The article below is 7 months old. I know there are other CACOR members watching this technology mature with similar anticipation.
Tesla promises cars that connect to the grid, even if Elon Musk doesn’t really want them to – The Verge
My Tesla Model 3 has a 82 kWh battery which is twice the size of my home battery at 40 kWh. Together the 120 kWh would give more microgrid options as well as other grid energy options that include:
1. Increased home owner time to survive during a short term grid outage (days).
2. Participation in grid stability both locally and with aggregation to a much larger community.
3. Become a cash flow upgrade with more energy sales to the grid.
4. Have much more capacity to handle current demands from starting electric motors.
5. Be able to optimize how much energy I save for my use and how much I assign to grid sales. This is dynamic and needs human or AI intervention.
6. It makes the EV an emergency energy carrier to a distant disaster.
7. As an energy transport vehicle the options abound. Power when camping, when stranded in the wild, recharge hundreds of cellular telephones, etc. Just imagine all the uses you have for AA batteries can be satisfied but many times the quantity. The beauty is the functionality that permits drive away to a local or distant solar or other recharge point to top up and return to serve the mission.
8. Collaboration with many other microgrids, say 2,000, means the equivalent of a SMR with storage. Power to the hospital, fire station, police depot and the refrigerators at the grocery shop at the same time. Add mobility in energy delivery means the hospital or other vital power load could be sustained for months.
9. The lessons from hurricane disasters like Haiti can all be addressed. I am reminded of my radio amateur days when this amateur communications grid would step up to the plate when all else failed. Moving energy around has multiple uses.
10. Creative thinking will find more. Adaptation has many pathways to many end points.
My microgrid is ready for this added functionality. All I need is for Tesla to upgrade my EV and powerwall software and another cable. My 200 amp circuit breaker panel is 0.5 meters from the EV charge port. They look at each other for hours every day with a desire to integrate.
Elon Musk has the authority to make this match a real thing.
This would drive the IESO (Ontario Grid operator) into doing what is evolving in New York and California.
At this point I would settle for only increased battery capacity. I could even build a suitable switching platform using a spare Raspberry Pi computer.
Art
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