Vehicle-to-Grid
Here’s an article on the use of EVs as a tool to power our homes and/or send electricity back to the grid. My comments are in italics.
A study by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute shows how electric vehicles (EVs) could double as home storage batteries using bidirectional charging. Yes, this is called “vehicle-to-grid,” aka “V2G.”
It was an interesting concept in the 2000-aughts but has gone essentially nowhere over the last two decades, largely because the amount of electrical energy in an EV’s battery is not worth the inconvenience and the cost of the vast amount of technology necessary to make all his happen.
Also, let’s suppose that an EV owner wants to commit to having a certain number of kWhrs taken from his battery every day at a given time, but his plans change, he needs to use his car for some purpose that he couldn’t have foreseen, and now he’s stranded. That’s not an appealing deal.
Most EVs in Germany are driven for just 1 hour daily, leaving 23 hours of idle time. During this downtime, EVs could stabilize energy grids by storing and sharing power when demand peaks.
The amount of time EVs are not driven is totally irrelevant to this discussion.
This strategy could boost solar and wind energy use, as EVs could store excess daytime energy and release it at night.
Sorry, but no. Part of the reason that V2G will never be implemented is that it would have an infinitesimal impact on our grid-mix, while coming along with a huge price tag.
For individual EV owners, this could mean annual savings of €31 to €780 by sharing stored energy with their home or the grid.
Doubtless, if an individual EV owner wants to make this investment, there will be some return. €31/year is less than $0.09 per day. That doesn’t sound too motivating to me, but maybe I’m just a hard sell.
BTW, I can’t find this “study.” I’m thinking that, if it exists at all, it was written about 20 years ago, when this subject was actually under consideration.
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