Electric cars and a fragile grid

[wdc330i]

Here's one of the first things I thought of when I read that Volvo was going all electric so soon (and now apparently France also wants to pull the plug, so to speak, on gas and diesel vehicles): What happens when there's an attack on the grid, or even just some weather related failure, as often happens?

Admittedly, gas stations can't pump when the electricity is out, but you can stock pile some cans of gas.

Will we all need natural gas-powered generators as back up?

[Nick M3]

Originally Posted by wdc330i

Here's one of the first things I thought of when I read that Volvo was going all electric so soon (and now apparently France also wants to pull the plug, so to speak, on gas and diesel vehicles): What happens when there's an attack on the grid, or even just some weather related failure, as often happens?

Admittedly, gas stations can't pump when the electricity is out, but you can stock pile some cans of gas.

Will we all need natural gas-powered generators as back up?

Presumably you'd want solar and storage.

[JST]

You can't really do solar and storage. Or, you can, but it's prohibitively expensive.

Solar systems are basically divided into 2 categories--grid-tied (which feed power back into the grid and use it as a giant battery to absorb extra power) and island. The vast, vast majority of solar systems out there for day-to-day, non-remote cabin use are grid-tied, and these systems won't work when the grid goes down (to prevent them from energizing the wires and electrocuting people working on the grid).

To have enough storage capacity for an island system, where all the power comes from solar, requires a shit ton of battery capacity. One of the Tesla savants over on TMC put one together out of 2 or 3 salvaged Model S batteries. That gave him enough that he could comfortably run his house and charge his car(s), but it's an investment well beyond what people would want to make, particularly given that generators cost so little.

The fragile grid thing is a challenge as the fleet converts to electric, but a bigger challenge are condo/apartment dwellers. Those folks don't have a practical home charging option.

The solution to both problems is the same: hybrids will continue to make up a big part of the product mix, and local communities will have to push for more publicly available chargers in places like apartments, parking garages, and even on the street.

[Nick M3]

Originally Posted by JST

You can't really do solar and storage. Or, you can, but it's prohibitively expensive.

Solar systems are basically divided into 2 categories--grid-tied (which feed power back into the grid and use it as a giant battery to absorb extra power) and island. The vast, vast majority of solar systems out there for day-to-day, non-remote cabin use are grid-tied, and these systems won't work when the grid goes down (to prevent them from energizing the wires and electrocuting people working on the grid).

To have enough storage capacity for an island system, where all the power comes from solar, requires a shit ton of battery capacity. One of the Tesla savants over on TMC put one together out of 2 or 3 salvaged Model S batteries. That gave him enough that he could comfortably run his house and charge his car(s), but it's an investment well beyond what people would want to make, particularly given that generators cost so little.

The fragile grid thing is a challenge as the fleet converts to electric, but a bigger challenge are condo/apartment dwellers. Those folks don't have a practical home charging option.

The solution to both problems is the same: hybrids will continue to make up a big part of the product mix, and local communities will have to push for more publicly available chargers in places like apartments, parking garages, and even on the street.

I'd argue that the actual answer is that you can't do solar and storage *now* in a very inexpensive manner. Although the Powerwall is not *that* expensive, and I'd expect to see other competition going forward.

Edit: Additionally, many localities make a home generator basically illegal. Montgomery County, for example, makes it so that you can install a generator, but your neighbors will almost universally have the right to force you to remove it. So, you can host a generator party, but you'd better hope you don't have one sour asshole neighbor.

[JST]

Originally Posted by Nick M3

I'd argue that the actual answer is that you can't do solar and storage *now* in a very inexpensive manner. Although the Powerwall is not *that* expensive, and I'd expect to see other competition going forward.

Edit: Additionally, many localities make a home generator basically illegal. Montgomery County, for example, makes it so that you can install a generator, but your neighbors will almost universally have the right to force you to remove it. So, you can host a generator party, but you'd better hope you don't have one sour asshole neighbor.

Powerwall isn't terribly expensive, but it's also very small compared to what you'd need for charging a car. They're 14 kwh each; Tesla's configurator recommends two for one day of whole-house backup power. You'd probably need at least 8 before you could comfortably charge a car, and that's assuming you weren't going to charge it all the way from dead--that's $45K worth of batteries.

Honestly, what makes more sense is to come up with a system that could use the 60-100 kwh of battery capacity *in your car* to provide power to the home.

EDIT: Meant to put this here:

https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

[wdc330i]

This fellow is working on some solutions:

https://www.treehugger.com/green-arc...homestead.html

http://www.resilientdesign.org/resil...gn-strategies/

[John V]

Originally Posted by JST

Honestly, what makes more sense is to come up with a system that could use the 60-100 kwh of battery capacity *in your car* to provide power to the home.

EDIT: Meant to put this here:

https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

Yes. Why not use the storage you are already paying for to serve double duty?

We have what I'd consider to be a relatively large generator for a residence and it's still laughably small to consider using to charge a car.

[JST]

Originally Posted by John V

Yes. Why not use the storage you are already paying for to serve double duty?

We have what I'd consider to be a relatively large generator for a residence and it's still laughably small to consider using to charge a car.

Yeah, I don't know what your generator puts out, but anything less than 240V/30 amps is going to be fairly useless for charging a long range EV. And that's *just* for the car.

Plus you have to make sure you have a sine wave inverter.

[John V]

It's a propane fueled 15kW unit with a true sine inverter. It could charge the car if I didn't want to power much else while I did it.