Autoblog article: What good is EV if no electricity...

[DaveEV]

Since my car would not be at home much of the time when the sun was shining, how would the battery get charged?

We're talking about a hypothetical extended power outage. Presumably you're not going to be working during one.

One doesn't need much of a battery if the goal is simply to run grid-tie inverters during the day in off-grid mode. What you need is a smallish off-grid inverter to provide the reference, and a very small battery, mainly to get things started, and a 120VAC battery charger to keep the battery topped off once the grid-tie inverters start up. Of course, you're wasting a little energy heating up the inverter, battery and battery charger.

Well - unless the inverter is also designed to accept AC power from another inverter, it's not going to like you feeding your normally grid-tied PV system into it. The Sunny Island is designed for this, but must be attached to a 48VDC battery bank. When the battery bank is full and there is still too much AC generation coming in, it raises the frequency enough to trip off the PV inverters. If hooked up to a SMA PV inverter, the SMA inverter interprets the rise in frequency as sign to slow down generation instead of completely shutting off. I'm not aware of anything else on the market that comes close.

Yeah - so you could probably do this with a tiny 4-battery lead pack - so you always have power if you don't have your car - but ideally you'd still want a way for your car to become grid-interactive as well in a power outage so you can have your car either provide power or draw power from the "grid" as necessary.

 

[tps]

Since my car would not be at home much of the time when the sun was shining, how would the battery get charged?

We're talking about a hypothetical extended power outage. Presumably you're not going to be working during one.

OK. I think I understand. This type of event, a widespread, extended outage, has never happened since I've been in the Philadelphia area. We didn't even loose power in the 2003 Northeast blackout, because the PJM Interconnect cut free from the rest of the grid before it collapsed. Unless power reliability takes a nosedive in this area, it's almost a waste of money for me to even think of spending anything for this contingency.

My main concern is a shorter, smaller area power cut. Most likely, because the LEAF will satisfy 2 days of my normal driving needs per charge, I'd likely be OK if I lost power for most of a night at home. It might be nice in this hypothetical smaller situation if I could charge at work, and use the LEAF's battery to transport some energy to use when I get home. I guess Nissan is working on this, but it too is probably too expensive for the for the extremely limited use it would likely get.

 

[planet4ever]

This type of event, a widespread, extended outage, has never happened since I've been in the Philadelphia area. We didn't even lose power in the 2003 Northeast blackout, because the PJM Interconnect cut free from the rest of the grid before it collapsed.

There are large parts of the country that can be hit earthquakes, tornadoes, or hurricanes. All of those things disrupt transportation networks and trigger safety inspections preventing many people from going to work or school. Power loss after those events may or may not be widespread, but it often extends over several days or even longer for some people. During the spring and summer my solar system generates an average of about 40 kWh/day. It would be quite useful to be able to store half of that to run the house in the evening and at night, and the LEAF for part of the next day.

Ray

 

[keydiver]

I have had a 2.4kW Outback battery backup in my house for years, for those pesky hurricane power outages. But, I've recently added a 7.6kW Grid Tie setup with a Sunny Boy inverter, so I've been considering swapping out the Outback inverter for a pair of SMA Sunny Island inverters so I could utilize all of my solar in a power outage. It would greatly improve my ability to charge the Leaf in case the grid is down.

 

[Luft]

begs the question: "What good is a gas vehicle when the oil runs out?"

I don't think that a lot of people realize at a "gut level" that oil will ever run out. I was talking to an older gentleman the other day about my LEAF and made a comment to the effect that we need to do something to get off of oil because it would run out and he said: "Yeah, in a thousand years or so." Unbelievable!

 

[smkettner]

Oil will never run out, just the low cost oil.

A chart comparing oil price to the COL over 50+ years would be interesting.

 

[Luft]

Good point Gary. And for those with solar panels some things will continue somewhat.
During a time of true national emergency I could see gasoline rationing far sooner and more restrictive than electric power.

Not unless you have system with battery storage designed for off-grid operation. Most solar installations are completely useless with the grid down. I agree about the gas rationing in the event of emergency. A war in the wrong place could easily crimp oil supplies.

Hmmm... Yeah... Now where could I come up with a large battery to be used like that...

 

[Luft]

Oil will never run out, just the low cost oil.

A chart comparing oil price to the COL over 50+ years would be interesting.

Unless you count synthetic oil, I fear that it will. Anytime you use a finite resource it's going to get used up. Even if you recycle there are some losses so eventually the well is going to go dry. (So to speak.)

I'm not sure how they make synthetic oil so I can't say weather or not that is truly renewable but I do know that we use oil for a lot more that just running our autos. Plastics come to mind. Maybe it would be a good idea to stop burning the stuff up.

 

[DaveEV]

Oil will never run out, just the low cost oil.

Yep - the only thing that's running out is cheap oil. That's the only reason why it's become "economical" to frack for oil these days in North Dakota - sustained high oil prices.

How North Dakota Became Saudi Arabia

 

[bdgotoh]

So how come the author of the article says so little about improving the grid? Seems like the obvious solution and one that will be needed whether EVs are successful or not.

 

[Nekota]

There are several ways (chemical processes) and a range of raw materials available to make synthetic oil and during WWII Germany had to produce it's oil, gasoline and aviation fuel from coal. The US also developed a synthetic oil based process to make rubber tires since WWII isolated natural rubber production from SE Asia.

So would a synthetic gas made from biomass be considered green gas? And would natural rubber tires be more environmentally friendly than synthetic rubber ones?

 

[CWO4Mann]

I doubt that in the event of a national disaster of such proportions anyone except the most extreme eco-zealots will worry about whether a tire is "green" or not. Matter of fact, when it comes to survival, all bets are off when it comes to environmental concerns. A disaster is, by definition, a Natural and Environmental Disaster.

To the subject of this thread: If we are speaking about "extended" loss of electrical supply, we should consider that a national disaster of such proportion would be a life-changing event. What would follow would be martial law, possible insurrection in certain areas, and general havoc. Without electricity for, let's say, 3 months or more, society as we know would begin to fragment. Under martial law (and you can bet your last Krugerrand that the US Government already has these plans in place) even privately owned generators would be subjected to confiscation (remember Katrina and the National Guard confiscating generators and guns from otherwise law-abiding people). Then there is the safety of self and family scenario: Consider the various nut-jobs out there in the woods and your actual "need" to drive someplace. The only place you would absolute need to drive to would be your Bug-Out Location along with your family and your various Bug-Out Boxes, assuming that you and them survive the drive. I like the scene from the original War of the Worlds movie, ca. 1953, when the scientists were driving a truck full of vital research supplies to combat the Martians and the mobs found the truck.

I'm an active member of our county's Amateur Radio emergency services group and we plan for disaster communications ALL of the time. Most of us have generators as a backup, and then battery banks with inverters as a back-up to the back-up. Certainly we can run our radios from a car alternator driven by coupling to a bicycle, but what good are those stop-gap measures when there is no electrical grid for an extended period and society disintegrates. Some generators run using natural gas, a good alternative fuel, but when the grid fails the gaseous distribution pumps eventually wind down and then no more natural gas flowing to the house. PV panels with a battery storage capability would at least provide electricity for operation of essentials. Certainly the LEAF could be charged by such a system, particularly if your Solar system used a 220V inverter with sufficient capacity to maintain the load. But, you would be pouring water from one cup into another (i.e. battery to battery) which might not be feasible all of the time when you need to forage for food, capture stray animals in the neighborhood for food ("heeeere kitty, kitty kitty...") and so forth.

Using the LEAF as a large battery power supply might work assuming one would want to hack the car system; there are plenty of posting on that very subject already.

Infrastructure is very, very fragile, no matter what the pundits and politicians would have us believe. The more technologically dependent we become the more likely that the whole house of cards will someday fail, and fail catastrophically. Particularly, I refer to dense urban areas. I mean, for example, just how much dry food do you have in your cupboard right now?

I went through Hurricane Luis in 1994 on an island in the West Indies where I had been working in the communications field for several years. Not a telephone pole was left standing; not a single road was left uncovered by debris, wires, wrecked cars, and other stuff blown around by 200 mph winds. The airport control tower was blown away and the only way the Royal Air Force was able to land C-130's was by flares and a hand-held walkie talkie operated by one of the control tower operators. It required MONTHS to get the infrastructure working again ... and did I mention no telephone service because the Cable and Wifeless exchange had been destroyed? Fortunately the island nation had no looting or violence and everyone worked together as one. But it was a daunting task and one which practically bankrupted the island-nation of some 35,000 people. Review the Katrina disaster and you will see the worst of the worst from people and from Government.

My rant on this subject is single minded: Be Prepared and consider the alternatives.

With Respect to the Group,

Dave