Equipment for using an EV as a battery backup?

[scrambler]

Soon
2022 Ford F-150® Lightning™ Electric Truck |All Electric and All F-150

[nomadh]

Let's just look at a couple of number here....the average American home uses ~1200kWh per month or ~40kWh a day. EV batteries on the high end vehicles can hold ~70 to 100kWh power. Now considering the battery reserve which can't be touched and the conversion losses DC to AC and maybe those vehicles could power an average house for about a day and a half.......maybe.

Pretty much a marketing gimmick and an expensive one at that.......these capabilities need full disclosure or else many average consumers are going to be mighty disappointed.

Actually those numbers sound outstanding to me. I certainly can't afford no caddiac system. If so I'd just buy a ev and a power wall. Or 2 of each. Just no way. But I might buy one finally after my nem ends or grid down. That way on the few hottest days I'd run a room ac off the car to get to sleep. Maybe a fridge or emergency waterpump if flooding during a storm.
I would expect a seperate charging circuit like my sunnyboy. Probably my big issue would be my sma is only 15 A daytime. I'd have to charge all day I think to keep the battery up so either no ac/fridge during the day or the night .

[solardreamer]

I am curious about that type of hardware also since I had heard CA was going to use people's EV batteries to reduce production demand if they were being charged at a home. Has that ability ever been moved forward?

https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/08/general-motors-pge-pilot-evs-as-backup-power-sources-for-homes/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAB2i60FCwIk2-MJGzkIfKTVS8TWdFeBIbqBt8YrWpse0-mLxJK5eHKyGGW20aGGfr-3wnFVhv3rsEg8BfJCU-286A2_FwA-7rARizXpqvMZeSESAIO_I1yrPAK76OYcz-Ofo625FK9isnN01t9zxpRKOxBfXMJlE6tyDXz8CalN6

[bcroe]

I thought I saw, the General just came out with a big electric pickup with
400 mile range. Must be a double battery package, useful for EV backup?
Bruce Roe

[SunEagle]

https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/08/ge...lE6tyDXz8CalN6

Interesting but unfortunately it seems all of the new EV stuff happens in CA first. I remember a few years ago when Fiat came out with their EV but it was only available on the West coast. Kind of sucks but unless the entire country (and Florida) starts getting the same attention to EV's as CA and Europe is then I don't think the market will grow much.

[jflorey2]

Great. Then why haven't the electric car manufacturers made the V2H a standard feature on their chargers?

1) No one knows the capability exists, so there is no demand.
2) There's no law that says they have to do it.
3) They are hard to find right now.

All that being said, Nuuve is working on this right now - trying to push bidirectional chargers into EV's for exactly this purpose. And there are literally dozens of programs out there that use fleets (of cars, trucks, school buses etc) to provide storage for the grid. These programs won't get this guy his charger, but they will drive development of the hardware to do this.

Oh and most people I know use more than 40kWh a day but then again they have AC and pool pumps.

That's about 2x the national average. And most people with hybrid solar have an essentials panel that powers outlets and lights (and usually furnace blowers) but not A/C, pool pumps, clothes dryers, air compressors, shop tools etc. That's enough to keep food from spoiling and keep people warm in winter.

[jflorey2]

I am curious about that type of hardware also since I had heard CA was going to use people's EV batteries to reduce production demand if they were being charged at a home. Has that ability ever been moved forward?

The initial stage of that was to just move the charging demand to midnight, to better align with the lowest power consumption time for the grid (and better align with when land based wind power was producing the most power.) That's happened.

There are a lot of programs out there that are using fleets to feed power back to the grid, but most use ChaDeMo systems. ChaDeMo (fast charging standard) is very simple; all the negotiations do is close a contacter between the connector and the EV's battery, and at that point you can either take power out or put power in. So all the fancy stuff happens on the charger side, and of course you can buy a big/fancy one that will do bidirectional transfer. And that way the EV doesn't change at all.

The holy grail is to have all cars capable of bidirectional power transfer via the J1772 connector, which is the AC connector. (It's the standard AC charging connector all EV's have.) That allows grid support and standby power for houses. In the interim, V2H (vehicle to house) will be implemented via connection to standard NEMA power connectors on the EV itself.

[peakbagger]

There are also reliability and warranty issues with opening up a battery to an outside unknown system. Most EVs have an extended battery warranty. Add in grid connectivity and the battery may cycle more often. Battery degradation is function of age and cycles so this potentially impacts the battery life.

[SunEagle]

1) No one knows the capability exists, so there is no demand.
2) There's no law that says they have to do it.
3) They are hard to find right now.

All that being said, Nuuve is working on this right now - trying to push bidirectional chargers into EV's for exactly this purpose. And there are literally dozens of programs out there that use fleets (of cars, trucks, school buses etc) to provide storage for the grid. These programs won't get this guy his charger, but they will drive development of the hardware to do this.

That's about 2x the national average. And most people with hybrid solar have an essentials panel that powers outlets and lights (and usually furnace blowers) but not A/C, pool pumps, clothes dryers, air compressors, shop tools etc. That's enough to keep food from spoiling and keep people warm in winter.

1.Actually a lot of people are aware of the V2H technology but can't afford an EV
2. While most manufacturers follow the laws they also look at market and demand which can help them decide what to build and what not to. So there really doesn't need to be a law
3. That I agree with

You may be correct that people in the US use less then 40kWh per day but in the South and with higher temperatures across the nation I expect Air Conditioning will be used more often and raise that consumption data.

Also unless you live in the South you may not be protective of the "need" for cooler air that the AC provides or want a clean pool which can be expensive if you don't keep the pump running. I am happy I no long have a pool but I did have one for 30 years that kept me busy keeping clean. What a PIA but my family was happy to have it and wanted to use it to keep cool when the grid went down in the summer time.

It really comes down to life style and where you live which also equates to how many kWh a family uses each day.

[DanS26]

My point is not that the technology is not useful....it is, but lets not let the marketing and advertising department get ahead of the engineering department.

Ford shows their EV truck driving xx miles to a powerless worksite, then the guy supposedly powers all his tools all day, then drives xx miles home. Next commercial shows a guy standing in his driveway of at least a 2,500 sq ft house at night with all the lights on.

When the marketing outstrips the engineering then people are being setup for disappointment.

[SunEagle]

My point is not that the technology is not useful....it is, but lets not let the marketing and advertising department get ahead of the engineering department.

Ford shows their EV truck driving xx miles to a powerless worksite, then the guy supposedly powers all his tools all day, then drives xx miles home. Next commercial shows a guy standing in his driveway of at least a 2,500 sq ft house at night with all the lights on.

When the marketing outstrips the engineering then people are being setup for disappointment.

I agree. Unfortunately companies have used marketing tactics before engineering for a long time. Only certain % of people really understand what is available and what is hype.

[J.P.M.]

My point is not that the technology is not useful....it is, but lets not let the marketing and advertising department get ahead of the engineering department.

Ford shows their EV truck driving xx miles to a powerless worksite, then the guy supposedly powers all his tools all day, then drives xx miles home. Next commercial shows a guy standing in his driveway of at least a 2,500 sq ft house at night with all the lights on.

When the marketing outstrips the engineering then people are being setup for disappointment.

Follow the money to see who wins out between engineering and marketing.

I've been a peddler and an engineer at different stages of my life. Marketing always wins because peddlers' B.S. stuff is easier to understand than reality and also easier to twist to make traps for fools.

[jflorey2]

1.Actually a lot of people are aware of the V2H technology but can't afford an EV

Really? People in my circles do - but I work for a grid-storage company and go to EV battery conferences. Outside of that, I have found people mostly unaware that you can use an EV or hybrid in that way. People I know outside my work environment were suprised, for example, to hear that people used their Ford hybrids to power their homes during the Texas outage.

[SunEagle]

Really? People in my circles do - but I work for a grid-storage company and go to EV battery conferences. Outside of that, I have found people mostly unaware that you can use an EV or hybrid in that way. People I know outside my work environment were suprised, for example, to hear that people used their Ford hybrids to power their homes during the Texas outage.

If you watch TV most of the EV manufacturers are showing how their vehicle can power as well as charge. So I would think a large majority of people think that the technology is available but like the F150 it still hasn't really been released yet.

[SamirD]

Late to the party, but I remember researching this on the Enphase community before I discovered this place. Since their acquisition of Clipper Creek (who makes wonderful chargers), I think they're now able to move into a full R&D on this since they own both sides of the puzzle. The cars play a factor too, but in my research into this someone who examined the FCC filing information for the Tesla Model 3 found that it already has all the hardware in place to support bi-directional current. If this is the case, then a HUGE customer base already exists and it will be a 'blue ocean' for the company that successfully pulls this off first. I think Enphase has all the right stuff gathered to make it happen, and I thought it would be about 5 years away until I met an installer doing some work on a neighbor's house saying that he's scheduled for training on it next year. So it may be right around the corner.