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[nigezero]

Hey

Just thought some of you might be interested in a fascinating webinar i sat in on today about V2G (vehicle to grid) and VGI (vehicle grid integration).

In short, three good speakers overviewed that issues, the market, a number of pilot trials, policy, regulations, incentives and what some of the (car) manufacturers are doing and saying.

This space is well and truly alive and all you Californian's are in the hot seat!

Interestingly, the value proposition for utilities is best in VGI (vehicle grid integration) which is about controlling how the charging load is applied to the grid. As a load, they can make more money and its easy for them - just requires tariffs.

V2G on the other hand offers a difficult to quantify but better proposition for owners, because they can offset load, potentially export energy and thus, leverage their storage better.

In a nutshell, the key enabling technology is the bi directional inverters and of course, it must have powerful communications capability either built in or over the top. NRG spoke about how they are already seeing both in vehicle and wall mounted V2G inverters, which is great imho.

I cant wait for the day that I have a 5kW V@G inverter that can fit on my Zero, and i can see it coming already. One well progressed, small manufacturer I spoke with recently agreed that the form function they think is right at the moment is modular 2.5kW units, IP65 with a voltage range of 90-400VDC. By being modular, they can fit tight architecture, are scaleable and can be mass produced more readily.

Another great point was that so far in admittedly limited trials, battery life has NOT been compromised by using in V@G applications in addition to driving. Of course, cycles means lost life, but the major argument that I hear is "auto LiPo chemistry and form isn't well suited to stationary energy" . This was debunked somewhat. No-one has yet explained to me how pulling a mere 10 or 20A out of our pack (1200-2400W load) for intermittent household load is going to be worse for the battery than normal spirited riding which can pull 660A!!! Anyone care to enlighten me?

Anyway, interesting stuff going on.

Theres a summary roadmap document here http://www.caiso.com/Documents/Vehicle-GridIntegrationRoadmap.pdf and Naivigant Consulting who ran the seminar will load th epresentation up here http://www.navigant.com/

[nigezero]

Just found the link to the presentation from the V2G webinar http://www.navigantresearch.com/webinar/electric-vehicles-and-the-grid

[evtricity]

I guess the primary concern for Zero owners would be the battery life impacts of V2G where you used your battery daily to cover peak loads (over 50c per kWh in Sydney from 2-8pm weekdays). But reading through the Zero site the battery life to 80% is over 400,000km so that really shouldn't be an issue.

Not sure portable V2G would be needed unless you want to power an isolated holiday shack for a night. Having a bidirectional inverter at home should be sufficient  and 10kWh of battery enough to cover peak consumption in moderate climates.

Interesting stuff!

[nigezero]

Agree dgh. Looking at it logically though (putting aside product development issues) a bi directional inverter doesn't need to be much, if any larger than a mono directional charger, so if you could, you would, right? Secondly, being able to take the device with you means the functionality is retained while you are commuting, which the majority of owners do with their vehicles. To make it really practical, as was highlighted this morning, buyers of ev are residential but peak demand is mostly commercial so it makes sense to leverage that. So, discharge at the office, or the charging station or the cafe - doesn't matter (when and if called on), recharge at home or on your solar or when you can buy at good rates. If each device has a unique IP address (or PLC address?) the the network could theoretically detect you anywhere, anytime.

Since I don't make products, I'm not bound by silly, practical, real world constraints.

Having said that, I saw a micro inverter yesterday that is essentially just this device and it is the same size as mono.