Discussion

Electric vehicles the key to more efficient home energy use

dwood_dev: I'm looking at a new car later this year. The limited options for V2H are disappointing.

thelastgallon: V2G is what we should focus on. Tens (eventually hundreds) of millions of EVs soaking up free power that is being curtailed during the day, supplying power back to the grid later in the evening at peak prices, replacing peaker plants.

pingou: But that would accelerate the vehicle's depreciation, which is costly. I suspect it would make more financial sense to have a home battery, they should have compared the prices of home batteries vs car batteries. And for the national grid effects, just charging your vehicle when electricity prices are the lowest would have mostly the same effect but would be a lot simpler.

supertrope: If there is a net benefit for both the vehicle owner and the utility, the utility should pay the owner. A school district bought battery electric school buses with a subsidy from the utility on the purchase price.

dangus: The success of V2H partially depends on it being a technology that’s not just for nerds. It has to be something where the user just plugs in to their house and doesn’t have to think about it. Their energy use is optimized and their vehicle is charged up for the next day.The other part of this is that all these things sound great, but single family homes with cars as the primary method of transport is a losing strategy for global sustainability. The best way to reduce global oil consumption is to reduce the number of trips people choose to take with cars.Electric cars, V2H, that stuff is all something of a band-aid compared to building infrastructure that makes it safe and convenient for me to cycle to work or take the bus.Even in the United States where single family homes are probably more prominent than anywhere else, something like 40% of people don’t live in a single family home.

supertrope: This is the real ultimate solution to energy security and climate change. However there are many entrenched interests behind car culture. Auto manufacturers. Auto parts suppliers. Car dealers. The banks that sell car loans. Car insurance companies. Oil companies. The majority of governments and voters that are okay with spending on highways, roads, parking. But ask them to upgrade public transit into something useful instead of an awful quality social welfare service and the anti-tax forces come out in force.

zihotki: Did they take into account aging and depreciation of the vehicle battery, which is crazy expensive? It makes negative sense to use v2h with current limited cycles batteries of cars. These batteries are optimized for charging speed and power density.There are much more cheaper and better suited batteries for houses built using other chemistries, they are bigger and heavier and that's fine for a house as long as they live 10y+.

dyauspitr: Most of these batteries are on full warranty for 8-10 years. You should definitely make full use of it during that period.

zihotki: Read the fine print - there is usually a limitation on charging cycles. So battery can be out of warranty even if it's 3 years old but reached limit on charging cycles.

lostmsu: [delayed]

ragebol: Does that warranty still apply if the battery is used for other applications besides it's core function of powering the car?

zihotki: The car battery warranty is often for X years or Y cycles, whatever comes first.

ragebol: Yeah, I guessed so. Using it as a home battery with incur a lot more cycles I suppose. Although if the battery is large enough so that a day of powering a home only drains the battery eg. 10%, how does that factor into the cycle count? Is that somewhere in the small print maybe?

dyauspitr: I would look at your warranty, mine is 8 years or 100,000 miles. It doesn’t have a cycles stipulation.

dyauspitr: It’s not. For my ford it is 8 years or 100,000 miles whichever comes first. It’s not about cycles.

senectus1: I dont understand this concept.I mean.. yeah in distaster situations when there is no power.. sure useful.but for every other day why would you "burn fuel" for mobility (the car) to power your house?it seems like a very stupid idea.