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Great comment! Currently utilities buy power during peak times from other utilities, or fire up expensive peaker generators to manage the load. A network of
by sathackr 9y ago
Great comment!
Currently utilities buy power during peak times from other utilities, or fire up expensive peaker generators to manage the load.
A network of charging cars could be managed as another resource with a price attached to it that may be cheaper than the alternatives. I like the concept of varying the price of the charge based on your participation in the network.
At least in Florida, USA, most residential electric meters are flat-rate (same price per KWh, no matter what time of day you are using). A good portion of commercial meters have a peak and off-peak rate, as well as a single line item charge, based on peak demand, that is often 30-40% of the entire bill. The off-peak rate is often 50% or more cheaper than the peak rate.
Since most people would charge at night, it would probably make sense to have these residential services switched to a demand and time-of-day based meter, which would further reduce the cost of electricity. If someone spends a significant time at home, the charging car could buffer peak loads during the day to offset the additional draw of the nighttime charging.
- ams6110 9y agoThis sounds great and sensible in a hand-wavy way, but getting the technology in place to effectively use plugged-in EVs for extra peak load capacity will take a long time. This sort of thing was never thought about in grid design engineering until very recently. Also think about when peak demand happens -- late afternoon on hot summer days. Right at the time when people are getting home, with their EVs discharged (or at least, not at full capacity) after a day's use.
- sangnoir 9y ago> Also think about when peak demand happens -- late afternoon on hot summer days. Right at the time when people are getting home, with their EVs discharged (or at least, not at full capacity) after a day's use. Not completely discharged - the little available per car will add up to a lot when there are a lot of EVs. The EV owners who decide to sell to the grid at peak hours (at higher prices) might make a profit doing so.
- jdietrich 9y agoVehicle-to-grid technology is already being piloted in the UK and will be available to consumers in Q2/Q3 2018. There is an industry-wide roadmap for the development of local electricity markets with real-time pricing. Any customer can choose to have a smart meter installed free of charge; the goal is to have full deployment of smart metering by 2020. These meters use Zigbee to provide real-time consumption data to a wireless display unit. With future firmware upgrades, they will be capable of providing real-time pricing information to smart appliances. The grid is already perfectly capable of consumer feed-in, hence the huge deployment of photovoltaic solar systems. The metering is not particularly difficult. There is an emerging standard for smart grid communications (LTE on the 450MHz band) that is already in widespread use across the EU. Completing this transition won't be cheap, but there are no significant roadblocks. We know what needs to be done and we have the technology to do it. https://www.drive-electric.co.uk/driveelectric-launches-vehicle-grid-charging-service-uk-homes-workplaces/ https://www.drive-electric.co.uk/driveelectric-launches-vehi... http://www.energynetworks.org/assets/files/electricity/futures/Open_Networks/14574_ENA_Open%20Networks%20Report_AW_v9_Web.pdf http://www.energynetworks.org/assets/files/electricity/futur... http://450alliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/WhitePaper_450MHz_SmartGrid_SmartMetering.pdf http://450alliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/WhitePaper...