5 ms·

Even if you completely do away with concerns of battery wear, I'd only be willing to participate in this as long as my household still had an ICE vehicle to fal

by causi 4y ago

Even if you completely do away with concerns of battery wear, I'd only be willing to participate in this as long as my household still had an ICE vehicle to fall back on. When I get home and plug the car in I don't want to have to think about whether I might want or need to leave the house at a particular time with a particular charge; I just want the charge to be as high as possible as soon as possible.

jonplackett 4y ago
All you need is a ‘no selling electricity today please’ button.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Or "always leave me 150 miles of range".
  - gwbas1c 4y ago
    At that point it's cheaper to buy a car with a smaller battery and use a stationary battery for grid storage.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      I might want a car with 300 miles charge for vacations, but most of the time be making trips to the grocery store. The grid might only dip into my car's battery for a 15-30 minutes at a time to prevent brown-outs while power plants spin up. There are plenty of scenarios where the EV makes more sense than a dedicated battery for it.
      - guruz 4y ago
        You might be at work (away with car) while the midday sun is filling your home battery.
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        Sure, if you have solar, by all means get a home battery and enroll it in the same grid backup program. Makes plenty of sense. In my case, I live on a very shaded property; no solar for me. I also live next to an electrical substation, so extended outages from storms is highly unlikely; I'm first on the fixed list every time. In my case, the home battery doesn't make sense, but the EV might still. EVs as grid storage is an option that may be compelling in some areas and for some people. I think that's worth exploring.
    - goodpoint 4y ago
      No. You are going to charge up for longer trips e.g. on holidays.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  How do you know when it is safe to activate?
- ffmpegy 4y ago
  I use an app for my home heating that lets me define a schedule every day. If I'm going out I can turn it down or off, and if I have guests over I can boost the hot water. It already has an EV charger plugin, so I'm in complete control of my selling energy back to the grid if I want to use it. Some of the comments on this post feel like the "government is coming for your guns" level of foaming-at-the-mouth. Remember the ultimate aim is to use energy more efficiently and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, not make it pointless or difficult to live life.
dtech 4y ago
That is going to be an expensive habit in the future once time-variable pricing is the standard, which I think is inevitable. Charging your car at 6PM is going to be super expensive compared to 3 AM or 1 PM. Also note you'll still have fast-chargers, you don't always need to charge immediately at full capacity at home, just as you wouldn't always top up on gas after every drive.
- ffmpegy 4y ago
  Just a note for any UK readers that this is coming in sooner than you think. There are already proposals on the Ofgem[1] site to force mandatory half-hourly meter reads that mean energy companies can offer pricing that more closely matches demand. https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-policy-and-regulation/policy-and-regulatory-programmes/electricity-settlement-reform https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-policy-and-regulation/policy... don't want to be part of that? run your house off your EV and charge it back up at night. my house takes about 6KWh a day, so I could run it for almost a week from my car even if I didn't charge it.

by causi 4y ago

jonplackett 4y ago

All you need is a ‘no selling electricity today please’ button.

ceejayoz 4y ago
Or "always leave me 150 miles of range".
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  At that point it's cheaper to buy a car with a smaller battery and use a stationary battery for grid storage.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    I might want a car with 300 miles charge for vacations, but most of the time be making trips to the grocery store. The grid might only dip into my car's battery for a 15-30 minutes at a time to prevent brown-outs while power plants spin up. There are plenty of scenarios where the EV makes more sense than a dedicated battery for it.
    - guruz 4y ago
      You might be at work (away with car) while the midday sun is filling your home battery.
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        Sure, if you have solar, by all means get a home battery and enroll it in the same grid backup program. Makes plenty of sense. In my case, I live on a very shaded property; no solar for me. I also live next to an electrical substation, so extended outages from storms is highly unlikely; I'm first on the fixed list every time. In my case, the home battery doesn't make sense, but the EV might still. EVs as grid storage is an option that may be compelling in some areas and for some people. I think that's worth exploring.
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    No. You are going to charge up for longer trips e.g. on holidays.
tsimionescu 4y ago
How do you know when it is safe to activate?
ffmpegy 4y ago
I use an app for my home heating that lets me define a schedule every day. If I'm going out I can turn it down or off, and if I have guests over I can boost the hot water. It already has an EV charger plugin, so I'm in complete control of my selling energy back to the grid if I want to use it. Some of the comments on this post feel like the "government is coming for your guns" level of foaming-at-the-mouth. Remember the ultimate aim is to use energy more efficiently and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, not make it pointless or difficult to live life.

dtech 4y ago

That is going to be an expensive habit in the future once time-variable pricing is the standard, which I think is inevitable. Charging your car at 6PM is going to be super expensive compared to 3 AM or 1 PM. Also note you'll still have fast-chargers, you don't always need to charge immediately at full capacity at home, just as you wouldn't always top up on gas after every drive.

ffmpegy 4y ago
Just a note for any UK readers that this is coming in sooner than you think. There are already proposals on the Ofgem[1] site to force mandatory half-hourly meter reads that mean energy companies can offer pricing that more closely matches demand. https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-policy-and-regulation/policy-and-regulatory-programmes/electricity-settlement-reform https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-policy-and-regulation/policy... don't want to be part of that? run your house off your EV and charge it back up at night. my house takes about 6KWh a day, so I could run it for almost a week from my car even if I didn't charge it.