ICE's and V2G applications when necessary to help the grid - win, win, win, win…

it is worth noting that there continues to be a gender based divide on technical issues - my experience has been the husbands are more adventerous techonnology wise vs. the wives (not universally true - but my wife and friends wives are more pragmatic and require better tech but if you give them that better tech they are all in)

among friends, families, neighbors and strangers I've helps - the whole battery thing once it's in and has bridges a few outages tends to achieve VERY VERY high spouse approval - to the point that they become raging fans an tell other spouses over coffee/scones taht they must get their husbands to buy this "solar battery thing"...

I've been bleeding edge tech all my life, but the truly great tech is far/few between - identifying that tech is hard, and since I've been married when both myself and my wife endorse something that's kinda special

very very very high spouse approval once it's installed/functional - there is no going back and the wives now expect it.

wife and are always on the look out for house upgrade, new criteria from teh wife - gotta have good solar and place to put the batteries - she is uninterested in any future home that can't do solar+batteries…

 

[nickmdp]

“but it's not the economics that drive me…although they help - it's the personal control I have and the defense against power outages that drove my investment.” -100% agree as a NorCal fire prone homeowner.

Yeah, I'm 100% for V2H being standard on all EVs, and don't know why so few cars have it at this point. Maybe waiting for all these 3 year free DCFC contracts are no longer the norm so that people can't just power their home by stopping at their local EA every few days?

 

[TXSchnee]

It's funny, and I know you said not always the case, but I am the one (woman) who convinced my computer engineer husband to install the battery backups on our solar panel system. We are in TX, our grid is horrible and ERCOT is especially bad. Looking at my Tesla app, the Powerwalls have had about 20 backups in a 4 month time frame, only one due to a storm. Well worth it, enough so that we plan on a solar/battery system on any house we own going forward.

 

[daveo4EV]

It's funny, and I know you said not always the case, but I am the one (woman) who convinced my computer engineer husband to install the battery backups on our solar panel system. We are in TX, our grid is horrible and ERCOT is especially bad. Looking at my Tesla app, the Powerwalls have had about 20 backups in a 4 month time frame, only one due to a storm. Well worth it, enough so that we plan on a solar/battery system on any house we own going forward.

thank you for calling me out and proving me wrong - I 100% LOVE IT (NO sarcasm)

but yeah - solar + battery is simply an awesome setup - once you have it and understand it there is no going back.

 

[lcarron]

Very interesting discussion. I have solar without battery and never had power outage in 10 years. Now I understand better why people are buying battery. Make more sens as the economical benefits is difficult to justify.

 

[daveo4EV]

Very interesting discussion. I have solar without battery and never had power outage in 10 years. Now I understand better why people are buying battery. Make more sens as the economical benefits is difficult to justify.

there is a "small" ROI potential with batteries and the right software controls.

I use my batteries to "defend" against "peak" rates

there is a setting with my battery system to discharge the batteries based on TOU (Time of Use) billing rate

for my Northern California EV-A rate plan - power is much much much more expensive between 3 and 9 pm week days (M-F)…

that means a few things

• don't charge your EV during that window
• any power used by the home during that window is "expensive"
• any solar power given to the grid during that period is very valuable

so I let my batteries discharge during that time window to meet the home's consumption needs - but during some of that period solar is still producing - so it also lets _ALL_ the solar go to the grid during that window maximizing my credits

this means that effectively I _NEVER_ pay for _ANY_ peak rate electricity because my batteries "defend" the home from peak rates using stored solar power during peak-rate window

it's quite effective - as you can see from last months bill

there is no peak/mid-peak usage - and the majority of power that is "off peak" is charging EV's - EV charging dwarfs any normal home's usage…

now I've done some rough math - even using batteries this way means your ROI is still fairly small - but you can make it non-zero and optimize your solar to be as effective as possible…100% of my solar product "hits the grid" during peak-rate TOU windows while the batteries handle 100% of the home's load during the same window

since the window closes after the sun goes down - that means I spend the overnight with the batteries slightly depleted - but the moment the system starts producing in the morning the system uses 100% of the solar to charge the battery when the rate credit for solar is lowest

basically between solar and batteries and some software - you can make such that you never "consume" peak rate electricity and maximum peak-rate kWh credits…with in the limits of your systems production…

it works pretty well in my opinion and keep my annual true-up bill minimized and I always charge my EV's with cheapest power possible.

however even with this clever rate management the ROI is small - so batteries are a home lifestyle/comfort item in my mind - not an ROI mechanism.

 

[daveo4EV]

here is the "outage" history since my batteries were installed/activated Feb. 14th, 2019 - in my area there are a _LOT_ of outages and blips…the batteries keep the home running smoothly and the only way I "know" there is a grid outage is when the app's push notification tells me it's swapped to battery power or I review the logs…

I live in an HOA and I"m sure the noise of a generator would cause complaints - and besides I wouldn't cut a generator in as frequently as the logs show below I'd need to - and generators can't cut in instantly and silently - the switch over to batteries is normally imperceivable and the switch "off" of batteries is equally imperceivable - it's kinda like the blended braking on the Taycan - you just use the brakes and it seamlessly figures out what the right mix of regen and mechanical deceleration is required…same with the home battery/solar system - just keeps "mixing" the power sources (solar, battery, grid) to keep the home "running" smoothly…and when there is no grid - it just seamlessly transitions to managing two sources (battery + solar)…

I think it's super super slick and I'm simply glad to have it

I have automation setup to "load shed" some high demand items (floor heaters, water cooler) - I really don't want the power to go out after I go to sleep one night - and wakeup to mostly/fully depleted battery power in the morning because it's been heating the floor all night

I have my EV circuit breakers _NOT_ battery backed up - so when the grid is down I can't charge my EV's - but my batteries are sooo much smaller than my eV batteries that using batteries that way makes no sense to me - the batteries are for the home and running the home…I do have a NEMA 10-30 plug that is battery backed up - so if I really really want to I can charge my EV's with a mobile charging using the NEMA 10-30 plug - but so far I've never had/wanted to do that - given that an EV charging at 6 kW would suck my home batteries dry in less than 10 hours…

 

[Kingske]

https://www.wired.com/story/californias-heat-wave-is-a-big-moment-for-batteries/

 

[daveo4EV]

https://www.wired.com/story/californias-heat-wave-is-a-big-moment-for-batteries/

that was the link at the top of this thread.

 

[kmcdonal]

https://www.wired.com/story/califor...3b34a6-1f54-4d46-8581-9ccf81d127b3_popular4-1

my home powerwall system was "allowed" to provide power to the grid for 3-4 hours every day for the past 8+ days - I've been delivering 18-24 kWh from my powerwalls each day during peak loads - Tesla claims I'm getting $2/kwh for the peak-grid events - I'll believe it when I see it...but between solar and my local batteries my home was net-positive impact to the grid - since the batteries both covered my usage and provided an additional 6 kW to the grid for the 3-4 hours of "peak demand".

normally I'm only allowed to send actual honest to good solar power to the grid - so I can send the grid any 'excess' solar at the moment - but can't send "stored" power to the grid - I can only use my batteries to power my home usage - the don't want me charging my batteries from the grid during low cost TOU and then selling their power back to them later at higher TOU prices

but during "grid emergencies" I'm allowed to send "stored power" to the grid but no more than my solar system would normally produce - my solar system max output is 6 kW - so I'm allowed to send 6 kW of battery power to the grid during grid-emergencies...

or 6 kWh per hour of stored capacity.

tesla calls this a vritual powerplant - and they used it 8+ times these past few days - during peak load the virtual powerplant was collectively producing 3-6 megawatts - it was interesting to watch and the Tesla app showed in real time the "output" of the virtual power plant "fleet" - ~3500 other Tesla victims were participating in providing power from their batteries to the grid.

if we could get these "idle" EV's to give back their power during "grid emergencies" it would interesting to see what it would do for/to the grid.

the "grid emergency" also allowed my batteries to charge from the grid earlier in the day for later use - normally I'm onlly allowed to use solar power to charge my batteries - but during grid emergencies they relax that policy and allow me to charge my batteries from the grid earlier in the day so that I have max battery power to donate to the grid during the anticipated "peak" load time window…

all in all - I find this very interesting and personally satisfying - duiring these time windows I lived my life and didn't change my power usage at all - but was a net-positive for the grid during the peak load time periods.

I'm optimistic about what could be done with a little more software and hardware for all EV's to allow co-ordinated vehicle-to-grid "give back" during periods of grid stress

even in it's infancy the potential for storage+renewables makes me optimistic that while our challenges are great - there are some solutions that we can deploy - and frankly some of this stuff isn't that hard if we just put our minds to it…we know it can be done and pushing the necssary changes into hardware/software could have a major impact…

overall it's been a very very interesting week…and an impossible week that would've gone very differently if it had happened even 3 years ago…

my Taycan for example could've provide 11 kW (48 amps) worth of power from it's 83.4 kWh worth of capacity during these grid emergencies…44 kWh is a significant amount of power and if you mutiply that by 1000's (the Taycan _IS_ a successful product) of idle Taycan's - the impact would be larger than the Diablo Nuclear powerplant's output - 3 to 4 hours of vehicle to grid "output" 10-30 times a years for a zero impact dynamic powerplant seems to be an interesting idea and one worth pursing - at least in my opinion.

frankly my Taycan's battery dwarfs my 4 powerwalls…and has higher output capability - seems like we should use it…

maybe we provide tax incentives for that EV your purchased only if it has V2G capabilities and you provide you've installed a V2G system in your home and register to be a participant…now there is some "net good" for EV's right there - less emissions, fewer ICE's and V2G applications when necessary to help the grid - win, win, win, win…

Thanks for the write-up -- really interesting first-hand perspective on this. I agree that it seems like there is a lot of potential here.

 

[Kingske]

that was the link at the top of this thread.

Oops…

 

[Kingske]

Oops…

I will put on a brave face and state that I closed the circle.

 

[daveo4EV]

I will put on a brave face and state that I closed the circle.

it's all good - we're all friends here - we've both been posting a long time - a lot of TLDR; is common.

Sponsored