Compiled by Zhou Ruifeng, a reporter from China Economic Weekly
At every peak of electricity consumption, the aging power network in the United States will be "stressed". So, can millions of electric vehicles reduce the pressure on the grid?
(Screenshot source: Wall Street Journal)
Many U.S. technology companies, utilities, and automakers are testing technologies for electric vehicles to power the grid (V2G): Electric vehicles act as distributed energy storage units that can reverse power the grid during emergencies or peaks in electricity usage.
The Wall Street Journal said U.S. grid systems are becoming increasingly unreliable due to aging equipment and climate. The wind and solar power generation that is being laid out in the United States can only provide intermittent power, and the idea of V2G has received more and more attention, and many companies regard electric vehicle batteries as a potential new energy source.
Jim Poch, an executive at Duke Energy, said V2G would be a way to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Duke is conducting trials to test the viability of electric school buses as an energy source. "In the future, the grid will have to become more decentralized and intelligent," Poche said. ”
Although V2G technology has existed for a long time, there are few responders. According to industry data firm EV-Volumes, the North American market share of pure electric vehicles is about 3.3%, lagging behind China and Europe. But U.S. electric vehicle sales are growing faster than fuel vehicles. According to research firm PitchBook, startups working on V2G power received $400 million in venture capital in 2021, up from $232 million in 2020.
John Isberg, vice president of National Grid, said that with the popularity of electric vehicles, vehicles powering the grid may help delay or avoid systemic upgrades to the grid.
However, the idea of v2G power supply faces a number of obstacles. Uploading a car's electricity to the grid requires special technology and chargers. Moreover, tests have shown that using a car as a power source causes the battery to age faster. For car owners, it is easier to accept electric vehicles as a household emergency power source, but it is somewhat difficult to use to power the grid. In this regard, industry insiders said that it is very important to create relevant market incentive mechanisms.
Annette Clayton, CEO of Schneider Electric North America, said the obstacle was finding a viable business model. "Who made the contribution and who can get compensated," she said. I think it's more of a digital challenge than a hardware challenge. ”
A number of tech companies are testing how much cost V2G technology can save and how much it affects battery life.
Over the past four years, Edison United Electric has tested V2G technology on electric school buses in New York State (school buses in the United States are usually out of service during the summer). Raghusimha Sudhakara, an executive at the company, said: "There is no doubt that V2G can relieve the pressure on the grid during peak summer electricity consumption. ”
Sud Hakala pointed out that the cost of hardware for two-way charging relative to standard equipment is higher and will exacerbate battery aging, whether it is worth it for car owners and operators, the results are not the same. In addition, the impact of V2G on battery life is unclear, and it is also a focus of debate and research in pilot projects across the United States.
Quincy Lee, CEO of Electric Era Technologies Inc., an electric vehicle technology company, said car owners must strike a balance between revenue from resale of electricity and depreciation of batteries. While the benefits of electric vehicles as a home emergency power source are obvious, it is difficult to promote them by connecting them to power them.
In addition, V2G can also make the car battery prematurely aging. Quincy Lee said: "I don't think V2G will be fully popularized, it will not become a large-scale energy reserve method. People buy cars for transportation, and if this technology reduces the life of the car, what would you do?"
But Annette Clayton believes that the concern about battery aging is somewhat exaggerated, and the long-term full-charge state of electric vehicles can also cause batteries to age.
Since cars require specific software and chargers for two-way power supply, automakers have a big say in whether to continue to push for V2G. One of the big selling points of Ford's electric version of the F-150 Lightning is that it can act as a home backup power supply.
(Screenshot of ford electric version F150 Lighting official website)
In contrast, Tesla, which dominates the electric vehicle market, does not support powering homes or the grid. In early 2021, a massive snowstorm swept through the United States, paralyzing power systems in parts of the country, According to Electrork. In this disaster, many residents thought of using electric vehicles to reverse the power supply.
Some American car owners have found that connecting the inverter to the 12V power supply interface of the Tesla Model 3 can make the car incarnate as a "charging treasure" to power household appliances. Excited, the owner posted the "discovery" on social media.
A few days later, the car's system prompted that the 12V battery needed to be replaced, and when the owner went to the official service center to replace the battery, Tesla staff told him that the vehicle had abandoned the warranty, because Tesla's warranty policy clearly stipulated that electric vehicles cannot be used as fixed power supplies. It turned out that Tesla saw the reverse power supply message posted by the owner from social media and believed that he had violated the warranty policy.
(Tesla warranty regulations: do not use the car as a fixed power supply screenshot source: Electrek)
David Slutzky, CEO of V2G technology company Felmata Energy, said: "To scale renewable energy, we need to provide large capacity storage for the grid, and they are under the hood of the car."
Compiled from The Wall Street Journal, the Street, Electrek
Editor-in-charge: Guo Jiyao
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