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Smart Grid Consortium to Develop Smart Grid City; Support for PHEVs with V2G Part of the Design
17 January 2008
The Smart Grid Consortium, established in December 2007 by Xcel Energy, will select a mid-size community of approximately 100,000 residents to become a Smart Grid City: a testbed for emerging smart grid technologies and deployment strategies.
Potential benefits include lower bills; smarter energy management; better grid reliability; greater energy efficiency and conservation options; increased use of renewable energy sources; and support for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and intelligent home appliances.
The analog grid has served its purpose for the last half century, but the future requires an integrated, digital smart grid. This next-generation grid will allow customers to better manage their energy consumption while optimizing the grid through real-time generation management and distribution controls.
—Ray Gogel, CAO and vice president of customer and enterprise solutions of Xcel Energy
Current consortium members include Accenture, Current Group, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories and Ventyx.
The selected city will represent the consumer end of the smart grid, with a fully inter-connected system managing the various parts of the grid involved in producing power and delivering it to customers.
A number of technologies will be offered within Smart Grid City, including:
Transformation of existing metering infrastructure to a robust, dynamic communications network, providing real time, high-speed, two-way communication throughout the distribution grid.
Conversion of substations to “smart” substations capable of remote monitoring, near real-time data and optimized performance.
Installation of thousands of in-home control devices and the necessary systems to fully automate home energy use.
Integration of infrastructure to support up to 1,000 easily dispatched distributed generation technologies (including plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with vehicle-to-grid technology; battery systems; wind turbines; and solar panels).
Xcel Energy has narrowed the site location for Smart Grid City to several cities in its eight-state service territory. The Consortium will announce the selected city in March 2008 and begin the building phase in April 2008.
January 17, 2008 in Plug-ins, V2G | Permalink | Comments (39) | TrackBack (0)
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It's about time! Our experience during the latest Northern California storm/power outage was that we had to keep calling our power company PG&E to tell them that our lights were still out. More than once they said they thought they had already restored power when they hadn't! I hadn't realized they have no feedback built into their system except customers calling in to report outages. Incredible in the 21st century.
In addition, the ability of a household to see their energy consumption, in real time, on a wireless monitoring device in the living room has shown to reduce electricity consumption by 10-15%. That's a pretty big deal.
We need to get this going nationwide.
Posted by: Jeff R | Jan 17, 2008 11:41:39 AM
This is a major area for development. If we are to consider the "grid" an energy delivery matrix that belongs to the people (eg airwaves, beaches, parks) - then it should function to deliver multiple utility services from multiple vendors. Not a single source vendor. This is a democratic issue that needs to be addressed now.
The "smart grid" designs of most utilities monopolizes the grid itself, the service available on the grid and the source from which the energy is produced. In a truly democratic grid scenario, we would see the proliferation of home, neighborhood, community, resources that service small sectors and sell surpluses back to the grid. The "smart" elements being designed now want to control your thermostat, AC, heat, SOC for your EV, and likely deliver multimedia over the grid link.
One of the major failures of the petroleum era was monopolization of energy by oil. Handing over our grid system to a single government or private entity begs for another monopoly. The grid should be viewed as a publicly owned delivery system that accommodates multiple energy producers. The major "smart" feature should be a way for customers to select a basket of services from a variety of vendors i.e., 100% renewable energy, community PV wind energy, State or Provincial energy, EV overnight charge energy, etc.
The point is these "smart" systems at this stage want mostly to co-opt your energy use. Install central control over your home heating cooling and EV charging and have no competitor to look over their shoulder at. Let's not make the petroleum mistakes all over again. Diversity of energy resources includes distribution and accounting services.
Posted by: gr | Jan 17, 2008 11:44:29 AM
Does V2G mean that the power company can discharge my car battery into the grid? The reason I ask is that sometimes battery life is discussed in terms of # of charge cycles. Will participation in V2G shorten my PHEV battery life?
Posted by: Mick | Jan 17, 2008 12:19:38 PM
Nick:
In principle, you are correct. With many current battery packs, deep charge-discharge cycles will reduce overall battery operational life.
There are ways to limit this costly effect, ie. by conservatively reducing the charge-discharge rate and limiting charge-discharge depth to between 40% and 80%. Without those restrictions, letting your PHEV/BEV batteries in the hands of the power grid operator may not be such a good idea (for you) unless you get proper compensation.
Future batteries will probably accept more abuse with regards to the number of cycles, rates and depth of charge-discharge. Time will tell.
Posted by: Harvey D | Jan 17, 2008 1:09:32 PM
I think private electric utility companies will head in the direction of becoming public utility with this new technology, or, they'll remain private but with more regulation because homeowners will have a larger investment and more important role connected to the grid.
This technological direction seems important because rooftop photovoltiac solar panels afford households the means to recharge plug-in hybrid batteries and run basic household appliances during emergency or grid failure, to avert private utility price gouging, or to simply monitor electricity consumption overall.
Plug-in hybrids, rooftop photovoltiac solar panels, V2G: This is an 'era'. Unlike President Bush who will be leaving soon, signalling the end of an 'error'.
Posted by: Wells | Jan 17, 2008 1:17:15 PM
Mick:
Your concerns are well-founded. A system which REQUIRES you to discharge your car battery into the grid would be probably be unfair.
I've always thought that a fair V2G system would include time-of-use metering or better, maybe even spot-price metering. Your car would have access to the spot price information while plugged into the grid, and you would set a price at which you agree to sell power back to the grid.
I'm a Californian with a grid-tied solar energy system. On a summer afternoon, I sell surplus power back to the grid at $0.42/kWh. Later that night, I buy power at $0.11/kWh.
Price differences like these can provide economic incentives for V2G car owners to participate in load-leveling, as we hope they would.
Posted by: John L. | Jan 17, 2008 1:50:07 PM
One way to address the battery cycle problem of V2G is to have the batteries leased from the service.
As it would them who incured the cost of replacing your batteries they'd be more carefull about discharging them too deeply or too often.
Posted by: ai_vin | Jan 17, 2008 2:33:28 PM
I pay $0.08 per kWh regardless of the time of day.
Additionally, if you have solar you will either need to have an expensive box put in to isolate you from the grid in the event of a general power outage or you are not allowed to use your solar power...[or you can be completely disconnected from the grid]. Not that you would get much out of Solar power around Seattle anyway.
Posted by: Patrick | Jan 17, 2008 2:33:56 PM
Patrick:
I don't want this discussion to deviate too far into solar power. I just wanted to use my solar PV + time-of-use meter system to show that there are systems available today which can make V2G economically fair for all the participants.
Having said that -- yes, my PV system shuts off if it doesn't receive an AC sync signal from the grid. I don't have any backup power, but outages are scarce enough here that I decided to put up with them.
My PV system cost me $21,000, after a $10,000 rebate from the state of California. I generate close to 100% of my electrons, but I cover well over 100% of my electricity bill. I went solar before the law changed in California requiring the utilities to pay residential customers -- actually cutting them an annual check -- for surplus power. So, I'm giving away about $200/year in electricity credits. I'm really anxious to upgrade one of my cars to PHEV, in order to use up my excess FREE power.
If I had decided to go with a PV system which could operate in "islanding" mode -- that is, off-grid -- I would have needed the automatic transfer switch you described, a large battery bank in my garage, and a 25% larger PV array. My costs would have been $10,000 higher, mostly in batteries. Those batteries would need to be replaced every six years or so. The state of California does not compensate PV users for their batteries, only for PV modules and inverters.
Posted by: John L. | Jan 17, 2008 2:51:15 PM
Batteries for cars need to be light.
Stationary batteries need not be light, and can probably be cheaper.
As people point out, you do not want to many discharge cycles on your precious Phev batteries.
You might be better separating B2G from V2G.
Then you could optimize each solution.
Energy storage is a huge deal, and whoever cracks it will make a lot of money, but please, separate energy storage for cars from energy storage for stationary applications.
Posted by: mahonj | Jan 17, 2008 3:27:05 PM
Can somebody explain V2G to me? 1) It seems to me, first of all, that from the points of energy conversion efficiency or of emissions that any gasoline engine is worse than the average utility powerplant and ceratinly worse than the best. Then why would one want cars to be a grid electric energy source? Isn't that exactly the opposite of the idea of PHEVs? 2) Is V2G a concept then to store electicity generated by utilities in electric cars and PHEVs until needed? Aren't there more efficient and less costly storage options, like pumped storage or sodium sulfur batteries compared to car batteries (even if Li-H)? Furthermore, the utility peak is while my car is parked at work in the afternoon in the summer. It is not in my interest to have the battery drained just before I start the drive home. 3) Or is this just a concept to provide residential backup power? In that case a Honda generator for $500 at Home Depot sounds alot simpler.
Posted by: Dan Allen | Jan 17, 2008 3:35:07 PM
Dan, I'm no expert in V2G, but I imagining that 1) the power you sell back to the grid from your car comes from power you charged your car battery at night, and not from your gasoline engine. In cases where night power go wasted is wind farm, so V2G is a huge benefit. 2) Yes. That's the idea. Of course there's better way to store excess, but if you have power-storage in cars anyways, why not take advantage of that, esp potentially tens of millions of them, paid for by car consumers instead of a utility co. 3) Residential backup is a 'perk' for having this ability to transfer electrical power both ways, i.e. PHEV or EV.
V2G is a win-win situation, for utilities and cosumers alike, not mentioning all the benefits of electric transportation.
Posted by: occ | Jan 17, 2008 4:33:52 PM
Just to back up occ's comments V2G would only operate if you wanted it to with your vehicle. Why would you want to? Because you would PROFIT even taking into account battery ware and tare from cycling since the cycling would be rapid and SHALLOW.
You bought the battery for transportation. But your use of it would be a small fraction of the day. Since the utility didn't pay money for buying this energy storage capacity they can pay you money for using it that more than compensates you for your ongoing costs (not the capital you used to buy it in the first place of course though).
If you want to learn more about it go here:
http://www.udel.edu/V2G/
Posted by: marcus | Jan 17, 2008 5:11:51 PM
There is little benefit to this without a mostly solar powered grid.
V2G discharge at night is not likely due to low demand, low payback versus battery cycling cost.
V2G during the day leaves you with a dead battery. Even at $0.42/KWhr gasoline is still more expensive. So why risk?
Posted by: GdB | Jan 17, 2008 5:14:32 PM
Don't understand the dead battery comment above. Other posters thoroughly covered this topic, pointing out that the amount of discharge can be regulated, including a specification that only shallow discharge be allowed in order to prolong battery life.
Regardless, I would like to see an analysis that shows the true cost of providing power to the utility, considering any accelerated depreciation/degradation of the battery that would occur. The price the utility pays would of course have to be higher than this to make it worthwhile for the consumer.
Posted by: Tom Street | Jan 17, 2008 5:35:56 PM
Once again it's ELECTRIC Vehicle to Grid = Ev2G.
By the way, everybody in the know, already realized that Nanosafe batteries by Altairnano(Alti) are the "holy grail" of energy storage.
Do your DD and find out for yourself.......
Posted by: ev2g | Jan 17, 2008 6:50:57 PM
V2G for peak loads alone won't probably make sense. The equipment needed to make this work costs money - and the amount of kW and kWh that would be available from an average vehicle would be quite low. Also one has to take into account the cost of charged electricity, round-trip losses and battery wear and tear. It would probably be cheaper to build gas turbines for that purpose. However, it could make sense to use them as backup power for the power grid. In this case they would be only used if the grid needs fast reserves to respond to sudden drop of large power plant or transmission line. These are rare occasions, but there needs to be power available all the time for that purpose and it costs to keep those power plants ready. Main source of revenue would be capacity payments just for being there as a backup. This could be combined with the very highest peak load hours when the power companies start to run out of reserves and peak load prices would make it profitable to do peak shaving.
Still, in my opinion, more important than V2G is grid-to-vehicle (G2V). This simply means that the timing of charging the vehicles should be done in a smart manner. If EVs will just start charging when people come home around at six, there will possibly be a new power peak at evenings. It would make more sense to charge the vehicles when electricity is cheaper, which usually is during nighttime. This could change to some extent once larger share of power production comes from variable renewables like wind and solar. Electric vehicles could make the grid more flexible towards these forms of power and all could benefit: the vehicle owners, wind power plant and grid operators.
Most people drive only 10-50 miles per day, which means that for a full electric vehicle with a range of above 200 miles, it wouldn't even be necessary to charge every night, if the electricity prices happen to be high. Of course there needs to be an option to force charging if full charge is required. However, all this is quite dependent on what people are actually willing to do. One problem is that individual car owners could gain only relatively small amounts of money from providing these services to the power grid.
Posted by: jk | Jan 17, 2008 7:00:41 PM
You guys aren't taking my advice! All your economic concerns are covered at the website I mentioned above. Specifically, this paper covers the economics taking into account battery deterioration. At least initially, V2G does not aim to provide peak power but instead spinning reserves and frequency control. Read the paper!
http://www.udel.edu/V2G/KempTom-V2G-Fundamentals05.PDF
Posted by: marcus | Jan 17, 2008 7:09:37 PM
I just heard a story about the power company being able to control your AC and during peak times overriding your settings and you could do nothing about it. Let's be careful that we know what this all means before signing on the bottom line.
Posted by: sjc | Jan 17, 2008 10:31:54 PM
Regarding the digital grid, see also RFC3251 of the IETF, "Electricity over IP": www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3251.txt
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this 2002 draft made it through the IETF standards process.
However, some fun does not hurt to remember that electricity has some very special properties which make some ideas (very decentralized production/balancing?) a very costly proposition.
Posted by: Toto | Jan 18, 2008 12:00:44 AM
Mick, Harvey D, John L, Dan, occ, etc. - keep in mind that most projected revenue in a V2G system would be paid for ancillary services, i.e. the fact that the vehicle was connected to the grid and available, whether or not any energy transfer occurred. Peak shaving plants make their money in this way today.
Any actual discharge could be controlled - say, "leave me 10 miles of all-electric range" or "leave me 50% SOC." There are many ways to run a V2G system.
Posted by: Jack Rosebro | Jan 18, 2008 12:29:40 AM
I Hate To Do This But...in view of the previos postings.
Owing to time constraints ..
Also note correspondence with Dynamic on demand regarding the following questions and concerns were not responded possibly not worthy?
regards Arnold
I recall a discussion, or was this a short film, regardless (believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see) My breif experience in electronics does not enable me to reverse engineeer this one . But the B-S meter actually runs backward on this so I think it correct.
A simple three legged device (can be placed on the appliance) that monitors the local demand on the AC grid via phase change analysis. The way voltage drops cause brown out so we can measure voltage.
The power companies resonse is as I understand it to try to increase the C.P.S. cycles per second slightly.
So here we have a reflection of the generators status. ie Are we under limit or over limit ?
Cruising or bogged down.
Or looking at it a different way.
If the load increases, the drag on the generator should slow the generator so C.P.S. decreases. Exactly how this can be related to phase angle change I'll leave to those more qualified.
This technology could enable instant point monitoring and silicon decisions in real time.
Maybe: This could be the reason we dont see this equipment developed. It is not so easily price differentiated in this simple version so not of any economic interest.
This is the only reason I can think of.As to why after all these years no mention or inclination.
Much easier to have persons in backrooms contrlling the grid via uplink.
So with a limited knowledge of the science a better understanding of the economics$$$$$?
reverse engineering of Both could be an extemely productive area of research.
Posted by: Arnold | Nov 19, 2007 12:25:02 PM
Arnold if I understand you right you're referring to dynamic demand control:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_demand_(electric_power)
http://www.dynamicdemand.co.uk/
This is a very cheap and easy win and it's astonishing it hasn't been incorporated into appliances yet given that all you need is another chip that monitors grid frequency. It would probably not save a massive amount but it should smooth demand out quite nicely. It's mostly suited to appliances that operate on a cycle (such as cold appliances).
My guess is that until it's legislated, the manufacturers won't incorporate it because the concept of doing something for the public good appears to be anathema to most corporations.
Posted by: Scatter | Nov 19, 2007 12:45:12 PM
Post a comment
Posted by: arnold | Jan 18, 2008 12:36:23 AM
Hi Arnold,
the way you describe it was known as the the bad method of grid regulation in what used to be the countries behind the iron curtain. I always find it funny how similar the former Soviet Block and US really were, down at the technical level. The western european grid is much more rigid, ie. frequency change to control (compensate) grid load is not allowed - at least not to the same order of magnitude as in the US; these much tighter specs obviously have the side effect, that the EU is much less prone to grid outages (and no seasonal recurring ones on a regular basis)...
Having an "out-of-band" control infrastructure (IP based over telecoms / fiber to the home) to have better monitoring and potentially control has definitely some good side effects. I.e. not only coule G2V and V2G applications be realized, but also some things like having the washing machine, dryer and other power hungy appliances (A/C) run only during times of low-cost electricity (with manual overrides, of course).
BTW: In the netherlands, a commercial operator of a deep-freeze storage recently saved some 100 000's of euros per year by simply using "thermal inertia" - cooling down during the night by 2 or 3 degrees more, and using less high cost electricity during the day.
Similar installations could be installed with any suburban A/C - just provide a large enough body of, say, water in a thermally isolated tank. During the night, cool that material down, and during the day use the stored cold to A/C your home...
Posted by: realarms | Jan 18, 2008 2:50:33 AM
Another issue regarding grid to vehicle. My understanding is that a significant part of the electricity generated at night is not utilized and is simply wasted. I have seen estimates that millions of electric vehicles could be charged at night without having to increase the electricity produced at night. Thus, one would be able to reduce the amount of oil required for vehicles while at the same time not increasing the amount of fuel required to power those vehicles.
Posted by: Tom Street | Jan 18, 2008 6:48:24 AM
Everyone seems focused on V2G. If this is effectively shifts exchange of electricity between households and electric companies, I could foresee many households adding solar to the roof, and a bank of FireFly batteries in the garage. Produce electricity during the day, or buy it when cheap at night and sell it back to the grid during the day. Either way, there is incentive for distributed production with homeowners investing in the alternative production capacity.
I don't know the current economics, but if battery and PV technologies continue to advance, a smart grid could make it possible. Less use of fossil fuel, lower war costs. Win-win-win.
Oh, and for you who are concerned about big brother controlling your electricity, many of us already participate in programs with controllers on our air conditioners. It helps smooth demand so less excess capacity is required of my provider -- Xcel.
Posted by: JMartin | Jan 18, 2008 7:23:46 AM
realarms,
I manage my home A/C in a similar manner using the house itself as the heat sink. The previous residents had a simple one temperature setting thermostat and the A/C ran constantly. I installed a thermostat that allows setting multiple cooling periods. As the day heats up, the thermostat lets the house get a degree warmer every three hours then cools it down off-peak. Thanks to daylight savings time, I'm usually in bed before it's cool enough outside to open the windows.
Since the invention of A/C, I have serious doubts that DST saves energy. I'm very leery of a grid system that would be smart enough to decide for me what my furnace or A/C would be allowed to do.
Each time the thermostat kicks the temp up a degree the A/C takes a rest period that varies with the heat of the day but is often over an hour; then it cycles normally until the next warmer period starts. Ceiling fans keep the air moving and things stay reasonably comfortable.
I'm probably spending about half as much on A/C as the previous residents. Part of that is that I don't heat a house above 68F or cool it below 78F. There's a period of adjustment with each season change where 68 feels too cool and 78 feels too warm but you get used to it within a couple of weeks. I tell people to dress for the season and stay away from the thermostat.
Posted by: Arthur | Jan 18, 2008 7:30:42 AM
John L. - indeed spot pricing would be a good way to let customers both purchase and sell energy. Thus, the customer sets a rate/price for recharging his battery pack and a rate to sell back to the grid. To further enable the smart elements, customers should be able to select the "vendor" or energy category from which they buy. So, greens can buy only renewables, moderates can buy a mix of renewable and price point, locals can support their community PV energy consortium by purchasing home and EV energy only from them.
The key is diversification of grid sources and resources. The diversity offers competitive pricing, competitive quality of service, a significant security improvement, support for new energy business (ie jobs). Too many "wins" to enumerate.
Posted by: gr | Jan 18, 2008 11:43:51 AM
V2G for Dummies
In the morning you have X kwh in your EV.
You use up Y kwh driving to work, you need Y kwh to get back.
You now have X-2Y kwh of energy to play with.
If your place of work is properly equipped, you sell back
your energy at some $Rate/kwh to make Rate*(X-2Y) dollars.
Posted by: DS | Jan 18, 2008 3:07:28 PM
DS,
Nice explanation of available power, but refer to Marcus's comment above. You wouldn't necessarily sell the excess power to the power company. You would sell them the right to take that much power IFF they needed it, i.e., replacement for spinning reserves. The power company saves power by not spinning a turbine somewhere just in case they need it to meet a demand surge.
Posted by: JamesEE | Jan 18, 2008 9:24:35 PM
Beacon Power (BCON) is a clean energy frequency regulation company. Check it out
www.beaconpower.com
Posted by: Glen | Jan 18, 2008 11:06:56 PM
Beacon Power (BCON) is a clean energy frequency regulation company. Check it out
www.beaconpower.com
Posted by: Glen | Jan 18, 2008 11:08:36 PM
An interesting scenario might occur when 50,000 cars are at a baseball game during the hot summer months. They are all doing V2G and the game is over so they all go home. Is this known in advance so the power company can plan for it?
If each car is giving 1kw then 50k cars would amount to 50mw. This is quite a blip in the grid flow. This is not likely to happen, but it is good to consider probable scenarios before jumping in.
Posted by: sjc | Jan 19, 2008 10:43:56 AM
I installed blue-tinted plastic on my south/west windows and reduced summertime electricity use. It wasn't that expensive. Let's say I buy a plug-in hybrid and sell peak afternoon electricity to the local utility that then sells it to all those who use air conditioners at that time - those who haven't invested in blue-tint window film to help cool their homes. Someday, they'll invest in window film and won't need the air conditioner and I'll go for an afternoon drive or watch a TV show for free.
Posted by: Wells | Jan 19, 2008 11:33:09 AM
It is best to use the most cost effective methods to reduce energy usage. It is the idea that in the summer, utilities have to fire up natural gas turbine peaker plants that are not the most efficient and are not fully loaded just to handle the peak load. Synchronizing the turn on and off of AC units would help a lot and power line networking could make that happen.
Posted by: sjc | Jan 19, 2008 5:30:27 PM
John L., You hit a very important point re battery (Jan 17, 2008). Stationary battery pack (UPS) makes more sense than V2G. Here in this forum I found everybody is talking about meeting the peak demand with small, distributed power sources. But, how about reducing (shaving) the peak demand itself? You can accomplish this by cutting off your house from the grid during peak hours and using the energy stored (at a reduced rate) in your stationary UPS.
V2G is impractical in two ways:
1) Coordinating tens of thousand vehicles to be connected to the grid is not easy. Besides, during the peak hours those commuter vehicles are most possibly away from their base (and being charged up!).
2) Small energy sources connected to the grid trying to send energy back is actually nuisance to the grid because of the Ferranti effect.
Therefore, why don’t we have a UPS of 16 KWH of usable capacity, for example, and charge it during 4 to 8 off-peak hours, and come 9 O’clock in the morning switch to this UPS to power our house for 8 hours or so cutting ourselves off from the grid. (You might need more storage if you keep AC on all the time.) If one million households in the southwestern states are off the grid during the peak hours this way, and if the demand per household is 2KW during peak hours in average, we are talking about 2GW of demand shaving, which makes V2G, roof-top solar panels and other small generators unnecessary.
If the automotive battery pack is small and cheap enough to be put in a commuter car, certainly we can make practical household UPS’s out of it. Also, we have to remember that in order to maintain all the generators in sync (voltage and frequency) utility companies dump great amount of energy into the ground during off-peak hours. Charging UPS’s during off-peak hours utilizes this otherwise wasted energy improving the bottom line of the utility companies, at the same time reducing CO2 and other emissions.
Posted by: Sashi | Feb 9, 2008 2:21:45 PM
Sashi,
Could you or anyone else put together a chart showing at what point it becomes financially practical to do this (use a household UPS, charging at nighttime rates)? Considering current battery prices, longevity, etc. I've thought about this at length, but never put together the numbers.
Posted by: Roger | Mar 26, 2008 4:05:06 AM
Roger,
By “financially practical” if you mean reducing the electricity bill today, what I suggested is NOT practical. For example, about 300 Makita Li-ion power tool batteries are needed to make a 16KWh battery pack (more than $40,000 retail). Let’s suppose the total cost of the UPS is $50,000 including associated electronics and installation, and your electrical usage is 1,000KWh/month @20 cents/KWh (on peak) and 5 cents/KWh (off peak), of which 400KWh is from the UPS. In this case your monthly bill will be $125 as against $200 without UPS. To recoup the $50,000 initial cost by this monthly saving of $75 you need 667 months or about 56 years even if the battery pack lasts that long. However, if the total cost of the UPS is reduced to $10,000, then the necessary time will become a little more than 11 years. Judging from the estimated life of Li-ion battery (10 years), $10,000 installed is the target price of the UPS to start, which is very achievable since many leading companies in the world are developing high-capacity, low-cost batteries (and capacitors) for the automotive use. It is said that GM’s Volt and Mitsubishi’s i-MiEV will be priced somewhere around $35,000, of which I think $10,000 or so should be the price of battery pack initially. With technology advancement and the effect of mass production the price should go down rapidly.
But, the purpose here is not save money. My point was that with the UPS to keep our fridge, stove, washer/dryer, lights, AC and electronics going OFF-GRID during peak hours we can help even out the peaks and valleys of power consumption, thereby reducing the burden put on the power plants during peak hours of the day. This also reduces the use of fossil fuels and harmful emissions.
It is very probable that this summer in Southern California there will be black/brownouts. Suppose if 1,000,000 households there are equipped with the UPS they should shave about 2GW of power from the peak demand, which is more than enough to save So. Cal. residents from misery. Roughly speaking it costs 2 billion dollars to build a 1GW nuke power plant. Even if the money is available, building new power plants (nuke or otherwise) in your backyard is getting very difficult because of environmental and safety concerns. It is much easier and faster to make and install 1 million UPS’s. I think the state and utility company will be happy to subsidize for the purchase of the UPS if they do not have to build new power plants.
Another important fact is that technology to improve solar cell efficiency is advancing rapidly. In fact, University of Delaware and DuPont announced that they have achieved more 40% efficiency (Efficiency of currently available solar cells is somewhere around 14%). The UPS is the answer to the unpredictable nature of the solar cells. If you have a 100 square foot solar panel (of 14% efficiency) on your roof, conservatively you can use/store 10 KWh (much more with the 40% efficiency panel) of power a day, enough (along with off-peak charging) to keep you off-grid most of time.
Posted by: Sashi | Apr 5, 2008 6:10:12 PM
I guess it is "Boulder" that Xcel energy has chosen for the deployment of the "smartgrid".
Posted by: Desi | Aug 5, 2008 2:02:12 PM
The best thing about auto tint is it inexpensive to have installed
Posted by: Auto-Window-Tint.com | Oct 28, 2008 2:53:25 PM
