LEAF to Home V2H

J

jim

Active Member
I had missed it in the news about the 2018 LEAF Nissan wants to introduce the USA to V2H like they have been using in Japan for about as year. This is really big news. No other automaker has been talking about V2G Vehicle To GRID. In fact Tesla doesn't want to do V2G since they sell the Power Wall for that purpose.

Here's a quote from Nissan.
https://insideevs.com/nissan-leaf-t...-will-be-nissans-primary-focus-at-2017-naias/

QUOTE=The major takeaways from the press release is that Nissan is working hard to commercialize this LEAF-To-Home system in the U.S. Nissan states:

“Nissan is heavily focused on preparing for “LEAF-to-Home” commercialization in the U.S., similar to what is available on the market in Japan today. In 2012, Nissan introduced this system in Japan, allowing drivers to supply a house with the energy stored in a Nissan LEAF battery. By charging the vehicle at night when electricity is cheaper and powering a household during the day, the system assists in alleviating power consumption during peak periods when demand is highest and most expensive. It can also be used as a backup power supply for blackouts and emergencies. Today about 4,000 households in Japan are utilizing their EVs to manage home energy use, and hundreds of EVs are powering buildings in Japan and Europe.”
 
Nissan might be focused on this but I never hear anything about V2H. I still hope to do a test pilot of this in the HOT greater Phoenix area. Over 50% of the plugin drivers in our Phoenix Electric Auto Association have Solar so why not use V2H?
 
Using your BEV's battery pack as an emergency backup, to power your house in case of a blackout, may make sense, altho it requires a more expensive two-way charger inside the car.

What makes absolutely no sense is to cycle your BEV's battery pack unnecessarily, on a daily basis; using the BEV's pack instead of a stationary home storage battery pack. A BEV's battery pack is optimized to power a car, not to power a house. Batteries used in stationary storage packs can be and should be cheaper batteries than are used in BEVs.

If your local utility wants to use expensive BEV battery packs as grid storage, then let them pay for their own battery packs -- not use yours! It's unlikely your local utility would pay you a fair market price for using your BEV as their backup power source. If it was worth the price, then they would simply buy their own batteries. The only reason they'd want to use your batteries is because they think they can rent them cheaply, at below market value.

Now, there is an argument to be made for BEV owners letting the local utility use their BEV's battery pack only in emergencies, to prevent a blackout. But again, that would require the BEV to have a more expensive two-way charger built in. Is the utility gonna pay for that? Of course they're not! So why should you pay more for something which will only benefit them?

What does make sense is "smart charging", and letting the local utility decide what hours your BEV will charge during the night. What does not make sense is wearing out your battery pack prematurely to benefit the local utility.

V2G <> smart charging.
 
ArkansasVolt said:
What makes the most sense to me is off grid solar with batteries. :)
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I see a lot of people talking about wanting to do that. However, I haven't seen anyone saying they've actually done it. Not saying nobody has; surely someone somewhere has done that? I'm just saying it must be very rare.

All the articles/reports I've seen online about off-grid solar have been about a cabin somewhere far away from civilization, with no local access to the electrical grid. In other words, those who are off-grid by necessity rather than by choice, and only for some sort of vacation cabin or hunting cabin used only a small part of the year, not their actual residence.
 
Pushmi-Pullyu said:
Using your BEV's battery pack as an emergency backup, to power your house in case of a blackout, may make sense, altho it requires a more expensive two-way charger inside the car.

What makes absolutely no sense is to cycle your BEV's battery pack unnecessarily, on a daily basis; using the BEV's pack instead of a stationary home storage battery pack. A BEV's battery pack is optimized to power a car, not to power a house. Batteries used in stationary storage packs can be and should be cheaper batteries than are used in BEVs.
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good points, and i assume nissan wants to sell V2G as a way of drumming up sales for their vehicles, however, i see the best use for V2G with older EVs, i bought my leaf used for $10k when it was 2 years old and it is now 5 years old and still has 87% of its battery capacity, but i doubt it is worth much more than $6k. i hope to use it as my main transport for a few more years and at that point, it will not be worth more than scrap. not just because its old but also newer EV batteries are way better. you can buy a EV today that has 2-3 times more range for the same price as an older EV. for my leaf there is a good chance in 3-5 more years, it will still have 50-70% of its battery but it will be time for a new EV, so what do i do with a 8-10 year old EV that nobody wants? i could plug it into the house! it will have as much or power as a telsa powerwall and a lot cheaper. heck since a powerwall is going for $6k it is worth the same as my leaf currently but my leaf has a lot more power, almost two tesla powerwalls. put it another way, if i could get a V2G for less than $4000 [and the 2012 price was 330,000 yen or $3k usd] then parking my old leaf right now would be the same price as a telsa powerwall, with the added benefit of a backup vehicle
 
harry henderson said:
...i could plug it into the house! it will have as much or power as a telsa powerwall and a lot cheaper. heck since a powerwall is going for $6k it is worth the same as my leaf currently but my leaf has a lot more power, almost two tesla powerwalls...
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Harry, I hope you are still out there. I have followed Leaf V2H for 18 months as we designed and permitted our small coastal home in any area subject to several-day wind-caused power outages. I have reserved a Tesla Powerwall so we can keep the solar running, and California codes require us to provide for future EV charging. But your worn-Leaf backup battery concept is attractive. Because we have a screened area under a downhill deck, it could be done without that rustic yard-car look.
Problem is, Nissan USA dealers have no clue about V2H. Push-Pull says a different in-vehicle charger is required. I'm pondering my next move, but forming a like-minded group or subforum seems like a start. Any interest or there?
 
Mike L said:
According to this, the Leaf comes with this charger. It's apparently the main reason they use the CHAdeMO standard, which allows power to flow either way.
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Yes CHAdeMO offers Nissan bi-directional charging hence they stay with it. I totally disagree with you PP on this as you always sound good, but are so negative about pretty well most stuff posted. I'm all for utilizing any power systems that we can and having a car as a backup and time of use power I think is a great idea.

If Nissan builds it and offers warranties, then why would I care. Especially for areas that have frequent weather or other power outage issues, this would be a benefit.
 
Kenneth Bokor said:
Yes CHAdeMO offers Nissan bi-directional charging hence they stay with it. I totally disagree with you PP on this as you always sound good, but are so negative about pretty well most stuff posted. I'm all for utilizing any power systems that we can and having a car as a backup and time of use power I think is a great idea.

If Nissan builds it and offers warranties, then why would I care. Especially for areas that have frequent weather or other power outage issues, this would be a benefit.
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I agree with you that having the flexibility to use the EV battery in emergency is great. I do not think anyone would really object to it. Again, the purpose is not to be a Tesla Powerwall, which is a dedicated unit, this is an back up system. You also have to remember the current Leaf has only a 150 mile range, and if you use it for this purpose, you have not have juice for when you need it. But if you have another options, why not?
 
I am puzzled by the economics of both V2G and energy arbitrage using the Tesla Powerwall. Say a Powerwall costs $8,000 installed, and you can actually use 12 kWh of the nameplate capacity. Maximum use and minimum per-kWh cost would be if you cycle 12 kWh x 365 days x 10 years. (Assume you amortize the cost over just 10 years, but somehow cycle every day.) If the time value of money is 0%, and you get 90% roundtrip efficiency, every kWh cost you 20 cents to store and discharge. If baseline energy costs 18 cents (in California), you have to offset 38-cent energy to break even. Where is my math wrong? I read on forums the gleeful posts of folks pumped about their Powerwall arbitrage, but I don't see what they are celebrating. The salvage-Leaf idea might make sense, because it appears the unit costs might be half those of the Powerwall. ???
 
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