Two years of simulations show that very close to 100% renewable electricity is affordable and feasible for Australia’s main grid, using just a few hours of battery storage.
Are plans being made to tie BEVs into this on a national scale?
Not much yet from the government itself, but it’s a known opportunity. Smarter grids and changes in utility and customer behaviour (demand response, i.e. shifting demand to when power is cheapest and most abundant) would help a lot, and vehicle and house batteries would contribute to that.
Although I’ll add that part of the point of the article is that even with zero storage you don’t need much fossil supply, and that just supplying a large amount of wind and solar can massively cut our electricity emissions. Whereas focusing on the challenges of the last 1-2% too much can get us bogged down in the longer term problems, when we can address the immediate issue today. That doesn’t mean that the longer term problems should be ignored, of course.
I’ve heard a lot about how the grid can use my vehicle’s battery for storage and how this will be hugely beneficial for the grid. However, I’ve never heard anyone explain why I would want to participate.
The grid gets valuable energy storage, adds a bunch of wear to the battery I had to pay for, and I get…?
Demand management is much easier to make a case for and probably much simpler to implement. I get cheaper electricity on my EV charging circuit but the power company gets to turn it on and off. The grid gets demand management, I get cheaper power. I’ll still be charged the next day, I don’t care that my car was turned off for a couple of hours.
yeah, I think that is what i like about it. it show a ‘realistic’ renewables input, and looks at what you need from a storage and “other” to maintain the grid. then scores the renewable as a percentage.
Not much yet from the government itself, but it’s a known opportunity. Smarter grids and changes in utility and customer behaviour (demand response, i.e. shifting demand to when power is cheapest and most abundant) would help a lot, and vehicle and house batteries would contribute to that.
Although I’ll add that part of the point of the article is that even with zero storage you don’t need much fossil supply, and that just supplying a large amount of wind and solar can massively cut our electricity emissions. Whereas focusing on the challenges of the last 1-2% too much can get us bogged down in the longer term problems, when we can address the immediate issue today. That doesn’t mean that the longer term problems should be ignored, of course.
I’ve heard a lot about how the grid can use my vehicle’s battery for storage and how this will be hugely beneficial for the grid. However, I’ve never heard anyone explain why I would want to participate.
The grid gets valuable energy storage, adds a bunch of wear to the battery I had to pay for, and I get…?
Demand management is much easier to make a case for and probably much simpler to implement. I get cheaper electricity on my EV charging circuit but the power company gets to turn it on and off. The grid gets demand management, I get cheaper power. I’ll still be charged the next day, I don’t care that my car was turned off for a couple of hours.
yeah, I think that is what i like about it. it show a ‘realistic’ renewables input, and looks at what you need from a storage and “other” to maintain the grid. then scores the renewable as a percentage.