12 ms·

Assuming V2G means Vehicle to Ground, this is something I would like to see for the following use-case. I would like to use my car battery as a temporary home

Assuming V2G means Vehicle to Ground, this is something I would like to see for the following use-case. I would like to use my car battery as a temporary home battery in the inevitable case of a grid outage. This opens the option to bring energy home from another location. Reduce or eliminates the need for a battery in a grid-tied house. Am I crazy? Edit: Granted that doesn't mean the energy company can use my car's battery at it's whim. I think compensation would be required and would actually make a lot of sense. It isn't like the electric company could build out a battery system for cheaper. It would need to be a higher compensation than to PV though. Batteries are more expensive and should be compensated as such.

Reason077 4y ago
V2G = vehicle to grid. It’s quite possible for this to operate as a backup battery, but like a Powerwall it requires extra “gateway” hardware to ensure that your house is isolated from the grid when the battery is discharging. V2L (vehicle to load) is a simpler form that lets you power 115/230V appliances directly from the vehicle. Quite a few EVs (Hyundai, Ford, etc) already support V2L.
toast0 4y ago
That's not crazy, it's actually a publicized optional feature on the F-150 Lightning, and the F-150 hybrid has an optional 240V 30A output that can be used as a home backup as well (although that'd be a bit more manual).
- coffeebeqn 4y ago
  How could you plug a whole house into a 30A without immediately blowing the fuse?
  - toast0 4y ago
    Depends on your appliances. 30A @ 240V is 7.2 kW; which is plenty if you don't have AC or electric heating or cooling. If you do have those, you'll at least need to be sure not to run any two of those at once, if you can run them at all; you need to be careful with things like dryers, heaters, heat pumps, air conditioner, oven, stove, water heaters (especially tankless, but check your amps on an electric storage water heater too). Well pumps can be big loads too; mine is rated at 30A by itself, but many people have smaller pumps or utility water. FWIW, the F-150 Lightning car to home option only goes up to 40A, which isn't that much more.
shagie 4y ago
> I would like to use my car battery as a temporary home battery in the inevitable case of a grid outage. This opens the option to bring energy home from another location. Reduce or eliminates the need for a battery in a grid-tied house. Question is "how long?" and "how much?" Lets take a 100 kWh battery which matches a Tesla Model S battery option and is a nice number for doing conversions from. https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity-consumption/ https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricit... > The recent figures, as of 2021, show that the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer is 10,632 kilowatthours (kWh). If you divide that by 12 months, the average monthly electricity consumption is 886 kWh per month. What about in a single day? That would be 10,715 KWh divided by 365, or 29 kWh. Then the average daily electricity consumption is 29 kWh. So, hypothetically, 100 kWh would give you 3 and almost 4 days. This can be improved by unplugging things that consume more power. The other part with this is a "once that 100 kWh is drained, you're stuck stuck." You're going to still need something between the mains power and the circuit breaker box. I'm also going to note I don't know what rate it can discharge. You might also want to look at a system that is a dedicated whole house battery backup ( https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/energy/best-home-battery/ https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/energy/best-home-batte... ) The zdnet article links to a Lowes worksheet - https://www.lowes.com/pdf/portable_generator_wattage_chart.pdf https://www.lowes.com/pdf/portable_generator_wattage_chart.p... And from that, look at the "this is what we want" and the question of "generator or battery" becomes interesting. Then consider also, you can get a 10,000 watt generator (that does a cutover in event of a power outage in 7 seconds) for about $3000 which can provide 10 kW at 40 amps.
- dahfizz 4y ago
  Anyone expecting regular 4+ day outages is already going to have a generator. What people want is for the car which is already plugged into their house to kick in when the power goes out for an hour or two.
  - shagie 4y ago
    At an hour or two, that's ballpark 3kWh of power you'd need. There are battery backup solutions in this range that are $3k to $6k (that are frankly quite interesting. Those have the instant on design so that if the power is lost to the house you have a few seconds and its back up and running.
elihu 4y ago
There's two ways to power your house off your car battery. You could have your car act as a mobile electrical outlet that you can run extension cords off of to plug things into, or you could have it tie in directly with the wiring of the house so all your electrical outlets work. The former is pretty straightforward. The latter would need a lot of electrical upgrades to the house. (I'd expect you'd need to do about the same thing that people do when they get solar, which is to replace the meter with something that can measure power flows in both directions, and is smart enough to disconnect the solar panels from upstream power when the power goes out, so you don't electrocute people trying to fix the power lines. If you don't have a local battery, that means basically turning the solar system off in a power failure.) If you aren't planning on selling storage capacity to your local utility, maybe all you really need is an automatic shutoff switch to disconnect your house from the grid when the power goes out. Either way you'd need some sort of power inverter to convert DC to AC. That could be built into the car, or it could be attached to the house.
fomine3 4y ago
it is called V2H (to Home)
rnk 4y ago
these are already available.

Reason077 4y ago

V2G = vehicle to grid. It’s quite possible for this to operate as a backup battery, but like a Powerwall it requires extra “gateway” hardware to ensure that your house is isolated from the grid when the battery is discharging. V2L (vehicle to load) is a simpler form that lets you power 115/230V appliances directly from the vehicle. Quite a few EVs (Hyundai, Ford, etc) already support V2L.

toast0 4y ago

That's not crazy, it's actually a publicized optional feature on the F-150 Lightning, and the F-150 hybrid has an optional 240V 30A output that can be used as a home backup as well (although that'd be a bit more manual).

coffeebeqn 4y ago
How could you plug a whole house into a 30A without immediately blowing the fuse?
- toast0 4y ago
  Depends on your appliances. 30A @ 240V is 7.2 kW; which is plenty if you don't have AC or electric heating or cooling. If you do have those, you'll at least need to be sure not to run any two of those at once, if you can run them at all; you need to be careful with things like dryers, heaters, heat pumps, air conditioner, oven, stove, water heaters (especially tankless, but check your amps on an electric storage water heater too). Well pumps can be big loads too; mine is rated at 30A by itself, but many people have smaller pumps or utility water. FWIW, the F-150 Lightning car to home option only goes up to 40A, which isn't that much more.

shagie 4y ago

> I would like to use my car battery as a temporary home battery in the inevitable case of a grid outage. This opens the option to bring energy home from another location. Reduce or eliminates the need for a battery in a grid-tied house. Question is "how long?" and "how much?" Lets take a 100 kWh battery which matches a Tesla Model S battery option and is a nice number for doing conversions from. https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity-consumption/ https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricit... > The recent figures, as of 2021, show that the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer is 10,632 kilowatthours (kWh). If you divide that by 12 months, the average monthly electricity consumption is 886 kWh per month. What about in a single day? That would be 10,715 KWh divided by 365, or 29 kWh. Then the average daily electricity consumption is 29 kWh. So, hypothetically, 100 kWh would give you 3 and almost 4 days. This can be improved by unplugging things that consume more power. The other part with this is a "once that 100 kWh is drained, you're stuck stuck." You're going to still need something between the mains power and the circuit breaker box. I'm also going to note I don't know what rate it can discharge. You might also want to look at a system that is a dedicated whole house battery backup ( https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/energy/best-home-battery/ https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/energy/best-home-batte... ) The zdnet article links to a Lowes worksheet - https://www.lowes.com/pdf/portable_generator_wattage_chart.pdf https://www.lowes.com/pdf/portable_generator_wattage_chart.p... And from that, look at the "this is what we want" and the question of "generator or battery" becomes interesting. Then consider also, you can get a 10,000 watt generator (that does a cutover in event of a power outage in 7 seconds) for about $3000 which can provide 10 kW at 40 amps.

dahfizz 4y ago
Anyone expecting regular 4+ day outages is already going to have a generator. What people want is for the car which is already plugged into their house to kick in when the power goes out for an hour or two.
- shagie 4y ago
  At an hour or two, that's ballpark 3kWh of power you'd need. There are battery backup solutions in this range that are $3k to $6k (that are frankly quite interesting. Those have the instant on design so that if the power is lost to the house you have a few seconds and its back up and running.

elihu 4y ago

There's two ways to power your house off your car battery. You could have your car act as a mobile electrical outlet that you can run extension cords off of to plug things into, or you could have it tie in directly with the wiring of the house so all your electrical outlets work. The former is pretty straightforward. The latter would need a lot of electrical upgrades to the house. (I'd expect you'd need to do about the same thing that people do when they get solar, which is to replace the meter with something that can measure power flows in both directions, and is smart enough to disconnect the solar panels from upstream power when the power goes out, so you don't electrocute people trying to fix the power lines. If you don't have a local battery, that means basically turning the solar system off in a power failure.) If you aren't planning on selling storage capacity to your local utility, maybe all you really need is an automatic shutoff switch to disconnect your house from the grid when the power goes out. Either way you'd need some sort of power inverter to convert DC to AC. That could be built into the car, or it could be attached to the house.

fomine3 4y ago

it is called V2H (to Home)

rnk 4y ago

these are already available.