is this as dumb as it sounds ?

https://abc7news.com/electric-...er-outages/13620139/

It's been said before, California's power grid will have to expand in order to meet the demand for more energy. PG&E's CEO Patricia Poppe has come up with an "unconventional" idea, using electric cars to send excess power back to the grid to prevent blackouts.

Bi-directional charging already allows a few electric cars to send energy from their battery to a home. Think of it as a backup home generator.

The Ford F-150 Lightning already has that capability and all General Motors electric vehicles are expected to follow. In a recent interview with Good Morning America, GM CEO Mary Barra talked about GM leading the way in the EV industry.

"I have tremendous confidence in our brands, the strength of our brands and our customers and the loyalty that we have," said Barra.

But PG&E's CEO, Patricia Poppe thinks the technology can go even further by also sending that excess power to the grid, except that, the interconnection is not there yet.

"Right now today, there is no technology and no automotive manufacturer whose cars can actually send power beyond the home and up into the grid," said Mark Toney, of Turn (The Utility Reform Network).

But that doesn't mean it won't eventually happen, says Kurt Johnson of the Climate Center.

quote:

is this as dumb as it sounds ?

Not if you are a tow truck driver.

If they're drawing power from my car, that I paid to charge, without any reimbursement to the EV owner, I'd be 100% against this.
Otherwise, I'd just make a habit of going out to unplug it once it's charged to prevent them from drawing from it.

We truly live in a wondrous age of stupid.

So, the idea is to take power from charged EV's back to the grid, that will then need to recharge the vehicle in order to use it, essentially there is no gain in power production and in fact additional demand as they are charging EV's twice.


As P250US said, what if you have solar and charged your EV from that, but are still connected to the grid for night use, ie no storage batteries with offset of power production. Do they pay you for buying your power you created to charge it if the car is hooked up to the grid at night to charge when you get home, how does that work, charge the EV then pull power back after its charged?

Why not just put power management boxes on EV chargers and then switch them off at prime time when demand is high like they do for hot water heaters and ac units.

Waitaminute...

The EOTWAWKI (*) crowd (which incls. various levels of government) wants everybody to switch to EVs because otherwise it'll be TEOTWAWKI, but, because there's not enough E to power the EVs and everything else, they want to send E back into the grid from the EVs?

Besides the ridiculousness of this hair-brained idea just on the face of it: Every time that power changes hands (grid -> EV, EV -> grid) there'll be a net energy loss. Then there's the charge/discharge wear and tear on the Li-Ion cells in the EVs, thus shortening their lifespans, thus incurring more energy usage.



(*) (T)EOTWAWKI: (The) End Of The World As We Know It

quote:

We truly live in a wondrous age of stupid

Indeed.


Some of us have been warning that these concepts foisted upon us by government are just another way to possess control over the people.

Enjoy.

Yeah, it's becoming pretty clear that personal mobility is going to be a victim of 'climate change'.

Also, that's additional charge cycles on the EV battery.
Not knowing a ton on EVs, I can't imagine that's ideal for longevity.

quote:

Originally posted by 83v45magna:
We truly live in a wondrous age of stupid.

So much said with so few words.

This would have made a great Monty Python sketch.

quote:

From the linked article:

"It's a gigantic unharnessed, untapped power source that can be used. Most vehicles are sitting parked, unused 95 percent of the time,"

Someone skipped physics class when they were teaching The Laws of thermodynamics.

Might want to start with Conservation of Energy. You charge the car but you ain't getting any more energy out of it when you put it back on the grid.

The only benefit I might see is providing power balancing at peak times when everyone wants to use their air conditioning at the same time, but even that's a stretch. Kind of a "Horton Hears a Hoo" type of story as everyone uses their EV to save the grid in some fictional manner, since a fully charged EV battery is typically only 40 kWh of energy. Not a huge amount of energy since it would have to discharge (back to the grid) at a reasonable rate.

quote:

From the linked article:

"It's a gigantic unharnessed, untapped power source that can be used. Most vehicles are sitting parked, unused 95 percent of the time,"

So you'll also need to install power connection stations in every parking spot, and pass a law that requires EV users to connect to the grid in order to return power to it under this plan.

How did primitive minds get so much power?

Sure is some strange stuff going on lately, these news titles are almost like clickbait.
I would think that if your EV is powering the grid, that it won't be fully charged for the next day use. There is too much wrong with this picture to even begin.
For the heck of it I looked up this genius:

Quote from link:
In November 2020, it was announced that Poppe would be leaving CMS Energy on December 1, 2020 to become CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric on January 4, 2021.[15][16] In April 2022, it was reported that PG&E CEO Patti Poppe received over $50 million in total direct compensation for her work in 2021.[17]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patti_Poppe
I feel much better now knowing she has a power plant background and is getting paid what she is worth. We can rest easy now and move on .

Great, so you're charging EVs twice and even more production ends up as thermal waste.

I get that it's supposed to help with peak demand when production can't keep up, but.....maybe add more production? Stop decommissioning nuclear reactors?

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
So, the idea is to take power from charged EV's back to the grid, that will then need to recharge the vehicle in order to use it, essentially there is no gain in power production and in fact additional demand as they are charging EV's twice.

No, they want you to run your hybrid's engine, and burn your gas to fund their incompetent and misguided policies. This is not about "recapturing" stored power, it is yet another tax proposal.

quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:

quote:

Originally posted by 83v45magna:
We truly live in a wondrous age of stupid.

So much said with so few words.

BINGO!

Good people of California. We have mandated that you turn in your nasty gas guzzling vehicles for efficient electric vehicles for more environmentally conscious transportation.

UNFORTUNATELY, we miscalculated a bit and don't have the infrastructure in place to support what we are making you do. Therefore we're going to ask you to plug in your EV's so we can siphon off the electricity you paid for to keep someone else's air conditioning or lights or internet on. Perhaps you should buy a bicycle.

Thanks so much....