Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption

Re:Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption by abeppu on Friday January 22, 2021 @06:06PM (#25877432)

I think the other side of the coin is also interesting: If we're smart, could we use EVs to make the grid more resilient? Could we be thinking of EVs both as transportation and as flexible and hyperlocal power storage. E.g. parked EVs could reverse-meter if there's very high power demand, and absorb cheap (or negative cost) power when it's really windy in Texas, etc.

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Re:Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption by fuoqi on Friday January 22, 2021 @06:23PM (#25877606)

I see several problems with this idea:

- EV battery recharge resource is not infinite. Spending it on grid stabilization could be quite costly if you'll factor in cost of battery replacement. In the long run it could be cheaper to build mines for hydroelectric/compressed air storage.

- It will require huge capital investments. You have to equip every parking spot with inverters which can both charge EV and supply power from it to the grid and invest into upgrading grid to be smart enough to work in such conditions.

- What will happen on low-energy days? It's fine to drain most of power from hydroelectric storage or from stationary flow batteries, but you simply can not do it with EV. Imagine being told "sorry pal, you have to walk home today, power from your EV was used to stabilize the grid".

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Re:Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption by abeppu on Friday January 22, 2021 @09:12PM (#25878889)

I would hope if we started selling power from EVs back to the grid, that owners would be able to set a reserve amount of charge, and only sell excess above that level. And presumably it would only make sense for owners who could charge when demand is less, and opportunistically sell back a portion if demand is unusual high.

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Re:Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption by abeppu on Friday January 22, 2021 @06:13PM (#25877503)

I guess one more cynical read of the same suggestion is that, having failed to gather the political will to modernize our power infrastructure, we're grasping at straws by suggesting that we can piggyback off of private consumption to cobble together some of the same benefits.

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Re:Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption by paperwasp42 on Friday January 22, 2021 @06:18PM (#25877555)

Ding ding. Ideas like this are fantastic and I believe should be pursued. But it's ultimately going to be a band-aid (and a costly, fragile one at that), not a holistic solution.

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Re:Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption by ip26 on Friday January 22, 2021 @09:06PM (#25878838)

They’re most suited to be huge on demand power sinks. Build out your monster wind farm; no more curtailment losses eating profits, the electric fleet can soak it all up. That’s almost as good as bidirectional storage.

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Re:Electric vehicles close to ‘tipping point’ of mass adoption by paperwasp42 on Friday January 22, 2021 @06:10PM (#25877476)

Not sure why you're getting downvoted, because this is a valid idea that's being seriously researched.

Will it offset the surge of electric usage caused by mass adoption of EVs? Probably not. But could it help? Very likely, and I think ideas like this need to be pursued.

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