If batteries improve significantly and will also outlast the life of the car, that could overcome one of the biggest disadvantages of solar and wind, i.e., it’s intermittent nature that requires a full base load of conventional power to be on standby at all times.
It strikes me that the nation’s fleet of cars is an ideal storage mechanism for wind and solar generated power, especially if all were eventually plugged in to smart meters so that the car owners could specify a price they’d pay for a recharge.
Cars sit idle 90-95% of the day. If they were plugged into a smart grid then utilities could feed any surplus power from wind and solar to the cars by simply lowering the price of power at such times. Say the rate is 15 cents a kwh when the base load is up and running, then the wind picks up. Instead of cutting the base load in response (or turning of the wind mills, as is done now), just cut the price to the smart meters instead, thereby feeding the power to the smart meters set to turn on at, say, the 14 cent price. If that doesn’t absorb the excess power, cut it some more. The lesser-used cars would be sitting there waiting to absorb power at, say, a nickel or so. That is, those meters would only feed power if the utility dropped the rate to a nickel, and only for so long as the rate remained there. To allow everyone to charge that way, the meters could be programmed by the car owner to raise the acceptable price as the next drive time approached, so that the car would be fully charged by then.
Solar power, also an intermittent source, could be handled the same way.
In this way, the base load would handle traditional electric demand, with wind and solar adding to it on hot or cold days if available, but any time the base load had to be reduced, just feed the power to car storage. And those who need power regularly every day for their cars would just recharge regularly at the full rate and become part of the base load.
I realize this is all contingent on cheaper sources of wind and solar power, and on better batteries, but it would seem to address the intermittence issue.
Any thoughts on this?
I think you have some great ideas in this. Bidding for off peak power is a pretty efficient means to keep costs down... especially with storage perfected... if storage is perfected. I won’t get into the whole argument about electric cars, recharge rates and range limitations.
One other problem I see with solar and wind is dispersion of the power sources... it takes a large complex grid quite some distance from the point of use to provide this power.
Open markets for power here in Texas have so far kept the price down for consumers who shop. My last rate was about 10 cents / kwh for the last three years. I just renewed for two years at 8.2 cents / kwh... I have a 1,500 kwh/mo minimum threshold to meet to get that rate but for less it is still not bad. My home is total electric save for cook top and water heating which are both propane.
In Oklahoma I pay about 13 cents and it is going up. The Rural Electric Coop just can’t compete.
Power density of both solar and wind are too low to provide very much more power than they do now. Of the two wind is best but believe it or not there are limited locations for wind.
Sustainable base load needs to go to LiFTR type reactor technology. This could bridge into Fusion for a loooong time and that is what it will probably take for Fusion to become reality a loooong time. Even LiFTR is 25 years away in all probabiilty if it were to begin now. Every year we wait to start is another year it will take to finish. These are long term projects and trends. They will never get off the ground witout a national will and initiative such as the one Kennedy began with the space program. Such a program could not only change our future for the better and make us much more competitive it could also provide meaningful jobs and stir the national pride if we have any left at all.
i do on electric cars put a scoop on the hood with a vortex fan hooked to a alt.but that would be to simple,i’m sure they would have to hook a dozen computers to it.