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CloneEngineer t1_j1l12g8 wrote

I'm interested in how fast charging infrastructure gets implemented. Charging at 500 kw/vehicle means a service station with 16 vehicles could put 8MW swings on the grid. That's somewhat substantive.

Multiply times a few charge stations and that could impose maximum 100MW swings.on a grid. Now, that's worse case scenario, it's pretty unlikely you go from 200 vehicles charging to 0. The most likely number is probably 20MW swings.

I see each station having a few MW-hrs of batteries as distributed storage. That way the batteries are trickle charged continuously and the peak loading is essentially behind the meter / off grid.

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infinitenothing t1_j1l2azz wrote

And then offer better rates off peak... the station might be a power plant of a sorts on its own.

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CloneEngineer t1_j1l2uu5 wrote

What's really.interesting - if you think about the California duck.curve - peak pricing is likely overnight and midday prices on a sunny day should be very low as there could be an excess of renewable power.

Having lots of battery storage produces interesting electrical arbitrage opportunities.

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infinitenothing t1_j1napv1 wrote

Car batteries also serve as a possible arbitrage opportunities. You could show the user real time pricing on their dash and maybe they'll stop in.

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CloneEngineer t1_j1ngnpa wrote

Very true. I think the big time arbitrage options are for vehicles that don't operate much. School buses Tractors / agricultural vehicles Delivery trucks Rental cars / fleet vehicles.

Just think about using school buses to power the grid. They generally don't operate at peak demand (6p in the summer). They are already distributed geographically and would have large batteries.

Most combines only operate 1x per year.

Suddenly these vehicles have an entire new use case.

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bostontransplant t1_j1lqljy wrote

Energy storage aka Megapacks at the site

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CloneEngineer t1_j1ma3qm wrote

Right concept, but there's likely better battery chemistry choices because the energy density is less critical on fixed units. It's all about cost and number of charging cycles.

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