marcus: "Although the premium won't make up for the initial battery cost it will more than cover the cost of battery deterioration."

Because the number of cycles in todays batteries is so low the value of each cycle is simply a function of initial cost over cycles. Therefore they have to eventually cover the initial cost of the battery. Before I use my precious cycles for V2G they are certainly going to have to pay me a BIG premium over the value of the depreciation of my battery. If a 3kwh battery costs me $2500 and has 1000 cycles. Each cycle is worth $2.50. Three KWHs is only worth $.18, that's a pretty big premium.
Obviously something like an Altair battery would change the game. Where V2G would also look more attractive to me is after my current battery has degraded to the point where it is no longer useful in the bike but can still hold enough to be used for V2G. That would help me to get a little bit back from my initial investment (your 2 for 1).

I tend to agree with Warren that V2G is most useful for emergency situations rather than day to day load leveling.

I am assuming that I would have the choice to do V2G with my SOFC/NG car. I see nothing in the trade that would make it mandatory for me to participate, unless the grid were so feeble that it required everyone to participate, in which case we would have more to worry about than this.

Neil yes, you could equate the cost of each discharge as the capital cost over the number of discharges but that doesn't tell you the economics of this scheme since complete discharge is not required. Please read the cost equations section in the above pdf "Vehicle to grid power fundamentals" and then get back to me with your comments.

They'll do anything to keep you connected to the grid (i.e. connected to them). The future for me holds no energy company, no grid connection. How far away is the future of independence? 5-7 years.

A lot of the nay-sayers here are missing a very important fact:  if your batteries have a limited lifespan, they are probably deteriorating even if they aren't being used.  If you replace them without using them as much as you could have, you've let cycles (and value) go to waste.  If they don't have a limited lifespan, why are you fussing about a few extra cycles when you could be making money?

Here's the 2001 analysis of V2G from AC Propulsion.  It found that net profit to the car owner could exceed $3000/year (that's after battery costs).  Or the utility could buy the battery and lease it to you for a nominal sum if you leave the car plugged in so they can get ancillary services from it.  When the battery dies, the utility buys a new one.

The beauty of V2G is that it lets the utility generate power with the lowest-cost resources instead of the ones which can respond the quickest.  A V2G fleet doesn't need X many megawatts right now, it only needs Y megawatt-hours between now and the next rush hour.  In between now and then, the fleet can absorb power, produce power, or both so long as it gets that Y megawatt-hours.  The grid operator can wait for that front to blow past the wind farms at 3 AM, because the cars don't have to be charged until 6 or even 8.  This saves fuel and lets the renewables be used better.

Warren is also right about CHP.  Imagine if your motor fuel also supplied your home heating?  That's what you'll get when the "furnace" can charge the car (and wind can power both).  V2G is the future.

Warren, right. Time shifting low cost and CHP power to off-grid storage decreases consumption and lessens pressure to build new generators. Mr. Independence - like your optimism but we can expect resistance from utils on scales similar to oil.

I am all for a Combined Heat and Power NG SOFC replacing the home furnace. It could provide electricity, water heating, home heating and cooling using absorption chilling. Lots of ways that we can use energy more cleanly and efficiently. Combine that with SNG from biomass and we might just have a winning combination that is far more sustainable.

I think the fears expressed here about the utility companies having too much control will be unfounded. Surely the driver will have control over when the power can be drawn down, by how much and at what rate. The utility companies will only be able to draw power within those parameters.

The grid connections will have to be fairly substantial anyway so if you do find you haven't got enough charge to make an emergency trip you will be able to recharge quickly (and remotely via your phone or computer). As 99% of the time most people have quite regular, predictable lives this won't be much of a problem.

I think the fears expressed here about the utility companies having too much control will be unfounded.

Yes, and rather silly. I mean, you are already ceding major control just by being hooked to the grid at all. Most people do that because they don't care, and why should they? The grid electricity is typically much less expensive than what they could produce themselves.

Yes, CHP should be an option for charging PHEV's but CHP may become more difficult than it already is if the U.S. Climate Action Partnership gets its way:

Policies are needed to speed transition to low- and zero-emission stationary sources and strongly discourage further construction of stationary sources that cannot easily capture CO2 emissions for geologic sequestration.

http://www.us-cap.org/ClimateReport.pdf

marcus: I've read the report you mentioned, and it is accurate. It does indeed indicate that the cost to the battery owner is a function of the total throughput of the battery. The bottom line is that this scheme will work if the quality of the battery is high enough. Their calculations use a battery (SAFT) with a total throughput 3 time higher than ones I have and NiHM batteries from a RAV4 that with shallowing cycles last a long time. I just need better batteries.

Eng-poet: For this to work well you need a battery that the normal wear and tear cycle lifetime exceeds the calendar life of the battery. Even if the scheme paid for their usage I don't want to have to keep replacing my batteries. I just need better batteries.

bottom line: I agree that this is the future (when I get batteries with 3k+ cycle lifetime). I do think the economics would be more attractive to everyone if the bulk of the storage came from stationary used batteries with already diminished capacity. The cost to the utility would be lower because the value to the owner is lower and the owner gets to squeeze out some extra value from a battery that is no longer suitable for road use anyway.

Someone tell my wife I need to spend another $3K for better batteries. (and another 3K for solar panels) oh and another 3K for that big screen TV

Neil, I wish you luck with your wife...

Mark, that is a huge leap in logic since the CAP has members who are big players in the CHP.

And no, your utility is not worried about losing market share. They are worried about clueless yahoos feeding power back to the grid. V2G & PHEV is a violation of the KISS.

Kit: we already have people feeding power back onto the system from wind and solar.

Neil,
For stationary storage there are better battery types.
Flow batteries for example offer economics of scale - the bigger they are the cheaper they get.
http://www.vrbpower.com/

Here are the faqs- http://www.vrbpower.com/technology/faqs.html

The best way (IMHO) to get more use out of your tired car batteries is to recycle them. Recycling nickel-metal-hydride batteries would yield the best return. It produces enough nickel to pay for the process.

This would never work in a million years. It would require all new cars to be equipped with a computer capable of digital communication, and the development of a huge digital network. Who ever heard of such a thing? It would be like taking my "Personal Computer" which is a very private thing, connecting it to some sort of huge computer controlled network, and letting other computers freely talk to it and tell it what to do. Then I would of course, have no control over my computer since other computers would be controlling it, and we all know that it is impossible for something to be controlled by a human and a machine at the same time. Preposterous idea!

"The beauty of V2G is that it lets the utility generate power with the lowest-cost resources instead of the ones which can respond the quickest."

EP, not sure this is a good thing as the low cost resource today is coal.

V2G is likely to work first and foremost in large fleets.

Getting off-grid is a security, reliability and environmental issue. Not to mention that pushing electrons through miles of copper is a hard row to hoe (the garden-type hoe).

"This would never work in a million years. It would require all new cars to be equipped with a computer capable of digital communication, and the development of a huge digital network. Who ever heard of such a thing? "

You really think this sounds far off?

Here's just one tiny example of what's already happening. Get with it man!
http://www.waav.com/Solutions/

"This would never work in a million years. It would require all new cars to be equipped with a computer capable of digital communication, and the development of a huge digital network. Who ever heard of such a thing? "

You really think this sounds far off?

Here's just one tiny example of what's already happening. Get with it man!
http://www.waav.com/Solutions/

Neil, are you suggesting that those that spend huge sums to produce electricity to sell back to the utility are not clueless yahoos? Are you suggesting that utilizes should not worry about the safety of the workers due to lines being energized from backfeeds?

Mark, I strongly disagree with the contention that CHP adds stationary CO2 sources. That kind of argument is the type of thing Vested Interests will use to screw the little guy. The CHP unit will replace the furnace/water heater for people who already are on fossil fuels for heating. This is not adding, it is replacing, inefficient with efficient.

Otherwise, you might as well tell everyone to go on all Electric Heat & Hot water, and that means big environmentally destructive Coal Power plants.

Carbon sequestration remains a dubious, unproven, and probably very dangerous idea to begin with. Besides we still need liquid fuels and they can easily be made CO2 neutral by a number of methods. I wonder how Ontario Hydro could readily declare it will phase out the burning of Coal for power.

Like ai vin, I would say the liquid type storage batteries or perhaps the Firefly type batteries, look better for the utilities to optimize electricity production efficiency. VRB is claiming $150 per kwh ($C?) incremental cost for their batteries, with 13,000 cycles. Vehicle batteries have requirements of low weight and volume, a more sophisticated containment and temperature management system, that makes them less cost effective for regular power grid energy storage.

See: http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/01/vandium_reflux_.html

The concept of a smart grid has been around for a long time and already used in places. Using H/EV batteries for this purpose will happen if it is indeed valuable enough to give a positive $$ payback to the car owners. Lots of other things can play the same roll, however, once the smarts are in the grid. Peak smoothing, spinning reserve and power regulation can all be addressed by things like remotely setting back thermostats or turning off pool pumps and water heaters.

Only question is whether the economics support having consumer devices play this role verse having large industrial power consumers play this role.

It seems like a lot of the people concerned about not getting home have missed one point... currently almost all cars with batteries are HEV and in the near term most with plug-in capability are likely to be PHEV not EV. With a plug-in hybrid you wouldn't have any worries if the grid had taken your charge down to the minimum normal discharge state.

We already have the technology available now to go PHEV-40mi., but that would require car companies building hybrids with a somewhat different type of power plant set-up. Also, PHEV and V2G should help America reduce it's oil imports and GHG issues.

Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles for a Sustainable Future
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/54788

Marcus:  Get your sarcasm detector repaired, it obviously isn't working.

gr:  In a world of carbon taxes (which we are rapidly moving towards), cheapest will likely mean one of the zero-carbon options or the most efficient otherwise.  Features like transient response will be well down the list.  If a large population of PHEV's can provide the buffering required by slow-responding or even unschedulable (but low- or no-carbon) generation, then it's a marriage made in heaven.