
Solar energy companies in California deploy batteries to homes to stablize grid - prostoalex
https://qz.com/1288623/solar-energy-companies-are-using-california-homes-as-batteries-to-power-the-grid/
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vasco
If you get one of these batteries with the main goal being backup power for
your own home in case the grid goes down, why would you ever join such a
program? Presumably, if you tie your battery to the grid, and there's some
sort of issue with main backbone generation, the grid would pull from your
battery for what it thinks is a temporary issue, after which all power would
be gone, and now your backup has been drained.

This effectively means that the only people that would join are people who
would be paid to do so, but then that introduces the question of whether it
isn't simply cheaper and more efficient for power companies to just deploy
larger scale batteries that they control, rather than pay random people to put
them in their own - much more uncontrolled - homes.

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inputcoffee
It sounds like these companies are providing frequency modulation, and
smoothing our the renewable power signals with the batteries.

So the user still enjoys - and pays for - the storage component while the
utility enjoys and pays for the frequency reg.

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Faaak
I like the european ancillary services model. In Switzerland for example (It's
the one I know quite well), it's the TSO role to keep the grid stable; in this
case Swissgrid.

Swissgrid then passes on the costs of this stabilization to the consumers.

This stabilization is made by 3 main services: primary, secondary, and
tertiary control (the level indicates the response time: instantaneous, 10s,
15 min). Anyone can be a ancillary services operator if they are big enough
(5MW of control), and if they respect certain rules (must be audited, etc.).

Then, when there is a need of control, a bid is created and the cheapest
operators win the bid, effectively earning money (as a rule of thumb, you can
earn ~20kCHF/year if you offer 1 MW of tertiary control power). It's much more
for secondary.

This model effectively makes the industries want to stabilize the grid either
by consuming more, or consuming less when there is a need of grid
stabilization. I would really want to see how much tesla will earn with their
site in belgium, because their marginal cost of control must be quite small.

PS: sorry for the english

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walrus01
as a potential owner of a solar home with large (DIY) powerwall type storage:
I am not a fan of this idea. I know how cycle life and cycle depth affects the
overall lifespan of LiIon, LiPo and LiFePo4 type batteries. I want to control
how many times my home cycles its batteries from full down to 10-15%, how
deeply it can discharge, etc.

I do not want some remote agency controlling the discharge of my home battery,
except in a miraculous future scenario where we invent batteries that are good
for 20,000 deep cycles with <5% degradation over 20+ years.

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olivermarks
Once off grid solar battery tech is mature it will transform the housing
market. Hoping the utility bureaucrats and their captive politicians don't
destroy this opportunity by commandeering our batteries

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49bc
I have a hard time believing this. There's simply not enough lithium in the
world to support every house having its own battery, let alone support all of
the EVs coming into production.

Besides, there's genuine benefit being hooked up to the grid. I'll gladly pay
the $10/month interconnection fee just to have that as a backup to my battery.

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woodandsteel
There is plenty of lithium. Reserves are low because until recently demand was
low and so no one bothered to go and look for more. And then there is
virtually unlimited lithium in the ocean, which costs more to get, but would
still be a small part of battery costs.

The bigger problem is cobalt,but from what I understand people are working on
various alternatives.

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49bc
Because of SGIP[1], you can basically get a powerwall for free right now in CA
depending on the circumstances. However, the requirements for the program all
but guarantees it will use up the life of your storage system.

Tesla's powerwall at least allows you to do things like set reserve levels to
15% or 30% to make sure you're not cycling your battery too aggressively, but
if you don't meet the required 57 full discharges a year they'll disable
features like this automatically. In other words you own it, but you don't
control it.

1\. [http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/sgip/](http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/sgip/)

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olivermarks
Hawaii is the place to watch, they just changed utility law to recognize how
much their grid use models have changed
[https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2018/04/hawaii-
reforms...](https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2018/04/hawaii-reforms-how-
electric-utilities-get-paid-opening-options-for-home-solar-and-batteries/)

Battery tech is still very immature though, and a significant persistent fire
risk if damaged, as is the case with electric vehicles.

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krn1p4n1c
Why aren't the electric cars being tapped as a battery for the house/grid
while plugged in?

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49bc
Some cars (such as the Leaf) already supports this in a "vehicle-to-the-home"
type system. I think the problem is largely bureaucratic and not technical.

Besides, I want my battery to last a long time, not necessarily be sacrificed
to the grid.

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xg15
So once all batteries are set up, what happens if some hacker discharges them
all at once?

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opencl
The exact same thing that would happen today if some hacker ramped up
production from a natural gas plant. Either the rest of the grid would respond
by ramping down production or voltage/frequency would go out of whack.

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xg15
Makes sense. The one difference is see is the speed which you could ramp up
the power and the amount of current you can draw.

Even the fastest gas plant presumably needs a few seconds to power up - enough
time for the network to react. Additionaly, the maximum power and current it
can deliver is generally known.

In contrast, the plan linked here basically proposes to build a giant
distributed capacitor bank - with ever-growing capacity.

From what I understand, purpose-built large capacitor banks are used to
generate very short pulses of enormously large currents - e.g. to power
experimental lasers, railguns or similar.

Maybe my imagination runs wild here, but I see no reason a hacker with
appropriate access couldn't do something similar - e.g. command all batteries
to unload with the largest possible churrent at once and setup switches in
such a way the current from all batteries is directed to a particular
location.

I'm don't know what you could do with the resulting pulse but probably nothing
good.

