The future is hooking up batteries to your house to take advantage of off peak energy. You need a proper inverter integrated into your supply to make this practical. The battery can be your parked EV.
PS well done on your comments Nate! We live and learn…
If you use batteries in this way, you end up using more power, and the batteries will wear out after a while. Every step, has its inefficiency. Batteries themselves have a self discharge rate.
Indeed, it's all part of the mix. Like the Tesla Power Wall you mentioned, even with the inefficiencies, storing and time-shifting your own solar power can make you less dependent on the grid. It can be a better deal than using a poor value feed-in tariff and buying the energy back later.
“Charging the Delta Pro at an electric vehicle charging station is very beneficial -- especially in the case of a natural disaster that can cause a widespread blackout. Then, while everyone is waiting in long gas lines, you can skip the line and go straight to an EV charging station to fill up your electronic generator.
If a natural disaster causes a widespread blackout, how are EV charging stations going to be working? At least, if you have a natural gas or propane powered generator, you will have multi day source of power. Even with gasoline, you can always siphon vehicles or lawn equipment or go to gas stations that have their own gasoline powered generators to run their pumps.
The article mentions that in a power failure, you can charge it at an EV charging station (and skip the lines at a gas station). Unless the power failure is local, EV charging stations also need a working grid to work, so charging at an EV station may not be an option (making that gas station option look a lot more appealing).
Gas stations need power to pump gas. So, they themselves need to have a backup generator when the power goes out for them to operate. No backup power, no pumping gas for them.
Not sure what scenario an owner would have to need to go get a backup battery charged. There’s I forgot to charge before going camping scenario. Perhaps, the power has been out for more than a few hours situation. Pretty rare scenarios.
If a homeowner has a bank of these, like 20 kWH worth, they should get solar panels. A camper can get portable solar panels.
A homeowner can get the advanced kit and use it to power the house during the day while charging at night, assuming the power company allows them to use their nights-free plans in this manner.
The power needed to run a gas station is a lot less than needed to run EV charging stations.
Most EV charging stations aren’t Level III+ with 100 kW to 300 kW power. Most of them are just 6 to 8 kW. That’s your typical 240V 30A circuit in a house powering a dryer or cooktop. If the store or place they are in front of have power, they will have power.
It’s only a 3.6 kWH battery. A level II charger will only take an hour or less. The only real “charge at an EV charging station” use case I can think of is the forgetting to charge it case while going camping.
If it is for a house, get solar panels to recharge it.
The future is hooking up batteries to your house to take advantage of off peak energy. You need a proper inverter integrated into your supply to make this practical. The battery can be your parked EV.
PS well done on your comments Nate! We live and learn…
If you use batteries in this way, you end up using more power, and the batteries will wear out after a while. Every step, has its inefficiency. Batteries themselves have a self discharge rate.
No, it is more efficient to use batteries to time shift.
The power generators during night time are typically much more efficient, because they typically involved power plants running at their highest efficiency 24x7, like a combined cycle gas plant or nuclear.
During daytime, peaker gas plants are used to generate more power to meet higher daytime needs. These plants are started and stopped or idled and started daily, which is an inefficient way to run a plant. Night time power is just more efficient in most places, except for perhaps in California where people should time shift power from day to night with batteries.
appleinsideruser is right. The most optimum way is to have a smart hybrid inverter, or power control box, that can accept power from a home battery, a car, and solar PV, perhaps wind. A car has enough power to backup a house for days, or in perpetuity with solar PV.
Battery wear is an issue today, but that will gradually change. The battery talked about here is a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery. It has 5x to 10x the charge cycles over a lithium-ion battery in a phone. And about 3 to 4x over a nickel-manganese-cobalt battery in typical EVs. LFP batteries will gradually make their way into lower end EVs. It basically is a 20 year lifetime EV battery.
W is a unit of power which does have a time or rate component, while W/hr is used for energy - either consumption as in how much energy your house or EV is using, or capacity, as in how much energy your battery can deliver.
BTW, most EVs now can go about 4 miles/kWh, so 14 mi is possible on 3.5kWh.
Voltage (V) all by itself is not an indication of power. Sometimes it is called "potential" because it is not until current (amperage or "A") flows that power is delivered. A higher voltage has a higher "potential" for power at any given current. This is basic Ohms law, where W=V*A
OK, thanks for the corrections on the strict definitions of the terms, but presumably you agree with the heft of my post?
And thanks for the correction regarding the EV efficiency - I got that the wrong way round.
W is a unit of power which does have a time or rate component, while W/hr is used for energy - either consumption as in how much energy your house or EV is using, or capacity, as in how much energy your battery can deliver.
BTW, most EVs now can go about 4 miles/kWh, so 14 mi is possible on 3.5kWh.
Voltage (V) all by itself is not an indication of power. Sometimes it is called "potential" because it is not until current (amperage or "A") flows that power is delivered. A higher voltage has a higher "potential" for power at any given current. This is basic Ohms law, where W=V*A
OK, thanks for the corrections on the strict definitions of the terms, but presumably you agree with the heft of my post?
And thanks for the correction regarding the EV efficiency - I got that the wrong way round.
Your post elicited a response from the author of the article, so you obviously brought up some pretty good points!
Another major Con for this unit is the fact that it uses low cost (cheap) high frequency inverter technology that does not use an output transformer to power the AC loads. Instead the inverter connects the loads directly to the MOSFETs which is a big no no when powering high inductance loads such as refrigerators, microwaves and power tools. You may be able to start and run some of these loads when this unit is new but everytime you fire up one of these loads, you're damaging the inverter's MOSFETs which can seriously limit the life expectancy of the inverter. A much better choice is to buy or build your own solar generator using a low frequency inverter that uses an output transformer. It will last far, far longer and you'll be able to power those high inductance loads without damaging the inverter.
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The power generators during night time are typically much more efficient, because they typically involved power plants running at their highest efficiency 24x7, like a combined cycle gas plant or nuclear.
During daytime, peaker gas plants are used to generate more power to meet higher daytime needs. These plants are started and stopped or idled and started daily, which is an inefficient way to run a plant. Night time power is just more efficient in most places, except for perhaps in California where people should time shift power from day to night with batteries.
And thanks for the correction regarding the EV efficiency - I got that the wrong way round.