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Six Electric Cars Can Power an Office Building
cartechboy writes "How many Nissan Leafs does it take to power an office building? The answer, it turns out, is six. Nissan is the latest Japanese automaker to explore electric "vehicle-to-building" setups, this time with impressive results. The company started testing its latest system at the Nissan Advanced Technology Center in Atsugi City, Japan, during the summer. It found that just six Leafs plugged in to the building's power supply allowed it to cut peak-hour electricity use by 2 percent. Annualized, that's a savings of half a million yen (about $4,800 US) in electricity costs. How it works: The building pulls electricity from the plugged-in vehicles during peak-use hours, when power is most expensive, and then sends the power back to recharge the cars when grid prices fall. Nissan says the system is set up to ensure the cars are fully charged by the end of the workday. (Is this a devious secret way to make sure workers stay until a certain time?) Next up: Why not just do this using batteries--never mind the cars?"
The batteries in a Leaf are a significant fraction of the price, few business want to spend $120k on batteries, when they can get them for 'free' from their workers.
This sounds like it would decrease the battery lifetime of my car. Unless I'm getting free charging, no dice.
A Tesla Model S sitting in a garage has enough energy onboard to run a typical single family home for many days. It's pretty impressive just how much energy our automobiles use when we're driving them; they put the power consumption of homes and small buildings completely to shame.
Looks like 6 cars can offset about 2% of this office's power usage. Hardly 'powering' the whole office.
Those 'users' should be thankful that the company deigns to employ their lazy asses, and don't you forget it!
Now get off slashdot and back to work.
How many Nissan Leafs does it take to power an office building? The answer, it turns out, is six.
cut peak-hour electricity use by 2 percent
So the answer, it turns out, is actually 300.
Also for the wear and tear on the batteries caused by the additional charge/discharge cycles. Batteries can only handle a limited number of cycles so this'll shorten their life. Those batteries aren't cheap either.
Next up: Why not just do this using batteries--never mind the cars?"
Simple answer: It costs a decent amount of money to buy and maintain a large battery array. Anyone in charge of a medium sized corporate server room can attest to that.
By "letting" workers plug in their electric vehicles, the company not only gets to bill it as a perk of the job, but they get to push 100% of the expense of maintaining those batteries onto their workers.
TLDR: Money.
"Why not just do this using batteries--never mind the cars?"
Batteries have a limited number of recharge cycles, and they are very expensive (1/3 to 1/2 of the cost of the vehicle.) It's much easier to stick those expenses to the employees.
Other than that, yes, it would make a lot of sense to use stationary batteries. They wouldn't have to be light and small, for one. However it remains to be seen if the saved 2% is enough to pay for all the equipment.
The idea to store all excess electricity is already being investigated. But they're planning to use super capacitors rather than batteries. The idea to buy it cheap at night and sell it back to the grid during the day when theoretically, your consumption is lower (not at home, etc.) is too good not to be exploited.
I don't think it's intended for rank-and-file workers to supplement the company's electricity, it's probably more that higher-ranking employees with company cars would end up doing this.
If work gave me a car to use for several years, I don't think that the negligible electrical costs that I might incur at home would be enough to make me bat an eye at such an arrangement.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The company gets to benefit from the flattened power demand and the employees get to charge their cars. Seems like a win-win to me. The additional wear on the batteries is likely minimal considering that there will probably be many more than 6 electric cars in the lot.
I doubt $4800/yr in electricity cost savings will fully offset the charger installation and maintenance costs, but it could be close enough that it can be justified as a marketing tool or as a perk to draw employees.
Knowledge Brings Fear
> Is there a downside to this?
Duh, battery life is almost exclusively charge/discharge cycles, so the office building is putting very significant costs onto the car owners.
Right now, peak prices are during peak demand, which is typically in the afternoon. However, there are two factors that may change this over the next decade.
In many places, solar power will soon be a significant portion of the power supply, and solar production matches peak demand. Solar is a sunk cost, so any dynamic pricing is based on being able to scale back production at gas-fired plants and the like. Hence, it may be that power costs will be higher when it's dark, even if demand is lower. Expect peak prices in the evening and morning hours.
Also, as electric cars become a significant portion of the vehicles, demand for charging at night will go up significantly, so peak demand may well be at night. Utilities will certainly work to get car owners to install smart chargers that optimize charging based on power availability with the goal of a full charge by a certain time (such as when you typically leave in the morning). [And of course, by "full," that means 80% to maximize the life of the battery unless you're planning a trip.]
Of course, the combination of widespread adoption of both solar power and electric cars suggests that the optimal time to charge is during the day, but good luck getting that to work for the majority of workers.
Due to inefficiencies in electricity storage, wouldn't this result in more electric consumption? How is this not counterproductive?
Homes and smaller offices can do this too, but it would require dual pricing of electricity. The thing that stops these technologies from coming to homes is the single flat rate we all pay for electricity. If we price it like the old phone systems, peak/off peak, people would adapt and they will invest in load balancing appliances. Doing the laundry and the dishwasher at nights, cooling and storing cold water overnight to blunt the peak energy demand,... People will do all these things, if we make it worthwhile for them to do it.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Many companies lease cars to their employees. They could include some kind of battery-sharing deal in the contract. This may actually lower the price of owning the cars as they can be seen as part of the power system.
So let me guess, you're one of those "IT bridge trolls" who build and hide in indecipherable structures and hoard troves of secret passwords, holding their organization for ransom, and mumbling and grumbling to themselves.
While thinking they're pretty damn good at their job, they are actually a worst nightmare scenario waiting to happen.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Peak usage during the summer hits very late in the day, after 3PM or so and does not start to fall off until after 6PM. Off peak electricity rates therefore don't start until "evening" hits.
Assuming they tapped out your leaf between 3 and 5, then started charging it at 6, you would only be up to 80% charge by 6:30 PM using the "fast charge" option. Full charge would take over an hour to complete using a fast charger. So, your work day will likely end after 7 PM to make this work very well.
Sorry, I'm not working from 8AM to 7PM every day, nor am I going to let you discharge my car and strand me at work between 3 and 7 pm. Now if you want to supply the car.... We can talk, but I'm going to be starting work at 10 AM or something..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I'm still trying to get a second sysadmin here because I have too much critical knowledge I can't adequately pass on. My job security is ridiculous, but the business is in a precarious position: if they lose me, major production revenue streams are in jeopardy immediately. I send out e-mails to managers and coworkers with reference instructions to keep things running and make them run again if they fail, so hopefully they can hold things up and redo it from scratch (they don't have the skill or expertise to do so, but they could hire someone who can apply their own knowledge to this stuff while correcting/improving/reimplementing) if I vanish.
I need another person here who can do my job if I'm not around.
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Wrong.
The lithium batteries that are popular now, have limited cycles. You don't excpect them to be useable after 4-5 years.
But there are other kinds of batteries. My car has sodium nickel chloride batteries. It is 5 years old, and has the same capacity as new. The range has not decreased at all. The batteries are practically everlasting. So batteries do not have to wear down. A huge advantage compared to lithium, with the batteries being the most expensive part in the car. Of course there are disadvantages too - these batteries cannot be fast charged in half an hour. They need 8 hours or so - but that works for my use.
If you want to install batteries in a building, you won't need rapid charge/discharge either. Just fill a room the size of two parking spaces with batteries - and use a battery chemistry that don't wear down in the short timespan of 5 years. Lithium is light which is nice for cars - but light weight is not a concern for buildings. Nickel chloride is used in some submarines too. Longevity beats lightweight.