Here’s a little secret that Fox News does not get about renewable energy.
The image climate deniers would like to promote of the typical electric car/solar roof customer is that of the sandal wearing, tofu eating, lefty, socialist, green weenie. In fact, a good part of the early adopters are going to be from precisely the opposite end of the political spectrum. One of the major appeals of distributed generation, and the idea of producing one’s own energy, is the deeply embedded dislike and distrust Americans have for big business, big government, and big energy.
Tell the most hard core, right wing Tea Party member that there’s a way he or she can make their household more energy independent – more able to weather storms, blackouts, brownouts, or even terrorist attacks in a world of asymmetrical warfare, and they want to know more. This demographic is actually larger than the stereotypical green consumer.
Nissan is going to prove this with a new product rollout.
Nissan has announced that its Japanese customers will now start receiving Leaf-based EV Power Stations with the capability of powering a home for a couple of days — that’s on top of its ability to keep your car charged for travel of up to 100 miles.
The new EV Power Station can supply 6kWh of energy to a home, which should keep it running for about two days, depending on usage. The new Power Station also features the ability to charge your Leaf vehicle faster, hitting an 80 percent full charge in four hours. That’s about half the time it takes to charge the care using one of the current Power Stations.
This unique capability has two main uses. The first is that in an emergency situation, the car can be used as a power source for the home. Nichicon says that in this situation, the car’s high-capacity battery is capable of powering a “typical household” for up to two days. Though what constitues a typical household is unclear, even some protection from prolonged blackouts is useful.
More interesting is the charger’s ability to keep the Leaf connected to the power grid as a power source. In this scenario, the charging station recharges the vehicle at night when demand for power is lower, and draws some power from the vehicle during the day when demand for power peaks. This could not only help lower electricity bills for a household, but could also improve efficiency across the grid.
Wow! I knew that batteries in electric cars were a form of distributed energy storage, but I didn’t expect a car manufacturer such as Nissan to actively sell a product that utilizes that stored energy in such an intelligent way! Truly brilliant.
One question that pops into my mind: can this technology play a roll in distributing energy from renewable sources that are intermittent? (e.g. wind, but also solar)
yes, of course. This will be a huge piece of the distributed energy puzzle.
I love showing this to people in my presentations, to watch a roomful of (LED) lightbulbs pop up over people’s heads.
see more in this vid.
Another great vid, thanks. You mention that one of the unknowns is how the majority of people will charge their cars. One thing that came up in a conversation with a colleague of mine today was the issue of people who don’t have garages and instead park their cars on the street (probably a large majority of the population). That’ll be a lot of idle batteries that could be put to better use.
Staying with my devil’s advocate attitude, another potential challenge that I keep thinking of is the limited availability of raw materials for batteries. Though I’ve just done a quick check and Wikipedia points out that there should be enough lithium to make up to 1 billion 40kWh lithium-based batteries with current known reserves. So maybe that’s not an issue at all?
Cheers!
probably not an issue, — I suspect that by the time we get to the numbers where that would be an issue we will be moving on to new battery technologies.
I’m working on a simlar concept, but with boats connected to floating homes. Mobility is much easier on the water, especially if you can move your home around according to changing demands for proximity to work. Plug-in E-boats offer the same advantages of plug-in hybrids, but they need less energy in order to move around.
Of course this supposes that people want to live in self-sustaining floating homes, but considering the energy savings and the increasing amount of flooding and sea level rise, it’s becoming an attractive proposition. For me, living on water is a way of life with many rewards.
Here is my blog with details of devlopments in the Netherlands:
http://bluecloud9.blogspot.nl/2012/06/floating-island-communities-in.html
Fair winds!
I want one! Hopefully they’ll bring these to the states soon. The Leaf battery stores 24 kWh, which is indeed around 2 days of my household consumption.
I’m curious if the 2008 Dept. of Energy study on spinning reserves still holds true. If so, this process is even easier!
Hearing arguments from the neo-Lud’s is getting more and more annoying every day.
I now use framing as a primary technique for persuading these folks to make the change….it actually worked for me on a friend whose in the fracking business.
How can anyone resist the Volt when you call it the “Anti-Terrorist-Vehicle!
“ATV”…hey, Bubba! I like that! Beats gettin’ blowed up in Eyerak.
“All along the eastern shore…
Put your circuits in the sea…
Gary Evans (@Bluecloud9) Says:
June 20, 2012 at 1:27 pm
Hi, Gary!
Your idea sounds really exciting. Years go, my folks went to the Netherlands and talked with someone who was discussing floating communities. What a neat idea. What’s more, this could be a way to adapt to rising sea levels in the distant future.
Keep up the good fight!!
In Jared Diamond’s book Collapse, he identifies the anti-Governmental mindset as being a key factor in the development of multiple environmental problems of modern-day Bitterroot Valley of southwest Montana. A general disdain for legislation has resulted in a planning free-for-all, over population, and over-abstraction of groundwater. It is a rare case of the environment biting back…
However, in this instance, persistent governmental backing of the wrong horse (i.e. susidising fossil fuels rather than incentivising domestic/micro power generation using renewable sources) now means the only people who can afford to make themselves self-reliant are those with the money.
I really do hope that the #EndFossilFuelSubsidies Twitterstorm gets the response it deserves from the Rio+20 Summit this week.
In your video, you speak of “free energy”. Does this not imply government (non profit) utilities?
I can not see how a truly efficient non carbon energy infrastructure can be implemented in a timely fashion any other way, and if indeed that is what we are truly talking about – a national socialized energy system – then should we not start talking about it openly right now?
Renewable sources, once the (public) infrastructure is in place, actually do provide free energy. And would this not be the most effective sales tool for nationalization – that clean energy can be, indeed, needs to be free to the customer, to justify the enormous public expense of installing that infrastructure?
In other words, a “it’s only fair that our electricity will be free” meme might be the best way to promote the fastest switch to a renewable energy future?
Hey, cool.
I am on a team of engineers working on a bi-directional power converter too, although with a substantially larger power rating.
The only difference between the uni-directional and bi-directional charging station is that the bi-directional one has its diode section swapped out for a full transistor bridge, as well as different control software.
Nice vid and great comments. So we see how the future is unfolding. Electric vehicles, rooftop solar, wind turbines, and electric vehicles with storage to back up the grid in peak demand. The electric vehicles provide enough storage not only for peak demand, but also to absorb the peak energy generated by wind and solar.
“This is what the world is for
making electricity
you can feel it in your mind
oh you can do it all the time
plug it in and change the world”
Isn’t it great how music can pierce through and create the vision?