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To: Tell It Right

Rather than a EV car think about hydrogen powered BMW and others have made them feasible much cheaper in the long term.


74 posted on 04/25/2022 8:19:02 AM PDT by Vaduz ( )
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To: Vaduz
"Rather than a EV car think about hydrogen powered BMW and others have made them feasible much cheaper in the long term."

If I didn't have a large solar system I'd consider a HEV. But with having pre-paid electricity from solar, charging a BEV is more practical than using that electricity to run an electrolyzer to generate hydrogen and store it to pump into a HEV. The last I read the round trip to run an electrolyzer to generate hydrogen, store it, then retrieve the electricity from the fuel cell when I need it loses 40% to 60% of the power. But when my home solar batteries I get about 95% of what I put into them (round trip). Once I put that into a BEV, which would involved converting DC to AC to run my normal charger, then AC to DC within the car to charge the car's battery, I believe I'd have an overall efficiency of 85% to 90%.

That may not be good for a cross country trip like a HEV can do with just a couple of fill ups (assuming you can find a couple of hydrogen stations along the way). But it's great for running a BEV ~200 miles per week on average, the BEV getting 300 miles on a max charge, let's say it's more like 270 miles because nothing is as good as advertised, and that's assuming charging the BEV to 100% instead of 80% like they suggest, so now let's say it's 205 miles per charge. Then if you don't like letting the BEV get below 100 miles left on charge let's say I need it charged at least every 3 days. That means I can go 2 days in a row with rain (no solar power) before I give up and charge it from a charger that is constantly powered (read: increase my power bill if no solar is making it free).

Anytime I come home with over 100 miles left on the charge I'll plug my BEV into a charger outlet that's powered only when my solar system has about 80% charge in the home batteries (meaning way more than I need to power my house through the night without pulling power from the utility). Thus my BEV will be charged for a while with pre-paid power from the solar system (it's free, but it cost money up front), then quit being charged when the home solar batteries' charge drops below 80%. Then if I stay home the next day, around noon or 1 PM on a sunny day my home solar batteries will be charged 80% and my EV will go back to automatically being charged by my solar system's automatic trigger.

I'm expecting the end result to be that about 90% of all power I consume to be free from solar, including powering the house and charging the EV. This past year 57% of all power I consumed was free with my current system in my two-story all-electric house. My current system would pay for itself on about the 10th year. My upgrade with EV cost (as opposed to buying and gassing up a used car every now and then) will pay for itself on about the 12th or 13th year.

And by "pay for itself" I'm including paying the interest on the HELOC I took out to fund all of that. Think of the HELOC and interest as a fixed payment part of my budget, replacing the unpredictable costs I used to have to provide energy to my house and gas up a car to drive it ~200 miles per week.

83 posted on 04/25/2022 9:01:18 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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