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As a domestic p.v. auto-builder: the real point is seasonal storage, until we will (if we will) be able to store energy across a whole year not just day-to-day,
by kkfx 8mo ago
As a domestic p.v. auto-builder: the real point is seasonal storage, until we will (if we will) be able to store energy across a whole year not just day-to-day, we simply can't run on p.v. while p.v. is excellent for self consumption if only we stopped trying to create large-scale solutions instead of solutions for domestic and small sheds self-consumption, which are the only technically viable options, given that large injection power plants are nothing but a problem for the grid...
Having cars integrated with the home (since they are 400V LFP on average, just like domestic storage and CSS is already there) is what works well to reduce summer demand peaks, not by passively injecting power but by helping the grid only when it actually needs it.
The only reason it isn't being done is because the political agenda is to strip the majority of private property, and for this reason, the "new deal" that works technically doesn't work in reality. They are trying to make it work for dense cities and large buildings, some not possible on scale for an unsustainable way of life as well. When the FAKE green supporters finally realize this, they will understand how many decades of evolution we are losing just to play into the hands of a few kleptocrats.
- hedora 8mo agoOur cars have a total of 8x the capacity of our home batteries. We're ~ one dongle away from doing what you describe. The other thing we need to see to really replace grids are panels that are optimized for overcast days. Currently, production drops to 0-10% when it's cloudy, even though the fraction of wattage hitting the panels is way higher than that. At some point, I think we'll end up with panels that produce linearly to the amount of light (this is probably hard), or that are high efficiency in winter / high altitudes, but low efficiency at peak (this is probably easy). Currently, panels are marketed on wattage under full sunlight at high temperatures. This is important for air conditioning use cases, but the grid is overproducing on those days already and we'd curtail if we took them off grid.
- kkfx 8mo agoSame for me, I made a choice back then, and only realized it was a mistake in hindsight, to set up a small storage system, thinking it would just serve as a backup for blackouts. Since those have mostly been very short so far (a few seconds or minutes), I went with 8kWh, while the car has 74... Today I'm expanding it, aiming for 38kWh, which is still much less than the car. Even though the price of LFP batteries has dropped significantly, it hasn't fallen enough, nor has the cost of grid power risen enough, to justify aiming for 100kWh to have substantial autonomy for most of the year, including heating. Using the car as part of the system would be fantastic, and the technology is all there to make it happen, except for the will of manufacturers and the political drive to go in that direction. It's not happening because they don't want people to be self-sufficient; they want large power plants, not semi-autonomous homes and warehouses. But the fact is, economically and technically, the former makes no sense, while the latter does.