March 6,
2021
White Paper
Why Can’t Your Electric Vehicle
Provide Backup Power to Your Home in an Emergency & Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G)
Power Status
By Ray Bosenbecker
1.0 Background
It's 18 February 2021 and as I went to bed, I
thought of the people affected by the Corona virus and the plight of millions
of people in Texas and around the United States who had no electrical power
because of the extremely cold weather.
I thought of how they could benefit from backup
gasoline generators ($600 to $1,500), or 20 Kilowatt (Kw) whole house natural
gas permanent long term generators ($10,000 & up installed), or how they
could use small lithium-ion battery inverters ($700 to $1,700) for temporary
home power sources, or how they could use their own solar collectors with
storage batteries ($10,000 & up) to power their homes during state wide
rolling power blackouts.
It was then when I realized that my family could
easily be in the same situation and I began to wonder what I would do here in
Chesterfield, Missouri. Just two days
earlier, one of my daughters, who has three small children, three dogs, a large
tortoise and a husband who works till 8 pm lost electrical power. She and her
husband decided to buy a large gasoline generator and connect it to a transfer
switch that had been installed by the previous homeowners.
2.0
Idea
A transfer switch is an electrical circuit that is
installed between the circuit breaker panel and an external electrical receptacle
that can be connected to an electrical generator. When power is lost, the transfer switch can
disconnect the home from the electric grid and connect a limited number of
critical pre-selected circuits in the house to a gasoline generator that would
be located outside and connected to the electric receptacle of the transfer
switch. Fortunately, the electric grid power was restored before the generator
got to their home and they did not need the generator that night. Note: Parts
and labor for a manual transfer switch can usually be installed in a home by a reputable
electrician for less than $1,200.
I dozed off and went to sleep and dreamed about
alternative electrical power options. About 3:30 am I suddenly awoke and
thought of my eight-year-old Chevy Volt parked in the garage with its 16-kilowatt
hour battery with 10-kilowatt hours of usable power connected to the electric grid
to keep the battery warm and charged.
I would like to have said that I had previously
modified my Volt by adding wiring, sensors, processing, software, controls,
protection circuits, switches, displays, an inverter to convert back to 120
volts alternating current and an electrical receptacle so that I could connect
an extension cord that would provide emergency electrical power to my home.
However, that never happened. What did
happen is that I had an epiphany, my "Eureka Moment".
What if all the millions of electric cars, trucks,
buses, aircraft etc. were designed so that in times of emergency, they could
share some of their stored electric battery power through a transfer switch to
a home, hospital, school or business?
Better yet, what if while they were sitting in a garage or parking lot, and
were connected to the electrical grid to charge their batteries; what if they
could also be used to help share some of their stored power to supply their
home or the electrical grid with additional power in times of emergency.
Today there are more than 22,600 Electric Vehicles (EV)
registered in Texas. As of December 2020, cumulative sales in the U.S. totaled
1.74 million highway legal plug-in electric cars since 2010, led by all-electric
cars with more than 1 million units sold.
The current Tesla Model 3 Standard Range
battery has a total capacity of 50-kilowatt hours while the Model S has a
100-kilowatt hour battery. For this
example, I assumed each vehicle had 40 kilowatt hours stored in
its battery available for sharing; with 22,600 Electric Vehicles this
would provide a total of 904 megawatt hours of stored electrical power for
emergencies in Texas. For the state this is not a significant amount of
electrical power, but for a small community, this might help.
In Texas this winter, the state had a generating
capacity of 67,000 megawatts per hour but by Wednesday February 17, 2021, because
of the cold temperatures, they were down by 46,000 megawatts per hour because
of offline systems; this left them with a total capability of 21,000 megawatts per hour. The offline 46,000 megawatts per
hour consisted of 28,000 megawatts per hour from natural gas, coal and nuclear
plants and 18,000 megawatts per hour from wind and solar, according to the
Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
Since the Texas grid is isolated from all the other U.S
grids, the state couldn’t borrow electrical power from nearby states. As a last-resort measure used by utility
companies to avoid a total blackout of the power system and to provide some
level of electrical power around the state, the electrical grid had to be
switched on and off in various regions, and this resulted in rolling blackouts.
In five years, the number of electric vehicles is
expected to increase dramatically. For
discussion, let’s assume that in five years Texas has the same number of
electrical vehicles as California currently has in 2020 which is 256,800 electric vehicles and assume each electric
vehicle has 40 kilowatt hours available for emergency, then in five years the
available battery power would be 10,270 megawatt hours which could be a
significant help in a power emergency.
In time, the number vehicles will increase even more as well as the
battery capacity per vehicle.
What if today, the aircraft, auto, truck and bus manufacturers
and users, as well as construction companies, power plants and governments at
all levels begin to think about the possibilities of this approach to store and
share energy and start developing laws, requirements and standards and
developing the technologies to make this happen. The idea is simple. Provide a capability on all electric vehicles
so that stored electrical power can be shared for other uses.
As the Bible’s Gospel of John reported, "Jesus
used five loaves and two fish to feed a multitude". In an analogous way,
we can multiply the benefits from electric vehicles, improve the reliability
and security of our National Grid by increasing the electrical power storage
capacity and help keep our neighbors safe and secure.
Once you change the paradigm that an electric
vehicle is only for transportation, to one that it is also a mobile power resource,
you create many new possibilities. A few examples are: a mobile power resource
could power a home or provide power to a stranded motorist, power a remote cabin
or campsite, provide power for a temporary emergency medical site or accident
site or power electric tools on a construction site.
4.0 V2G
Technology Awareness
Shortly after I prepared the previous narrative and shared it with friends and some
of the technical community, I learned that many others had a similar epiphany
and that “my” idea of passing electric vehicle battery power back to the US
electrical power grid to backup power plants has been around for more than 25
years. The concept is Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology and it includes battery
electric vehicles (BEV), plug-in hybrids electric vehicles (PHEV) and hydrogen
fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) that communicate with the power grid to sell
demand response Services by either returning electricity to the grid or
throttling their charging rate.
Once I became aware of the technology buzzwords, V2G (Vehicle-To-Grid), internet
research became easy. The internet provided many technical articles and studies
describing the technology and You Tube, offered many video presentations on the
subject. I read the articles and reviewed the presentations and they provided
an interesting story of perceived benefits, risks, and impediments as well as
examples of the technology currently being demonstrated, used and proposed.
o
Home Backup Power – Vehicle-To-Home
(V2H)
o
Power Grid Backup Power – Vehicle-To-Grid
(V2G)
o
Emergency Response Team Power –
Vehicle-To-Emergency (V2E)
o
Emergency Power for Hospitals – V2E
o
Power for Construction Sites and
Businesses – Vehicle-To-Work (V2W)
o
Power for Stranded Electric Vehicles
– V2E
o
Portable Electrical Power for Remote
Cabins, Campers, Picnics, Outdoor Activities – Vehicle-To-Play (V2P)
4.2 Risks
o
Degraded Batteries
o
High Voltage Injuries to Users
o
Invalidate Manufacturers Battery
warrantee
o
Damage the Electric Grid
o
Insufficient Capacity to Help Grid
o
Incompatibility with connecting
cables, Charging Stations, Local Aggregation Networks, Power Grid
Synchronization and Power Plants
5.0 Examples
The following are a few examples of
pilot programs and early implementors of this technology.
a) US, UK, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Japan, China are just a few of the many countries investing in V2G technology. In the UK, Nissan is currently the only car manufacturer that offers CHAdeMO charging technology on BEVs — the Nissan LEAF and Nissan e-NV200 van — which are therefore the only EVs that can use V2G charging. CHAdeMO is a trademark technology and an abbreviation for “CHArge de Move” which is equivalent to move by charge.
b) The UK believes by 2050, up to 45% of households will actively provide vehicle-to-grid (V2G) services, according to National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO)’s Future Energy Scenarios, published in July 2020.
c) ESO is one of the world’s largest investor-owned energy companies and owns the ESO National Grid in Warwick England. The recently unveiled Nissan Ariya SUV, due on sale in the second half of 2021, will feature combined charging system (CCS) charging technology rather than CHAdeMO. Nissan says that bi-directional charging V2G or V2H will not be available on this vehicle in Europe at launch, but the company is looking at how it can implement it in the future, as it remains part of its strategy and it still offers benefit to the customer. Nissan adds that bi-directional charging is key to unlocking the full potential of EVs and it’s important that all organizations including grid operators and charge point companies enable this technology. Nissan also notes that bi-directional charging using CCS is under study.
d) Bluebird Bus Corporation Manufactures school buses at two facilities in Fort Valley, Georgia. It sold over 300 lithium-ion battery powered buses with V2G capability to customers in several states in the U.S. Depending on the bus configuration, their buses have a capacity of up to 160 kWh. They are aligned with companies that provide the ground equipment to collect and aggregate V2G power back to power plants. They project 250 more V2G equipped bus orders for 2021. Blue Bird reported that they are ramping up for a production capacity of 1,000 buses a year. Over the years, Blue Bird has produced 550,000 School buses. Today there about 480,000 school buses operating in the US.
e) Lion Electric, a Canadian company reported in December of 2021 that they delivered Lion C electric buses with V2G for testing in California and NY. The 5 buses delivered to the White Plains, NY school district are for a pilot test program with Con Edison using Nuvve’s V2G technology. Funding was provided Con Edison, NY R&D Energy Authority and National Express to reduce carbon emissions and to maintain industry reliability. Their various bus configurations come with 126, 168 and 210 kWh capacities. Lion has a production capacity of 2,500 buses or trucks a year.
f) In In addition to Blue Bird and Lion school bus companies, many other school bus companies such as Collins, IC Bus, Starcraft Bus, Thomas Built Buses, TransTech and others are selling school buses with V2G or options to add V2G.
g) Recently Amazon announced that they are purchasing 100,000 electric trucks from US electric-vehicle startup Rivian (partly owned by Amazon) as part of its effort to eliminate the carbon footprint of the company by 2030. They are adding 10,000 trucks in 2021. If we assume each Amazon truck has 200 kWh battery, then the total capacity of 100,000 Amazon trucks in 2030 would be 20,000,000 kWh which is about 23% of the average total US power needs in 2019 for one hour. However, at this time, no mention has been made of Amazon adding any V2G technology in its trucks.
Note: For reference, in 2019, the US generated about 4,127 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) (or about 4.13 trillion kWh) of electricity at utility-scale electricity generation facilities in the United. That is an average about 11,000,000,000 kWh each day or 470,000,000 kWh per hour.
h) The Ford F-150 hybrid truck has a 1.5 kWh lithium-Ion battery with a 2.4kW or optional 7.2 kW (for $750, the 7.2 kW inverter also adds a 240 volts ac output) inverter that has provided homes with V2H backup power during February 2021 rolling blackout in Texas. The F-150 hybrid also provides workers at construction sites, with V2W electricity to power 120-volt ac electric tools. When battery power runs out, the truck’s gasoline engine has the capability to automatically start the engine and charge the battery to provide continuous power for hours and perhaps days.
i) It is also interesting to note that just 10% of the currently US Postal Service planned fleet of mail trucks - between 50,000 to 165,000 over the next 10 years - will be battery powered with no plans to include V2G capability. The other 90% will be powered by gas.
j)
US power companies and others throughout
the world have prepared applicable studies and reports and are currently
providing various storage capabilities for solar, wind and hydro sources to
provide green Electric Power. Green power is a subset of renewable energy and represents those
renewable energy resources and technologies that provide the highest
environmental benefit. The U.S. voluntary market defines green power as
electricity produced from solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, eligible biomass,
and low-impact small hydroelectric sources. Customers often buy green power for
its zero emissions profile and carbon footprint reduction benefits.
One example, is Ameren Missouri of St Louis, Missouri and Illinois area; Ameren is committed to clean. The company has established a net-zero carbon emissions goal by 2050 across all its operations in Missouri and Illinois. In addition, Ameren laid out plans for its largest-ever expansion of clean wind and solar generation that maintains the reliability and affordability that customers have come to expect.
Ameren’s Plan Includes:
·
A commitment to a net-zero carbon emissions goal by 2050.
·
The company’s largest investments in renewable solar and wind
energy in its history.
·
An investment of billions of dollars, creating thousands of
jobs.
·
Meeting customers’ energy reliability needs while keeping rates
affordable.
The clean energy expansion is included in Ameren Missouri’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP). The IRP is a triennial filing that sets forth Ameren Missouri’s preferred plan to transform its electricity generation portfolio over the coming decades. It takes advantage of the continued decline in the cost to build new clean energy resources. To learn more about the plan’s key features and important milestones their plan. Their plan summary includes the following:
·
Reducing carbon emissions to target a 50%
reduction by 2030 and an 85% reduction
by 2040, from 2005 levels, and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The new goals
are consistent with the objectives of the Paris Agreement and limiting global
temperature rise to 1.5° Celsius.
·
Adding 3,100 megawatts (MW) of new clean,
renewable generation by 2030 and a total of 5,400 MW by 2040.
·
Advancing the retirement of Ameren Missouri’s
coal-fired energy centers. More than 75% of the Company’s current coal-fired
energy generating capacity will be retired by 2039 and all coal-fired energy
centers will be retired by 2042.
· Building on an already solid base of Ameren Missouri’s clean energy resources including nuclear, hydro, wind and solar.
6.0 Question
Why is the incorporation EV backup power, V2E, V2H, V2P, V2W and V2G implementation progressing so slowly and why aren’t options being made available in the millions of EVs that are being sold to the public?
7.0 V2G Implementation Impediments
Perhaps a March 2020 GDS Associates study for Ameren Missouri provides some of the answers. It suggests that previous and current vehicle-to-grid pilot programs have indicated a lack of “off the shelf” available technologies and the need for new policy and standards that better allow for the inclusion of V2G to serve as a grid resource that may compete economically with other resources. Based on their review, they concluded there is insufficient information available to accurately support inclusion of V2G in the current Ameren potential study. Specific areas of concern the GDS team identified include the following findings:
o
V2G
currently exists only as pilots in specific applications and is not currently
available as a service option for owners of electric vehicles.
o
This
includes both requirements for the vehicle which requires specific inverter
technology and communication protocols as well as specific charging
infrastructure technology.
o
Individual
vehicle owners may be limited to frequency regulation markets due to the
relatively small capacity resource individual electric vehicles can provide and
lack of a market aggregator.
o
Fleet
owners may encounter market regulatory costs that outweigh revenue generation.
o
Vehicle
manufacturers have raised concerns regarding the invalidation of battery
warranty for vehicles that are used as a grid capacity source rather than for
the intended use of vehicle transportation.
[Author’s
Note: In addition, Vehicle manufactures may have other, more profit-driven
reasons. For example, Tesla, the largest producer of EVs in the US also is
promoting autopilot technology that will enable EVs to be rented during work
hours to provide income for the owners.
In addition, Tesla manufactures and sells solar collectors and the
“Powerwall” which are being sold to provide electrical power for homes and
businesses.]
o
Current market economics may not support
participation by vehicle owners.
8.0 Way Forward
It
took over 130 years for the first electric automobile to become widely used. In
1890-1891 William Morrison, a Des Moines, Iowa chemist developed the first
successful US automobile. It was a six-passenger wagon that could go 23 mph.
With
your support, we can change the way things are done and the electric vehicle
power sharing technologies will follow a quicker path. The way forward will
probably begin with V2H backup power for homes and V2W for construction sites using
products like the Ford F-150 hybrid and then progress to V2G using examples
like the pilot V2G Bluebird and Lion school bus programs. This will be followed
by a critical mass of V2G buses and fleets of V2G delivery trucks. Once the
public visualizes the benefits of the technology and expresses a need, the Electric
Vehicle (EV) companies will have cost-benefit justification that enables them to
produce millions of electric automobiles with electric power sharing options.
Based on Ford’s F-150 Hybrid truck option that adds a 7.2 kW inverter for $750,
it’s not unreasonable to assume that in large quantities, electric vehicle
manufactures will be able to provide a Vehicle-To-Home (V2H) option for about
$1,000.
9.0 Make It Happen
If
this information increased your awareness and understanding of the issues,
risks, benefits, complexity and promise of this technology it served its
purpose. If you want to accelerate the rate of incorporating V2E, V2H, V2P, V2W
and V2G power technology; you can do it by sharing this information with those
who can change the current status. Make this happen sooner rather than later!
No comments:
Post a Comment