V2H and V2G

ASavvyBuyer

Western Power Distribution seeks 100 drivers for electric vehicle-to-grid trial

michaels

I am finally getting my v2g trial installed by ovo on the 11th June.  Had I had it done of 1st April as planned pre c19 I could have exported most of my record 1150kwh PV generation during April and May at 26p per kwh

I am hoping post trial in 2 years I will be able to use the unit for v2g or at the very least v2h getting full value from the PV and time shifting on the Octopus tariffs.

JKenH

Thanks to Mart for posting this excellent summary of the current state and future of V2G on the G&E news thread. I am taking the liberty of copying the link onto this thread for the convenience of anyone specifically searching for this technology.

https://cleantechnica.com/2020/09/05/the-present-future-of-vehicle-to-grid-technology/

JKenH

michaels said:

I am finally getting my v2g trial installed by ovo on the 11th June.  Had I had it done of 1st April as planned pre c19 I could have exported most of my record 1150kwh PV generation during April and May at 26p per kwh

I am hoping post trial in 2 years I will be able to use the unit for v2g or at the very least v2h getting full value from the PV and time shifting on the Octopus tariffs.

How is this going? My son is waiting for confirmation that he can get on this trial. So far WPD have de-looped his supply from his neighbours but everything is progressing slowly. I understand the the actual trial doesn’t start until next March so what is happening with yours. Is it the Quasar unit that has been installed?

michaels

I think there are two trials, an ovo kaluza indra one I am on that is now full and a new western dno emery nation one. The ovo one I am on is so far great for me. There is loads of info on a Facebook group ovo v2g. 

JKenH

michaels said:

I think there are two trials, an ovo kaluza indra one I am on that is now full and a new western dno emery nation one. The ovo one I am on is so far great for me. There is loads of info on a Facebook group ovo v2g. 

My mistake - your post clearly mentioned OVO. For some reason I had it in my head you had mentioned the WPD trial in a post a way back. 

I am a member of the OVO V2G Facebook group as I was interested in joining but had too much solar pv. My son was also hoping to get on that one but the delay in getting de-looped and Covid meant he missed out, hence having a go at WPD. I would have tried but just outside their area. It will be interesting to see how the Quasar compares with the Indra unit. It sounds as though you have had better experience than others.

I think the OVO trial is a better deal and a lot cheaper to buy the V2G unit at the end of the trial.

michaels

Have they said anything about tariffs for the WPD trail?  It looked fairly restrictive on the usage, not really an option to time shift solar for example during the trial.  My parents who are in the area are interested but there main benefit would be to timeshift solar, they might even buy a leaf to take part but there is also the restriction on having at last a 30 which makes this a much more expensive option.

I have only had the ovo v2g for 3 months but no faults in that time, obviously I have benefited from the firmware upgrades that have already fixed many faults and my unit is in the garage so less risk of heat or cold causing problems.  We also have solar but on a 3.6 invertor which maybe is why the DNO were OK with it.  How much energy would you actually lose if your E and W went through a single 5kw invertor, we have W panels and I calculated the loss at midday would not be to bad if we added some E panels on the same invertor, but for FIT reasons this doesn't work.

JKenH

michaels said:

Have they said anything about tariffs for the WPD trail?  It looked fairly restrictive on the usage, not really an option to time shift solar for example during the trial.  My parents who are in the area are interested but there main benefit would be to timeshift solar, they might even buy a leaf to take part but there is also the restriction on having at last a 30 which makes this a much more expensive option.

I have only had the ovo v2g for 3 months but no faults in that time, obviously I have benefited from the firmware upgrades that have already fixed many faults and my unit is in the garage so less risk of heat or cold causing problems.  We also have solar but on a 3.6 invertor which maybe is why the DNO were OK with it.  How much energy would you actually lose if your E and W went through a single 5kw invertor, we have W panels and I calculated the loss at midday would not be to bad if we added some E panels on the same invertor, but for FIT reasons this doesn't work.

Apparently the deal with WPD trial is you get £10 a month. That’s it! £250 to buy the Quasar at end of trial. I don’t know anything about time shifting on the trial.

We could actually get by with a 5kw inverter as sustained max output on 30 May this year (our best day) was 4.7kw. We do sometimes see 6.3kw peaks with cloud edge effects but we wouldn’t lose much with a 5kw inverter. Instead of limiting myself to 5kw I am itching to add more panels but struggling to get quotes for what I want.

JKenH

I was prompted by a recent comment on relatively low monetary returns to the householder and that made me wonder about the round trip efficiency of V2G. There are a number of articles around but this summary from Wikipedia covers a range of results. 

Most modern battery electric vehicles use lithium-ion cells that can achieve round-trip efficiency greater than 90%.[24] The efficiency of the battery depends on factors like charge rate, charge state, battery state of health, and temperature.[25][26]

The majority of losses, however, are in system components other than the battery. Power electronics, such as inverters, typically dominate overall losses.[27] A study found overall round-trip efficiency for V2G system in the range of 53% to 62%'.[28] Another study reports an efficiency of about 70%.[29]The overall efficiency however depends on several factors and can vary widely.[27]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid

Can anyone on a V2G trial advise me on what the returns look like after the round trip losses (suggested here as ranging from 30-47% ) are factored in. As an example if we take a mid range figure for losses of (say) 40% and you import 10 units at 10p, by the time you have completed export you have lost 4 units so to break even you need to be paid 16.7p per unit for the 6 units you actually manage to return to the grid. Does the electricity provider make an allowance for the losses in what you are paid for export? 

This of course also impacts on self consumption so if the car battery has charged up overnight at say 10p a unit then if you are cooking your tea when the unit is exporting you will effectively be paying 16.7p a unit. 

If the losses were 30% then you would only need 14.3p to break even. 

Any feedback from users would be welcome.

michaels

JKenH said:

I was prompted by a recent comment on relatively low monetary returns to the householder and that made me wonder about the round trip efficiency of V2G. There are a number of articles around but this summary from Wikipedia covers a range of results. 

Most modern battery electric vehicles use lithium-ion cells that can achieve round-trip efficiency greater than 90%.[24] The efficiency of the battery depends on factors like charge rate, charge state, battery state of health, and temperature.[25][26]

The majority of losses, however, are in system components other than the battery. Power electronics, such as inverters, typically dominate overall losses.[27] A study found overall round-trip efficiency for V2G system in the range of 53% to 62%'.[28] Another study reports an efficiency of about 70%.[29]The overall efficiency however depends on several factors and can vary widely.[27]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid

Can anyone on a V2G trial advise me on what the returns look like after the round trip losses (suggested here as ranging from 30-47% ) are factored in. As an example if we take a mid range figure for losses of (say) 40% and you import 10 units at 10p, by the time you have completed export you have lost 4 units so to break even you need to be paid 16.7p per unit for the 6 units you actually manage to return to the grid. Does the electricity provider make an allowance for the losses in what you are paid for export? 

This of course also impacts on self consumption so if the car battery has charged up overnight at say 10p a unit then if you are cooking your tea when the unit is exporting you will effectively be paying 16.7p a unit. 

If the losses were 30% then you would only need 14.3p to break even. 

Any feedback from users would be welcome.

Pretty sure the round trip efficiency (reported by the charger) for our unit is about 80% and that is probably an underestimate of the actual charging efficiency as having the charger on and connected increases vampire loses in the car.  If the charger was smart enough to turn on only when charging or discharging then the efficiency would probably be about 90%+