As an electrical engineer (like another poster here), I agree this EV backfeed idea is just another elitist circle jerk, and that’s only looking at the price tag since this would be quite ineffective at scale.
Without diving into the numbers, one only needs to look around society and pay attention to how our critical systems are backed. Look closely at hospitals and industrial facilities and you will notice a plethora of nat gas and diesel generators backing up systems that are designed to always have electricity. Imagine a hospital that has to let critical patients die because the sun didn’t shine for multiple days or the wind decided not to blow - we would never accept that and we shouldn’t accept that.
Lee did a good job diving into the numbers and I will back him up to say an area like the gulf south will likely be the last to go to full EV adoption. We need reliable, dispatchable, mobile energy and fossil fuels have provided that for years. I couldn’t imagine the coastal communities evacuating for a hurricane and waiting for 10 hours at a charging station for a turn to spend 30 minutes fueling up.
Let’s get real - when the government subsidies dry up on all the green technologies, they will not be able to stand up on their own merit just as others before them have not. Reality is on a collision course with make believe and unicorns and rainbows.
Thanks for the information and the article. Keep it up!
Yikes - what happens in the States normally sails across the pond to us in England. Another disaster waiting to happen, but we can just add it to the dozens our illiterate elites have already banked.
It’s an intriguing mind experiment. What if the car owners decide to unplug? Massive brown outs? California just needs to get real and fix the dam grid. Maybe it will sink in that intermittent power is the problem, not the solution.
I actually am an electrical engineer and can’t find any fault with your logic or math. A few other observations.
My solution to this, rather than $120,000 for a Lightning, $30,000 in home wiring, and very limited operation time is a $6000 Cummins natural gas generator $2000 automatic transfer switch and unlimited operation time.
Like hydrogen this idea that electric cars can be used for grid support has been around for a while. Like hydrogen it will never happen at scale.
A few years ago an Army base in California, under great green pressure from DC, bought a fleet of electric cars and rigged them up to do grid support. They forbid anyone from using them because they might be needed for the grid, creating the most expensive grid battery ever. The base commander was praised mightily for his contribution to saving the planet.
Distrust anyone who quotes battery capacity in MW or GW. It is MWH or GWH. Saying a bunch of car batteries has more “capacity” than Diablo Canyon displays a military grade level of ignorance.
Missing from the pickup truck story is any sort recognition that the home in the picture probably has two refrigerators, electric hot water heater, electric cooking, wine cooler, swimming pool pump and heat pump and air conditioning. The battery in the pickup wouldn’t last two hours. My little generator could go for months.
If you connect your car as grid storage you never know what the charge level will be when you need it. Suppose the kids need to go to gymnastics class just as your car gets completely drained. You’d need a real car, too. You know, to drive. I wonder about the financial acumen of someone willing to make this kind of investment for the greater good. Probably why this dude lives in Hayward rather than Marin County.
Do they expect the house to have 100 amp changeover switchgear to the EV battery, or are they proposing grid-syncing? Either way just sounds extremely expensive or bonkers.
“Johnson continues, “Even the smallest commonly available EV battery is a multiday energy storage asset for everybody. A Nissan Leaf can run your house for days.” “
Did he ever wonder how that energy got into the battery in the first place and where the energy to recharge it will come from?
Being a Ca resident who lost utility power for 12 days in a row ( a little over 30 days this year) what would I have done after the battery in a F-150 fully discharged? Then I would have been without power and without a vehicle living in a very rural area. Fortunately as Lee suggest I spent my cash on propane whole home generator and kept the lights on and a tank full of gas in my cars.
The problem is these idiots only see things from their perspective and assume all people live just like them, see the comment in the article about how few miles most people drive. I drive 70 a day and due to cost of living out her know many more who do as well. These folks are out of touch with the people they represent and reality.
As an electrical engineer (like another poster here), I agree this EV backfeed idea is just another elitist circle jerk, and that’s only looking at the price tag since this would be quite ineffective at scale.
Without diving into the numbers, one only needs to look around society and pay attention to how our critical systems are backed. Look closely at hospitals and industrial facilities and you will notice a plethora of nat gas and diesel generators backing up systems that are designed to always have electricity. Imagine a hospital that has to let critical patients die because the sun didn’t shine for multiple days or the wind decided not to blow - we would never accept that and we shouldn’t accept that.
Lee did a good job diving into the numbers and I will back him up to say an area like the gulf south will likely be the last to go to full EV adoption. We need reliable, dispatchable, mobile energy and fossil fuels have provided that for years. I couldn’t imagine the coastal communities evacuating for a hurricane and waiting for 10 hours at a charging station for a turn to spend 30 minutes fueling up.
Let’s get real - when the government subsidies dry up on all the green technologies, they will not be able to stand up on their own merit just as others before them have not. Reality is on a collision course with make believe and unicorns and rainbows.
Thanks for the information and the article. Keep it up!
Most of the legislative proposals out of Sacramento are poorly thought through and Orwellian. People need to wake up.
Yikes - what happens in the States normally sails across the pond to us in England. Another disaster waiting to happen, but we can just add it to the dozens our illiterate elites have already banked.
It’s an intriguing mind experiment. What if the car owners decide to unplug? Massive brown outs? California just needs to get real and fix the dam grid. Maybe it will sink in that intermittent power is the problem, not the solution.
I actually am an electrical engineer and can’t find any fault with your logic or math. A few other observations.
My solution to this, rather than $120,000 for a Lightning, $30,000 in home wiring, and very limited operation time is a $6000 Cummins natural gas generator $2000 automatic transfer switch and unlimited operation time.
Like hydrogen this idea that electric cars can be used for grid support has been around for a while. Like hydrogen it will never happen at scale.
A few years ago an Army base in California, under great green pressure from DC, bought a fleet of electric cars and rigged them up to do grid support. They forbid anyone from using them because they might be needed for the grid, creating the most expensive grid battery ever. The base commander was praised mightily for his contribution to saving the planet.
Distrust anyone who quotes battery capacity in MW or GW. It is MWH or GWH. Saying a bunch of car batteries has more “capacity” than Diablo Canyon displays a military grade level of ignorance.
Missing from the pickup truck story is any sort recognition that the home in the picture probably has two refrigerators, electric hot water heater, electric cooking, wine cooler, swimming pool pump and heat pump and air conditioning. The battery in the pickup wouldn’t last two hours. My little generator could go for months.
If you connect your car as grid storage you never know what the charge level will be when you need it. Suppose the kids need to go to gymnastics class just as your car gets completely drained. You’d need a real car, too. You know, to drive. I wonder about the financial acumen of someone willing to make this kind of investment for the greater good. Probably why this dude lives in Hayward rather than Marin County.
Do they expect the house to have 100 amp changeover switchgear to the EV battery, or are they proposing grid-syncing? Either way just sounds extremely expensive or bonkers.
“Johnson continues, “Even the smallest commonly available EV battery is a multiday energy storage asset for everybody. A Nissan Leaf can run your house for days.” “
Did he ever wonder how that energy got into the battery in the first place and where the energy to recharge it will come from?
Being a Ca resident who lost utility power for 12 days in a row ( a little over 30 days this year) what would I have done after the battery in a F-150 fully discharged? Then I would have been without power and without a vehicle living in a very rural area. Fortunately as Lee suggest I spent my cash on propane whole home generator and kept the lights on and a tank full of gas in my cars.
The problem is these idiots only see things from their perspective and assume all people live just like them, see the comment in the article about how few miles most people drive. I drive 70 a day and due to cost of living out her know many more who do as well. These folks are out of touch with the people they represent and reality.