New Economics of V2G

I was just reading this blog of an interview with AltairNano CEO Alan Gotcher at

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/05/07/autobloggreen-qanda-altairnano-ceo-alan-gotcher/

He says their NanoSafe batteries are showing 100% charge/discharge cycles of over 25,000 times.
Well, 25,000 cycles certainly changes the economics of Vehicle To Grid (V2G)! Here is a blog all about V2G:
http://www.insidegreentech.com/node/990

Basically, V2G is using an Electric Vehicle's battery to help sink "excess" electricity, like nighttime wind for example. Buy power cheap at night, and use it during the day. V2G is the idea that, if you don't use all of your electricity during the day for driving, sell some of it back to the grid at high daytime prices - the old "buy low, sell high" trick – but, will it pay for that Tesla Roadster?

The main problem with the V2G idea was that the batteries would die after 1000 cycles or so, so you would kill your expensive batteries after only a year or two with V2G - a losing proposition. However, with the Nano Safe going 25,000 cycles, you can cycle the battery as many times as you want, without hurting it.

So, with 25,000 cycles for the NanoSafe (longer than the car will last probably), V2G immediately becomes a solution to many vexing renewable and other grid problems. Currently, the electric grid has very little storage capability. This means that there needs to be enough power plants to supply the peak use times, such as summer days. At night, these power plants are idle, waiting for people to wake up, a huge waste of capital resources. If there was a big storage system (a giant “battery”), then these plants could work all night too, filling up the “battery” of the storage, which could then discharge during the day and evening when demand is highest. Renewables are even worse, with unpredictable and unreliable power output. With storage, wind at night, and excess solar during the day can be saved for high demand (high $$) periods, making renewables more competitive. The reason the electric grid has very little storage is because storage is expensive. See http://electricitystorage.org/index.html for lots of info on large scale grid storage.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) cars are big energy consumers. Typically, a house uses 938 kwh per month (about 30 kwh/day) according to the EIA. EVs seem to run about 35 - 60 kwh storage (Tesla Roadster – 56kwh Phoenix SUT 35kwh). So, your EV car battery could run your house all day long if needed. If you multiply this by the number of cars in the US and the world, you find that all these big EV batteries can add up to a huge grid storage system.

So, what does this mean to you, the consumer? Some electric companies like PGE, are offering “Time of Use” rates, as low as 6cents/kwh at night, and up to 25 cents during summertime days. This is a big price differential. So, how much does 30kwh of power cost? Well, at 6 cents, $1.80. At 25 cents, $7.50. So, if you could charge up at night, then use (or sell to the utility) the electricity in the day, in a year, this might save you $650, not a whole heckuva lot, but enough to pay maybe for one payment on that Roadster. These numbers are definitely back of the envelope, but serve for illustration.

In addition, there are be some other compelling reasons you might like to go V2G with your NanoSafe EV. First you are encouraging the use of wind and solar by giving them the storage capability they need to time shift their output to times when people really need it. Secondly, instead of building big new coal fired power plants, the existing ones can instead run 24/7. Third, this is basically free money, given the 25,000 cycles of the Nano Safe batteries. Cycle cost is no longer an issue, instead, if you don't do V2G, you are simply throwing money away.