Can the battery in a Nissan power your house?

[alozzy]

Would be interesting to know the payback period for a typical California EV owner who uses their EV's pack to sell back to the grid on a daily basis.

Besides, charging the EV batteries first and then selling power out of EV back to grid means you are losing some % in the charge / discharge process as well as increasing your EV battery deterioration pace.

I'm not living in SoCal, but an example would be PG&E's "EV2-A" rate plan, whereby you could charge your EV during the 21¢ period and then sell back to the grid during the peak period. For each kWh you did that for, the margin would be about 30¢. Assuming you had a 62 kWh pack and sold back 30 kWh to the grid everyday, you would pocket $9 per day. Obviously, that assumes you only need 30ish kWh daily for driving needs. Also, there would be some losses and there may be other restrictions that apply...

I agree that I would be leery of pack degradation, but Dala seems to think that's not an issue based on a comment he made in another thread. Hopefully he can weigh in on this...

[LeftieBiker]

It definitely seemed to be an issue with the 24kwh packs (and presumably with the 30kwh!) but maybe the 40 and 62kwh packs can handle it.

[knightmb]

I agree that I would be leery of pack degradation, but Dala seems to think that's not an issue based on a comment he made in another thread. Hopefully he can weigh in on this...

I think he is referencing the much larger size of the 40, 62 packs in relation to the load that causes degradation overall. For example, just for simple math reasons, say we have the 24 pack and it's safe discharge limit is 80 kW. If driving down a long country road only needs 20 kW to maintain good cruising speed for example, then you are loading the pack down at about 20/80 = 25% of it's rated power. As with all battery technology in existence as far as I know, the higher the load level against it's rated output, the quicker you deplete the capacity until empty. Basically diminishing returns the more power your draw as it gets wasted as heat. If you apply the same logic to a 62 pack, which is limited to 160 kW, using the same number of 20 kW to maintain good cruising speed, you are loading the pack down to 20/160 = 12.5% of it's rated power. So if those two Leaf are driving the same route at the same power usage, the 24 Leaf is technically going to experience more degradation than the 62 Leaf. Basically, one battery (24) and is working harder than the other (62) battery, even though they are both doing the same thing.

Apply that to home power or grid power sell back, say you are only using 10 kW with a brand new (24) battery. So it's roughly 10/80 = 12.5% of it's rated power output. Nothing wrong with that, but if you compared it to a (40) or (62) battery, they are working at around (10 / 110 & 10 / 160) or 9% and 6.25% respectively on power output. Not only are they doing the same thing at less effort, they are also newer technology batteries that seem to be doing better cycle life and capacity wise verse the original (24) technology.

All that math means the (24) packs will use "more" cycles to do what you want verse the other (40) and (62) packs because they have higher capacity and that means it takes more to "cycle" them in the grand scheme of things. You will be getting twice or triple the cycle life in this setup verse the original (24) battery.

[OldManCan]

an example would be PG&E's "EV2-A" rate plan, whereby you could charge your EV during the 21¢ period and then sell back to the grid during the peak period. For each kWh you did that for, the margin would be about 30¢. Assuming you had a 62 kWh pack and sold back 30 kWh to the grid everyday, you would pocket $9 per day.

With all due respect… utility is not buying from us at the same rate that they sell to us.

https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/s ... -bill.page

The rate is set by California Public Utilities Commission at approximately two to four cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh).

So, “charge when cheap and sell back when expensive“ is not a good business model. Charge when cheap and supply the home when expensive and hence avoid buying from the utility could be the better way to go but again all this means your car is no longer available to drive.

[watchdoc]

Happy to share some insight here. Simple answer is yes! The capability you're referring to is called Vehicle-to-Home (V2H). V2H allows your EV to act as a backup power source for your home in the case of a power outage.

In order to be capable of V2H you have to have a home energy system in place that allows you to utilize the bi-directional charging feature of your Nissan Leaf. An example of this would be the dcbel Home Energy Station: https://www.dcbel.energy/r16/. This Home Energy Station acts as a battery charger/inverter allowing your Leaf to power your home for days during an outage.

Hope this helps!

Ive been trying to get price and availability information for weeks but all I get is advertising emails. Why don't you provide some more details about your product since you said the "simple answer is yes!" How much is it? When will it be available nationwide? Everytime I type in a zipcode, it says the R16 isn't available in my area so I tried another dozen zipcodes from the southeast and they all give the same message. Is this product for real or just another pilot vaporware product only available in a few southern califoria zipcodes.

Sorry to hear about your frustration, we are sometimes frustrated too! Innovative R&D takes a long time and comes with lots of ups and downs, then adding multiple UL certifications to ensure the product is 100% safe and follows the multiple local and state wide regulations (that often differ from municipality to municipality) adds another level of complexity. Trust us when we say that no one wants this product in North Carolina more than we do!

In terms of pricing, the dcbel r16 starts at $4,999 USD and varies based on the number and type of EV connectors you select, along with your desired cable length and whether you wish to benefit from the blackout power feature. We are currently serving the state of California as well as select regions in NY and will be rolling out to additional regions over the course of 2022. Unfortunately, because energy is so local and the way utilities work varies from region to region, it is near impossible to roll out nationwide at once.

We understand that the EV market has been plagued by vaporware and failed product launches, but we promise you that in 2022 you'll learn that the dcbel r16 is different.

I would like to see a cheaper product with V2H for time of use grid shaving. Charge up overnight when power is .03 cents and use V2H as a buffer during morning ramp up and evening peak times when solar isn't enough to handle the loads. This wouldn't need any utility approval since there is no power being fed back to the grid. Any chance of making this happen?

[Marktm]

An actual use case for a V2X capable solar inverter system happened during the Texas Great Freeze last year. I was a subscriber of Griddy's energy plan that essentially allows access to grid energy costs for a monthly fee. As I was in the hospital during the entire event, the only energy usage was heating - at a very low set point, but still incurred substantial costs with energy being above (with extra fees) $9/kWh for many hours.
If I had my 62 kWh Leaf and a substantial solar system (8-10kW), rather than costing me approx $1000, I would have made over $1000 based on solar energy history - with sell back part of the contract. Obviously, could not use the Leaf, plus would have put up with a fairly cold house at times with use of the nat gas heater fan required, but feel confident the numbers are close.

Hope there is no repeat of this catastrophe!

[skateguy50]

In Massachusetts the rate is pretty much the same for what they charge / pay but its not a daily or hourly rate. Its a net meter read once per month. So If my panels ran the meter backwards during the day for 100khr then I drew 50kwh overnight to charge my car it would net - 50kwhr.

I had a 10,000 kwhr rated solar system that averaged pretty close to that over 12 months but it was much more in summer than winter, so I was getting a credit of $200 a month on my bill like May-August, and about even on shoulders and then used the credit in the winter to break even over the year. That was my old house and didn't have an electric car but it was about 2,000 sf home with 5 bedrooms and full house with inground pool and hot tub running year round.

I would like to add solar to our new house this year but am unsure about the battery systems, what I'm seeing right now the incentives make home battery backup system not cost that much more but unsure if I care about that as the net metering worked out great before and a battery of extra power from July can't run my house in January, but a monetary credit from July can pay for grid electric in January.

[Marktm]

The "arbitrage" advantage in Texas (ERCOT) is buy/sell the energy cost at 15 minute interval pricing. That will vary from about a little over 2 cents/kWh to 20-30 cents/kWH (or more) on many summer/winter days. The big advantage comes a few times a year were the energy price can rise to over $9/kWh. With a good sized solar array and a large (EV type) battery, that can save/make lots of money! The issue(s) currently are that I cannot find a seamless V2X system - only "dcbel" type future promises.