V2L or V2H unraveling

[DerekHyland]

Hi, I have been reading about V2L and I am a bit confused. I have an american built 2019 LEAF, that was imported into Chile by NISSAN, probably in a batch for homologation purposes.
They now sell cars built in Europe or for the European market.

Mine comes with a CHAdeMO (DC) and Type 1 sockets (AC). Not sure if the Type 1 is "multi-voltage" (i.e. 110/220) or factory set to the country voltage (Chile = 220V / 50Hz). I guess it wouldn't matter that much, as it goes into a rectifier which should be capable of receiving a wide range of AC voltages and frequencies (50/60). That would make sense.

So, V2L. I naively thought that you could plug into the Type 1 port and with the cable plus some simple hardware/control, and you got had about 3,5 kW 220 AC at the other end. But of course that would mean a built in inverter, which I presume is non existent.

So CHAdeMO could be a DC out (supposedly at nominal bat voltage) with the proper handshaking/protocols. At the other end you would need whatever size inverter (up to the max charging capacity I presume), that would deal with the injecting that load into the house, presumably isolating from the grid, or co-generating like PV inverters do.
By what I have read so far, NISSAN does not offer this natively (not sure if it is a country by country issue), but has the possibility to do so, if the right equipment can be obtained. Guess the inverter should be the easy part, but talking to CHAdeMo to give up its juice may be the tricky part.

Alternatively, just hook up a good old 12 VDC to 220 V AC inverter to the "house" battery, and viola (as long as the car is in 12 V battery charge mode). But obviously this is limited in power, 1 kW max I reckon?

Love to hear your comments/corrections to the above.

Thanks, Derek.

 

[Kenny]

I am by no means an expert, but I would surmise that V2H never really panned out because it’s quite expensive and I can (and did) put in a whole house generator system for the same money that gives me 24/7/365 power without the need to be home. I don’t have to worry about my finished basement getting flooded during a torrential rainstorm combined with a power outage just because I wasn’t home to have my car plugged into the house.

 

[cwerdna]

Leaf has been used for V2H since 2012:
https://mynissanleaf.com/threads/will-bolt-be-first-to-v2g-v2h.24704/#post-507888

A copy of the PDF is at https://web.archive.org/web/2017101...le/EVS28_0224_EconomicPotential-V2H-Japan.pdf.

Also see https://mynissanleaf.com/threads/po...8-leaf-2-reveal-here.24497/page-3#post-504949. I've physically seen some of https://www.chademo.com/products/products_type/v2g at Tokyo Motor Show 2019. I mentioned what I saw there at https://mynissanleaf.com/threads/tokyo-motor-show-2019.29000/#post-571131. This is all via the CHAdeMO connector which can supply DC power.

Also see https://mynissanleaf.com/threads/chademo-bi-directional.24144/#post-576427. Copy of PDF at https://web.archive.org/web/2020071...cations/CEC-500-2018-025/CEC-500-2018-025.pdf.

 

[JVM]

Hi, I have been reading about V2L and I am a bit confused. I have an american built 2019 LEAF, that was imported into Chile by NISSAN, probably in a batch for homologation purposes.
They now sell cars built in Europe or for the European market.

Mine comes with a CHAdeMO (DC) and Type 1 sockets (AC). Not sure if the Type 1 is "multi-voltage" (i.e. 110/220) or factory set to the country voltage (Chile = 220V / 50Hz). I guess it wouldn't matter that much, as it goes into a rectifier which should be capable of receiving a wide range of AC voltages and frequencies (50/60). That would make sense.

So, V2L. I naively thought that you could plug into the Type 1 port and with the cable plus some simple hardware/control, and you got had about 3,5 kW 220 AC at the other end. But of course that would mean a built in inverter, which I presume is non existent.

So CHAdeMO could be a DC out (supposedly at nominal bat voltage) with the proper handshaking/protocols. At the other end you would need whatever size inverter (up to the max charging capacity I presume), that would deal with the injecting that load into the house, presumably isolating from the grid, or co-generating like PV inverters do.
By what I have read so far, NISSAN does not offer this natively (not sure if it is a country by country issue), but has the possibility to do so, if the right equipment can be obtained. Guess the inverter should be the easy part, but talking to CHAdeMo to give up its juice may be the tricky part.

Alternatively, just hook up a good old 12 VDC to 220 V AC inverter to the "house" battery, and viola (as long as the car is in 12 V battery charge mode). But obviously this is limited in power, 1 kW max I reckon?

Love to hear your comments/corrections to the above.

Thanks, Derek.

I have been in contact with a Chinese manufacturer of CHAdeMO connection inverters, of 6kW capacity who is willing to supply to Australia at a cost of around USD5k landed. I decided to not buy, partly because of the cost and partly because I am not convinced that it is legal to use such a high voltage device here. Instead I bought a 3kW 12v dc to 240v ac inverter for AUD635. I have used a 1500W saw with no problem, but have been reluctant to use anything more powerful, since posts here by several others say that the max power output by the Leaf's inverter is 1500W. There are at least two trials underway or planned in Aus to assess EVs and bi-directional chargers for V2H. I have no doubt the trials will go well; the problem is that the electricity regulations currently prevent commercial use of V2H, and although I believe that a bi-directional charger is now on the market, it is rather expensive. If the relevant bureaucrats get moving, we might see some action at last!

JVM

 

[MikeinPA]

There are different use cases and different solutions to those use cases.

Use case: temporary power source is needed, such as camping or construction. A CHAdeMO solution is expensive and limited by available products of unknown quality, but otherwise makes sense due to the relatively large kWh capacity of the car and simple implementation.

Use case: emergency power use during power outage. If you are sure your loads will not exceed ~1500 watts, then just adding a 12 volt inverter to the vehicle is a known solution. You still need to charge the car, which means a generator usually, which brings you to the question--why not just use the generator to run the loads?

Use case: increase capacity of an off grid system. One approach would be to use the vehicle to supplement the off grid system by using a DC to DC converter to take power from the EV 12 volt battery and feed that into the off grid battery. The DC to DC converters are used in RVs to charge the RVs battery bank from the vehicle 12 volt system, and can have efficiencies of >95%, The appeal of this approach is that one could size the off grid system to meet 90% of conditions, saving money on battery bank size, draw power from the EV as needed, and greatly decrease the hassle of starting a generator every time. One still needs to charge the EV occasionally--which could be done through excess solar from the off grid system, or a generator. Some planning would be needed to schedule everything--but again, generator events would decrease a lot, on time for the EV would be for a few hours only, and I think this would be worth the extra work in order to greatly extend the silent run time of a small off grid system.

 

[cornbinder89]

I've been keeping a eye on what is out there. A 230 volt inverter plus and autotransformer to make our North American 120/240 volt power is just not affordable, along with question on the Chademo P2L stuff coming from overseas with no North American agent you can turn to if things don't work.
I have a few ways to generate power, but none are ready to go if a sudden need for power over 10 hr outage. I have a deep cycle bank salvaged from my trucking days, and belt drive "screamer" (3600 rpm) set that could supply 240 volt for the well pump.
Ideally, I would have whole system transfer switch under the meter box and P2H inverter connected there. A simple, plug in and go system using the Leaf is attractive, but not at today's price and availability.

 

[JVM]

I have been in contact with a Chinese manufacturer of CHAdeMO connection inverters, of 6kW capacity who is willing to supply to Australia at a cost of around USD5k landed. I decided to not buy, partly because of the cost and partly because I am not convinced that it is legal to use such a high voltage device here. Instead I bought a 3kW 12v dc to 240v ac inverter for AUD635. I have used a 1500W saw with no problem, but have been reluctant to use anything more powerful, since posts here by several others say that the max power output by the Leaf's inverter is 1500W. There are at least two trials underway or planned in Aus to assess EVs and bi-directional chargers for V2H. I have no doubt the trials will go well; the problem is that the electricity regulations currently prevent commercial use of V2H, and although I believe that a bi-directional charger is now on the market, it is rather expensive. If the relevant bureaucrats get moving, we might see some action at last!

JVM

Update: today the Australian federal government announced (evening TV news) that V2H bi-directional charging would be legal before the end of the year. I have been unable to find a direct media release; this will have to do:
https://www.drive.com.au/news/austr...ic-vehicle-to-grid-household-standards-today/

One small step!

JVM

 

[EV2Power]

Hi All,

About 4 years ago I bought one of those Chinese Setec inverters that plugs into the CHAdeMo port and provides 6Kw of Power. I was quite impressed and started to import them into the UK. Sales were very slow, probably due to the price, but it does work well.

I tend to use the unit to power sound and lighting equipment at festivals etc. I can also power my home but have to switch to go Off-grid, before I can do that. Its been good so far and the unit is still going strong. I have a video about it which can see on You tube on this Link



I am no longer selling these but I am happy to answer questions and provide contact details for the factory etc.

Cheers

Christian

 

[russellv]

@DerekHyland - for AC power export (AC-V2L or AC-V2G) is possible, but the vehicle needs a bidirectional onboard charger. Some models have these (manyHyundai/Kia, Lucid, F-150, etc).
You're correct the LEAF doesn't have that feature, but is capable of DC export via CHAdeMO.