Use electric car as power source

javixeneize

Hi

Has anybody used an EV as a power source for your house? As I understand it, you can charge your car battery during the night on the cheaper rate, and power your house with it during the day instead of consuming it from the network at a higher price

don’t know if this idea has legs, as the car battery performance might be compromised, it might not give enough power etc.. has anybody explored it?

QrizB

Yes, there have been some vehicle-to-home (V2H) trials and a few of the "Green & Ethical" forum regulars have taken part in them.

The main challenge seems to be finding a V2H inverter/charger, and then affording the £5k cost when you do find one.

MWT

javixeneize said:

don’t know if this idea has legs, as the car battery performance might be compromised, it might not give enough power etc.. has anybody explored it?

It has been around for a while, but not particularly popular due to a number of limitations, both cost and practicality.

There are far more people with home batteries installed, usually as part of solar installations to store energy either from solar production, or from cheaper rates over night, and certainly those with an EV and hence access to very low night rates, will be able to do that as well.

Depending on the car battery is a bit limiting though as most people do need to drive the car away from home reasonably frequently and will need the stored power in the car to do that...

Also most EV's are not designed to support exporting their stored power so it does significantly limit your choices.

[Deleted User]

https://www.cleanenergyreviews.info/blog/bidirectional-ev-charging-v2g-v2h-v2l

If you want to have power when the Grid is off then you will need to demonstrate to the DNO that you can isolate the battery supply from the Grid. The Tesla Powerwall 2 with Gateway has this capability. The alternative is that you construct an essential power circuit which is separate from the Grid.

The Wallbox Quasor Bidirectional charger (ChaDeMo only) is £5990 plus VAT.

michaels

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Reed_Richards

In the Kia Nero EV advert, the guy uses "vehicle to device technology" to power an illuminated sign from his car battery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErBkXfWHFT8
I don't know if that could be adapted for household use.

michaels

Reed_Richards said:

In the Kia Nero EV advert, the guy uses "vehicle to device technology" to power an illuminated sign from his car battery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErBkXfWHFT8
I don't know if that could be adapted for household use.

Vehicle to load, basically you get a plug socket so could plug in whatever extensions up to the output of the car.  I believe some people have wired some circuits in their homes so they can be disconnected from the grid and then attached to their cars V2L output for use during power cuts or just to arbitrage time of use tariffs (charge during cheap rate, run household appliances during peak rate)

MWT

michaels said:

Vehicle to load, basically you get a plug socket so could plug in whatever extensions up to the output of the car.  I believe some people have wired some circuits in their homes so they can be disconnected from the grid and then attached to their cars V2L output for use during power cuts or just to arbitrage time of use tariffs (charge during cheap rate, run household appliances during peak rate)

Have to be very careful with this, as the lack of an earth from the car requires that only double-insulted equipment be plugged in, and it is essential to ensure that there is no risk of exporting power to the grid during a power outage as this could endanger those working to fix the problems on the grid side of things.

Also the connection to the car is not rated to be used in the rain either...

It is a handy feature, but V2L (..or V2D as Kia refer to it) is not a surrogate for V2H.

MattMattMattUK

MWT said:

michaels said:

Vehicle to load, basically you get a plug socket so could plug in whatever extensions up to the output of the car.  I believe some people have wired some circuits in their homes so they can be disconnected from the grid and then attached to their cars V2L output for use during power cuts or just to arbitrage time of use tariffs (charge during cheap rate, run household appliances during peak rate)

Have to be very careful with this, as the lack of an earth from the car requires that only double-insulted equipment be plugged in, and it is essential to ensure that there is no risk of exporting power to the grid during a power outage as this could endanger those working to fix the problems on the grid side of things.

Also the connection to the car is not rated to be used in the rain either...

It is a handy feature, but V2L (..or V2D as Kia refer to it) is not a surrogate for V2H.

Whilst I agree that islanding is very important in a power outage scenario, the rules for working on the grid is that the grid is always treated as live unless they have physically disconnected a segment from all outside sources themselves, they would never rely on a power line being dead just because there is a power cut, the abundance of caution is why the engineers are still alive. 

MWT

MattMattMattUK said:

Whilst I agree that islanding is very important in a power outage scenario, the rules for working on the grid is that the grid is always treated as live unless they have physically disconnected a segment from all outside sources themselves, they would never rely on a power line being dead just because there is a power cut, the abundance of caution is why the engineers are still alive. 

... of course, but that doesn't remove the obligation to meet the DNO standards for this sort of equipment, including notification and where required approval before attaching anything that can export to the grid...

Clearly not an issue where you are just running equipment plugged directly into the car, but it becomes an issue if you try to attach the car to your home wiring...