California goes home battery and vehicle-to-grid

bwilson4web

bwilson4web

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Excellent growth market for Tesla Powerwall:
  • PG&E shutdown - dry conditions and high winds, the electric company shuts down power lines to avoid starting electrical initiated fires.
  • Daily 5x rates - prime afternoon, ~$0.50/kW, versus ~$0.09/kW midnight to dawn
Happy times for Tesla and other home power suppliers. It also make vehicle-to-grid vehicles much more popular. To the best of my knowledge, only Honda has such a system but I'm expecting more.

Bob Wilson
 
Last edited:
bwilson4web said:
Excellent growth market for Tesla Powerwall:
  • PG&E shutdown - dry conditions and high winds, the electric company shuts down power lines to avoid starting electrical initiated fires.
  • Daily 5x rates - prime afternoon, ~$0.50/kW, versus ~$0.09/kW midnight to dawn
Happy times for Tesla and other home power suppliers. It also make vehicle-to-grid vehicles much more popular. To the best of my knowledge, only Honda has such a system but I'm expecting more.

Bob Wilson
Click to expand...


Bob, you are missing the point of vehicle to grid in the CA case.... the whole idea is to have their old and faulty grid shut down so they do not have old crappy lines falling down in the wind and starting wild fires. I say they grid needs upgrading, and at the same time, EV owners are going to have to plan ahead, because many supercharger stations are getting shut down. Need an ice car if you live in these areas during these times, Period...
 
David Green said:
Bob, you are missing the point of vehicle to grid in the CA case.... the whole idea is to have their old and faulty grid shut down so they do not have old crappy lines falling down in the wind and starting wild fires. I say they grid needs upgrading, and at the same time, EV owners are going to have to plan ahead, because many supercharger stations are getting shut down. Need an ice car if you live in these areas during these times, Period...
Click to expand...
Maybe this would help
https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/09/pg-e-blackout-tesla-supercharger-battery/
 
I don't understand the FUD being spread about EVs in the areas subject to CA voluntary blackouts. If I had a 300-mi range EV it would cover my driving for a week without recharging. As I understand, there is warning of the blackout so you could get your car charged to 100%. If the power is out for a whole week, you are going to hear of a lot more problems than people just needing to charge their cars.

It just occurred to me that if your employer is in the blackout too, you won't even be commuting. And, if you leave the area to go where there is electricity, you will have access to working chargers once you get there.

Although those with lower range EVs may be in a tighter spot, I don't see this being a crisis for those with recent 250-300 mi EVs.
 
We had a 4 day 6 hour power blackout in April 2011 when tornados tore up the transmission line in North Alabama. During that time, we used my first Prius mod to provide 1 kW needed for the gas furnace, TV, and lights.
priups_00.jpg


It worked.

Bob Wilson
 
I've never ended up using it for an actual outage (we are pretty reliable here) but I too have bought and tested a 1200W inverter to hook to the 12V system on my Prius. In my case it will run the sump pump, which was the issue in the outage prior to when I created the setup. It will also run the freezer or the fridge individually, which is fine by me since they hold temp well. I decided I didn't want the maintenance of a generator or deal with device-specific battery systems.

I estimated the Prius would run the ICE at 25% duty cycle with that load. I don't see a reason that the Clarity PHEV wouldn't work just as well.

I also read of some more confident folks that tapped directly into the traction battery system on the Prius and showed they could pull 5-6 kW, if I remember properly. Of course, they had electrical knowledge.
 
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