News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by captainmuon on Friday March 26, 2021 @10:04AM (#26592261)
This. Transition to renewables is not just about replacing power plants, it is about changing demand structure.

Negative prices are an incentive to build power buffers, or to use power when it is plenty. You can even do crazy things like make steel.

One funny side effect that might happen is that for individuals, power will not become more expensive from renewable energy, but rather cheaper - so cheap that the metering it is more expensive than the electricity, so there will be flatrates (up to a certain usage). The reason is that personal usage is just a drop in the ocean compared to all the cars and all the other things that now run on fossil.

Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by CraigJPerry on Friday March 26, 2021 @10:16AM (#26592416)
It would be cool if i could use an electric car parked at home during the day to store some of that cheap electricity then spend it from the car back into the house at night.

When i looked into this last, it wasn’t common to have that bi-directional power flow capability. There was one, very expensive, Mitsubishi solution on the UK market around 2 years ago.

Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by pydry on Friday March 26, 2021 @10:26AM (#26592546)
Cycling car batteries is expensive. The cost of wearing out the battery is probably not going to exceed the value you get from drawing on it most of the time.

That said, if you leave a car plugged in overnight and it charges fastest when the wind is blowing and slowest when prices drift up that will have a similar effect - for free.

Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by goodcanadian on Friday March 26, 2021 @01:15PM (#26594553)
If you were to fully charge and then fully discharge the battery, it might be an issue; however, that is not what you would typically do. If you cycle between say 25% to 90%, there is some evidence that it is better than just letting it sit. (The biggest issue seems to be leaving it fully charged for a long period of time.)
Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by headmelted on Friday March 26, 2021 @10:23AM (#26592505)
Nissan were looking into V2H for years but not sure what happened with it.

I was registered for a pilot at one point with a third party but never got invited to participate and have since forgotten who the company is.

EDIT: Looks like these can now be purchased and imported from China by end users: https://www.setec-power.com/product/vehicle-to-home-v2h-6kw/

Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by goodcanadian on Friday March 26, 2021 @01:08PM (#26594467)
We are involved in (so far as we know) the largest residential V2G trial in the world (certainly, the largest in the UK). Some links:

https://www.indra.co.uk/v2v-grid-to-vehicle

https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/vehicle-to-grid-char...

https://www.cenex.co.uk/projects-case-studies/sciurus/

Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by headmelted on Friday March 26, 2021 @05:29PM (#26597182)
OVO Energy that’s the one! Sadly I appear not to be in the pilot area.
Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by goodcanadian on Friday March 26, 2021 @06:18PM (#26597681)
The trial included people all over the country. Alas, the original trial is coming to an end, so they haven't been accepting new participants for quite some time.

If you want a V2G, you might try contacting Indra though we really sell more to installers rather than direct to customers. Alternatively, if you have a local(ish) installer that installs Indra's smart chargers, you could try inquiring through them.

I know it is possible to optimise to octopus's tariffs, but I don't know how available that is yet from the commercial side of things (I work on the technical side).

Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by Reason077 on Friday March 26, 2021 @11:36AM (#26593343)
> "Nissan were looking into V2H for years but not sure what happened with it."

In the UK, there are a few companies offering V2G packages for the Nissan Leaf. For example, Octopus Powerloop (available in London and parts of South East England):

https://www.octopusev.com/powerloop

Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by Tade0 on Friday March 26, 2021 @10:44AM (#26592748)
Second gen Leafs are equipped with the proper hardware - at least in Japan.
Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by Reason077 on Friday March 26, 2021 @11:20AM (#26593158)
I believe all current-generation LEAFs worldwide are V2G-capable.
Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by goodcanadian on Friday March 26, 2021 @01:03PM (#26594412)
Basically every Leaf since 2012. Also Mitsubishi Outlander PHEVs work too though their batteries are quite small.
Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by sliken on Friday March 26, 2021 @12:00PM (#26593652)
Buy a powerwall or equivalent, they are designed for this use case, they tune the battery chemistry, cooling, weight, etc for this use case.

Wearing out a expensive electric car, with a high load, while it's not moving (harder to cool), to save a few pennies per Kwh isn't worth it. Keep in mind that there's power losses just charging and discharging, so you need a pretty big swing to make it worth while.

A powerwall (11kwh) costs $7500 or so installed and is generally enough to "peak shave" by charging when power is cheapest and discharge when it's most expensive. It does lower electric bills, but generally isn't really a good financial decision unless you put a financial benefit of having power when during outages.

Re:Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumpt... by JamesBarney on Friday March 26, 2021 @10:15AM (#26592405)
Why would power become cheaper for individuals?