Batteries Included: No War Required

[LEAFfan]

Unless your PV will be serving only your EV - will not be generating any electricity except to charge your EV - I have to disagree. If your PV will be grid connected, reducing your draw from the utility and perhaps even at times feeding back into the utility system, then what your PV output will be doing is reducing output from fossil-fueled power plants on the utility grid.

This is a very good thing, I agree, don't misunderstand me on that. I'm simply recognizing the fact that when you or anyone else plugs in their EV it's a fossil fuel power plant that is going to increase output to provide the electricity to do the charging. Your PV is not going to increase it's output - it's already generating whatever it can based on the sun light it's receiving.

Beyond that, I'm curious about two things:
- For most utilities, off-peak hours are not during the day when the sun is shining, except perhaps on weekends. Off-peak hours are primarily overnight.
- You, apparently, will be leaving your Leaf at home to charge during the day, and do your driving at night? Like most people, I work during the day and will not have access to a place to charge my Leaf. My charging will be done primarily overnight, when the sun is not shining and my PV array is dormant.

I'm sure that you are not unique in your situation, but you are in a minority.

I can't speak for everyone, but for others on here and myself, we will be using our pvs. I'll be using them during the day at off-peak hours, so yes, it WILL be zero emissions.


You won't be charging your Leaf by flying a kite in a thunderstorm. As for solar and wind, what little of that there will be for quite a while to come, you know those coal and natural gas generators that are backed down by solar and wind generation? They're going to crank back up again when the Leafs plug in.

EVs will pollute less, using primarily domestic fossil fuels, but in the overall scheme of things electricity is not a pollution free energy source.

I think the Leaf itself already pushes some hot-buttons just because it isn't using petroleum, doesn't pollute, etc.... How un-American! That's why I wouldn't want anything on the car shouting out "zero emissions", etc.. Wouldn't want anyone keying it in retaliation to my "smugness". I was actually thinking of debadging the thing.

Our on-peak hours are only 3-6 PM weekdays. That's it. Everything else is off peak. So, yes, I can still drive during the day.

 

[planet4ever]

Well, the main issue with Sugar is that it's hard to grow under most U.S. climates.

Which makes me wonder, why does Hawaii burn oil rather than sugar cane to produce its electricity?

 

[evnow]

- It's the coal and natural gas generators that increase and decrease output when load changes. When someone turns on a light, or their AC kicks in, or they plug in a Leaf, it's the coal and natural gas plants that increase output to serve the increased load.

Checkout the recent study done by ANL.

http://www.physorg.com/news201369529.html

 

[planet4ever]

- It's the coal and natural gas generators that increase and decrease output when load changes. When someone turns on a light, or their AC kicks in, or they plug in a Leaf, it's the coal and natural gas plants that increase output to serve the increased load.

I know you went on to say this isn't really the right way to look at things, but I thought of another variant of your explanation. Refineries use a lot of electricity to convert oil into gasoline. The exact amount is debatable, and has been debated here (see http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=820), but is probably at least 1kWh/gallon.

Refineries usually run day and night, and always run through the day, so the bulk of their electricity is coming from the peak generators - coal and natural gas. But, like most, I will charge my LEAF at night, when the peak generators are not likely to be running.

P.S. Based on evnow's post while I was writing this, I need a bit of a correction. In the areas where coal is used heavily it may be more a base generator rather than a peak generator. My locale is northern California, where nuclear and large hydro are the base loads, natural gas is the peak, and wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal are significant add-ons.

 

[Yodrak]

Excellent article, thanks for posting the link.

It's not a simple subject, that article goes into some of the areas that are too complex for brief posts in forums like this. At the next level, I expect that the subject will provide thesis material for more than a few Masters and PhD students.

Checkout the recent study done by ANL.

http://www.physorg.com/news201369529.html

- It's the coal and natural gas generators that increase and decrease output when load changes. When someone turns on a light, or their AC kicks in, or they plug in a Leaf, it's the coal and natural gas plants that increase output to serve the increased load.

 

[Yodrak]

You are correct - refineries do use a lot of electricity. Most refineries also generate a lot of their own electricity. They have a lot of combustible waste products and they need heat, in the form of steam, for the refining processes. So they burn the waste products, generate steam for their processes, and at the same time generate electricity.

Peaking generators tend to use natural gas or oil fueled gas turbines (jet engines on steriods), or be older coal or natural gas fueled steam turbines, both relatively inefficient. Part of the reason why on-peak rates are higher than off-peak rates.

The load-following generators - full output in the day and low ouput over night - are more efficient coal units and highly efficient natural gas burning combined cycle units (combined cycle units are part gas turbine, part steam turbine, the high temperature gas turbine exhaust being used to generate steam for the steam turbine).

Coal is not used much for peaking generation, even in parts of the country where "coal is king". It takes too long to turn a coal-burning steam unit on, and once turned off they have to be off for a while before you can start them up again. Can't turn them off at night and on again the next morning, they have to either stay on for days at a time or stay off for days at a time. The few older coal generators that can be operated like peakers are being retired because it takes to many people to operate them - can't afford a large staff for a plant that only runs sometimes.

evnow's post was great, the linked report gave a good, understandable explanation of how the environmental benefits will vary in different parts of the country based on the different types of fuel and energy sources use to generate electricity. Every area will benefit to some extent, some will benefit more than others.

I know you went on to say this isn't really the right way to look at things, but I thought of another variant of your explanation. Refineries use a lot of electricity to convert oil into gasoline. The exact amount is debatable, and has been debated here (see http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=820), but is probably at least 1kWh/gallon.

Refineries usually run day and night, and always run through the day, so the bulk of their electricity is coming from the peak generators - coal and natural gas. But, like most, I will charge my LEAF at night, when the peak generators are not likely to be running.

P.S. Based on evnow's post while I was writing this, I need a bit of a correction. In the areas where coal is used heavily it may be more a base generator rather than a peak generator. My locale is northern California, where nuclear and large hydro are the base loads, natural gas is the peak, and wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal are significant add-ons

- It's the coal and natural gas generators that increase and decrease output when load changes. When someone turns on a light, or their AC kicks in, or they plug in a Leaf, it's the coal and natural gas plants that increase output to serve the increased load.

 

[evnow]

Excellent article, thanks for posting the link.

It's not a simple subject, that article goes into some of the areas that are too complex for brief posts in forums like this. At the next level, I expect that the subject will provide thesis material for more than a few Masters and PhD students.

Yes, it is a complex subject. ANL has developed a model to predict the changes.

In the NW, for eg., we get most of our power from hydro. We do have one coal & one nuke plant between WA & OR. There is a lot of new wind coming up - east of the cascade on I-90 you can see wind mills everywhere you look.

When the wind is blowing hard at night and the power demand is low, they actually disengage the wind turbines - since we don't have a way to store the power. They will probably build ways to pump the water back into Columbia river dams at some point to use that power. But until then, an EV charged at night will probably allow some of these wind mills to be used.

Storing energy cheaply remains the holy-grail of renewable energy.

 

[AndyH]

So where can we draw the line, folks?

Do we use the 'Yodrak Threshold' where the entire grid is a cistern and anyone that connects their EVSE to the grid is a coal burner and only off-grid EVers are zero carbon?

Or is there room for other options?

William Kemp's "Zero Carbon Car" is an EV Miata with a diesel range extender genset in the trunk. He burns home-made biodiesel from used oil in the genset. He charges with energy purchased from Bullfrog Power - a company that buys blocks of certified clean energy and resells it to end users.

Bullfrog is one way. Purchasing carbon credits to offset energy used to charge the car is another. There's already an energy market for some rooftop solar installations. San Antonio's municipal power company's (CPS Energy) program is WindTricity - where blocks of energy generated in West Texas and Gulf of Mexico wind farms are packaged and sold. Grid-tied wind and/or PV is another.

If other options aren't palatable to Leafers, what's the point of cap and trade, for example? Or grid-tied PV or wind?

So where should we draw the line?



"Last night [March 4th, 2010] and this morning, for example, the prices for wind generation offered on the main Texas grid actually fell below zero, a sign of oversupply that usually prompts wind generators to shut down their turbines."
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/setting-wind-power-records-in-texas/

 

[Norway]

My 5 cents in this discussion:

One of the benefits of EVs (apart from the CO2-discussion) is that they make no local emissions.

i.e. even in the cases where they run on "dirty electricity", then that can be (partially) cleaned up at the power station, instead of polluting the streets in towns with NOx, particles, and such.

 

[TimeHorse]

Storing energy cheaply remains the holy-grail of renewable energy.

Solar-Thermal has a lot of potential here, since some of the fluid heated (water, oil) can be stored, to be used, for instance, at night and continue generating power even when the sun sets.

Shame no-one ever talks about Solar-Thermal and assumes Photovoltaics when we talk about Solar, and how we ignore Geothermal and Wave / Tide based electricity not to mention that there are ways to eliminate the need for methane or electricity to heat water in the home.

 

[evnow]

Storing energy cheaply remains the holy-grail of renewable energy.

Solar-Thermal has a lot of potential here, since some of the fluid heated (water, oil) can be stored, to be used, for instance, at night and continue generating power even when the sun sets.

Yes, I'm bullish on solar thermal compared to PV. Low tech = lower costs.

However, in colder places like ours, solar thermal doesn't work well. Infact on the east side, PV works better since their is more Sun and in lower temperatures PV is more efficient.

In anycase, pumped hydro is the cheapest "battery" available now. So, when they want to store energy that would be the first to get implemented.

...how we ignore Geothermal and Wave / Tide based electricity not to mention that there are ways to eliminate the need for methane or electricity to heat water in the home.

There is some uncertainty about Geothermal. Couple of them have been shutdown after they apparently caused tremors.

Wave/Tide is interesting but haven't seen any commercial sites yet. They may be too diffuse to be commercialized without some breakthroughs ....

 

[Yodrak]

Based on the information that you provide I agree that, in your region, legitimate claims can be made for EV's being powered by non-polluting sources, a lot of which is renewable. (I am being somewhat charitable to nuclear by ignoring the tremendous amout of heat that nukes put into the water and air, and restricting my definition of 'pollution' to the products of the combustion of fossil fuels.)

There are hydro power plants that pump water uphill to a reservoir at night, when the cost of electricity is relatively low, and release it during the day to generate electricity when the cost is relatively higher. It takes a cost differential (not to be confused with a customer rate differential) in the neighborhood of 1.3-1.5, if I remember correctly, to make this economically viable. I don't expect that it would work in the situation that you describe, because such dams often have competing objectives - controlling water flow and generating electricity. If it's the wind turbines that are being turned off rather than the hydro turbines it's an indication that either the water flow is already at the minimum required or there's already the maximum allowable amount of water behind the dam. Either way, it would not be possible to be pumping water back up behind the dam at those times.

Agreed that finding a way to store electricity cheaply is the holy grail for generating electricity using intermittant energy sources. (Hydro is a renewable energy source, and dams have long provided an effective and cost efficient water storage system. )

In the NW, for eg., we get most of our power from hydro. We do have one coal & one nuke plant between WA & OR. There is a lot of new wind coming up - east of the cascade on I-90 you can see wind mills everywhere you look.

When the wind is blowing hard at night and the power demand is low, they actually disengage the wind turbines - since we don't have a way to store the power. They will probably build ways to pump the water back into Columbia river dams at some point to use that power. But until then, an EV charged at night will probably allow some of these wind mills to be used.

Storing energy cheaply remains the holy-grail of renewable energy.

 

[mitch672]

for the eastern US, there is a website that facilitates the trading of "SRECs" (Solar Renewable Energy Credits), and they have an auction to determine their value... right now, for example, 1 Mw (1000Kw) is at $500 for the State of Massachusetts.. This allows small generators of PV to be "aggregated" and sell their credits, to (mostly) the local utilities, who have a "mandate" to generate a certain percentage of their power via renewable energy every year. Many of the utilities (National Grid to name one), have their own large PV installations as well, but they still don't have enough, so they buy the SRECs, which end up comming from small PV producers (many are small 5-10KW home systems)

This has the side effect of also helping to pay for your own, private, small PV system, and cuts down on the payback period as well.. of course if you sell your SRECs you are "trechnically" not allowed to say you produce clean power.

http://www.srectrade.com/

 

[indyflick]

Storing energy cheaply remains the holy-grail of renewable energy.

Solar-Thermal has a lot of potential here, since some of the fluid heated (water, oil) can be stored, to be used, for instance, at night and continue generating power even when the sun sets.

Yes, I'm bullish on solar thermal compared to PV. Low tech = lower costs.

Even on a residential scale, there are a lot of non-PV solar energy solutions which can save consumers a lot of money. I contacted Dan Fink, a blogger at sunpluggers.com, earlier this year with an idea for an article on non-PV solar. He wrote an excellent article entitled "Some Simpler Ways to Do Solar". By the way, the article should have also included a bit about solar tube lighting. Also, I wanted to show costs, savings, and payback period in a table, but I think Dan thought that was a bit wonkish.

 

[TimeHorse]

Even on a residential scale, there are a lot of non-PV solar energy solutions which can save consumers a lot of money. I contacted Dan Fink, a blogger at sunpluggers.com, earlier this year with an idea for an article on non-PV solar. He wrote an excellent article entitled "Some Simpler Ways to Do Solar". By the way, the article should have also included a bit about solar tube lighting. Also, I wanted to show costs, savings, and payback period in a table, but I think Dan thought that was a bit wonkish.

I have long espoused the idea of turning my sauna^h^h^h^h^h^h upstairs den, which is currently impossible to air condition, into a solar-thermal water heater by running copper tubing along the insulation to absorb some of the heat so I don't have to use as much methane to burn it later. Probably very expensive and not sure exactly how it would be done, but if it gets that room cooler in summer, what a miracle!

 

[AndyH]

indyflick - thanks for the blog link.

We can use solar hot water for heating without installing hydronic tubing in a cement floor:

Under-floor tubing:
http://www.radiantec.com/index.php?gclid=COLx3Jrw-qMCFQ5O2godYgwSIg
Baseboard:
http://slantfin.com/product-baseboard.html

This $85 panel can provide hot water for a kitchen or pre-heat/boost a large household water heater:
http://shop.heliatos.com/

Solar air is a much easier retrofit compared with hydronics:
http://www.cansolair.com/

Home Power magazine: http://homepower.com/home/

Grab a copy of William Kemp's "The Renewable Energy Handbook" http://www.amazon.com/Renewable-Ene...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1284054482&sr=8-1

 

[Yodrak]

Point of clarification. Using my cistern analogy, which I believe is appropriate for the level of discussion on a forum such as this, one is not either a coal burner or off the grid. Rather, one is doing the charging from a mix of sources that will vary somewhat from region to region around the country. In some regions of the country that will be predominantly coal, in others it may be predominantly natural gas, and on a national basis it will be largely a mix of both with small amounts of other sources being sprinkled into the mix like salt on your food. Those sources that are small amounts nationally may play a relatively larger role in some limited geographical areas, such as the Pacific northwest states.

So where can we draw the line, folks?

Do we use the 'Yodrak Threshold' where the entire grid is a cistern and anyone that connects their EVSE to the grid is a coal burner and only off-grid EVers are zero carbon?

Or is there room for other options?

 

[AndyH]

Point of clarification. Using my cistern analogy, which I believe is appropriate for the level of discussion on a forum such as this, one is not either a coal burner or off the grid. Rather, one is doing the charging from a mix of sources that will vary somewhat from region to region around the country. In some regions of the country that will be predominantly coal, in others it may be predominantly natural gas, and on a national basis it will be largely a mix of both with small amounts of other sources being sprinkled into the mix like salt on your food. Those sources that are small amounts nationally may play a relatively larger role in some limited geographical areas, such as the Pacific northwest states.

So where can we draw the line, folks?

Do we use the 'Yodrak Threshold' where the entire grid is a cistern and anyone that connects their EVSE to the grid is a coal burner and only off-grid EVers are zero carbon?

Or is there room for other options?

From a macro view, is there an area in the US that doesn't burn coal?

Sorry if I implied that tapping into the 'cistern' somehow included being off-grid - I intended an either/or distinction.

 

[evnow]

Point of clarification. Using my cistern analogy, which I believe is appropriate for the level of discussion on a forum such as this, one is not either a coal burner or off the grid. Rather, one is doing the charging from a mix of sources that will vary somewhat from region to region around the country.

I think the whole discussion is confusing the issue. Because - if you are talking about personal responsibility, we are doing what we can i.e. buy an EV. If you are talking about macro level, see below.

http://evnow.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/debunking-the-50-coal-fud/

Let us look at this from the point of view of CO2 emissions. We have two big sources of emissions.

- Transportation
- Power generation

To reduce emissions we need to cut down emissions from both these sources, as well as from other sources. It will take decades to actually do this transition from fossil fueled cars to electric cars and from coal power to nuclear/renewable even if we start the transition in earnest today. That is why we need to start both the transitions now.

We can’t wait for that 50% of coal power to get greened before starting transition to electric vehicles.

 

[Yodrak]

I agree with this. In particular I agree that developing EVs should not wait for replacing coal-fired electricity generation. Even if all EV charging everywhere was done with coal-based electricity it would reduce carbon emissions. And it's a lot easier to clean up the emissions from one stationary coal-fired power plant than to clean up the emissions from thousands of mobile gasoline-fueled internal combustion engines.

http://evnow.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/debunking-the-50-coal-fud/

Let us look at this from the point of view of CO2 emissions. We have two big sources of emissions.

- Transportation
- Power generation

To reduce emissions we need to cut down emissions from both these sources, as well as from other sources. It will take decades to actually do this transition from fossil fueled cars to electric cars and from coal power to nuclear/renewable even if we start the transition in earnest today. That is why we need to start both the transitions now.

We can’t wait for that 50% of coal power to get greened before starting transition to electric vehicles.