Expanding Offgrid system with electric or plug in hybrid car?

[CaySol]

It doesn't need to charge it back up quickly, it just needs to cover the minimum base load for a bit until your normal stuff comes back to charge it up. If you have more than a 1500w base load in an emergency, I don't know what to tell you.

Emergency I can shed my big loads and then I’m down to 700w base(fridge internet tv etc) but I don’t want rainy days to be an emergency where we need to lifestyle change. So I would like to be able to dump the ev battery into my bank fairly quickly so we can go on as normal, and be able to go for a drive as well.

 

[CaySol]

I was only talking for emergencies. Certainly not intending to use an expensive PHEV as a permanent generator. For emergencies, they are fantastic, because you can actually count on it to turn on and work with minimal hassle and it should be easy for other people to use with simple instruction.

I’m thinking pure ev would be better because you can just used the battery as an energy dump for any excess solar. Bigger the vehicle battery the better.

 

[cs1234]

Emergency I can shed my big loads and then I’m down to 700w base(fridge internet tv etc) but I don’t want rainy days to be an emergency where we need to lifestyle change. So I would like to be able to dump the ev battery into my bank fairly quickly so we can go on as normal, and be able to go for a drive as well.

That still leaves 800w to pump back into the batteries to cover what I assume are larger loads that turn on/off. More power available is always better, I just wouldn't look an easy 1500w continuous in the mouth.

 

[cs1234]

I’m thinking pure ev would be better because you can just used the battery as an energy dump for any excess solar. Bigger the vehicle battery the better.

But then you are carrying around a gigantic, expensive, EV battery all the time when you don't need the size and weight. I prefer small vehicles though, so really large battery packs aren't an easy option.

Using batteries as a dump for excess solar only lasts so long, then you have a filled up battery and excess solar. Unless you are planning to drive that car around all the time to burn off the excess solar for giggles.

The nice thing about a hybrid is that you don't have to have any excess solar to get energy back from it.. the excess solar was collected millions of years ago and you can now release it back into the ecosystem again at a time of your choosing.

 

[chill633]

I love the idea of V2X, but until cars have a standard easily replaceable common battery type, it seems like an expensive proposition. You're going to wear down highly expensive, difficult to replace batteries / vehicle charging circuitry that have an expensive vehicle built around them vs wearing down some presumably much cheaper easier to replace stationary batteries.

It's like the difference between replacing the entirety of a window AC unit vs the entirety of an automotive AC system.

In actual practice, the stationary batteries are much more expensive than they should be, but that's a regulatory problem vs the much more complicated issue with trying to standardize / make easier to service a vehicle battery issue.

You don't have to worry about "wearing down" your car battery. I've heard this argument, but it doesn't math out. GM claims that their Ultium packs (as an example) will retain over 90% charge at 1,000 cycles. That's full 50-200 kWh cycle, every day, for three years. Backup battery for V2H isn't going to be doing anything near that level of cycle. Who is using 50+ kWh per day from their battery -- EVERY DAY?

And I'd argue that recent data shows the standard battery cycle testing is way too pessimistic. The test cycles are full charge-discharge cycles, which isn't how people use their cars -- or usually their solar backup batteries. Real-world numbers from Hyundai show 99.8+% battery level after 3 years of customer usage.

Note: This does NOT apply to a Nissan Leaf or Mitsubishi iMEV. They're special.

 

[cs1234]

You don't have to worry about "wearing down" your car battery. I've heard this argument, but it doesn't math out. GM claims that their Ultium packs (as an example) will retain over 90% charge at 1,000 cycles. That's full 50-200 kWh cycle, every day, for three years. Backup battery for V2H isn't going to be doing anything near that level of cycle. Who is using 50+ kWh per day from their battery -- EVERY DAY?

And I'd argue that recent data shows the standard battery cycle testing is way too pessimistic. The test cycles are full charge-discharge cycles, which isn't how people use their cars -- or usually their solar backup batteries. Real-world numbers from Hyundai show 99.8+% battery level after 3 years of customer usage.

Like I mentioned earlier, it's not the battery cells failing that I'm worried about. It's the liquid coolant systems, inverters and other electronics. Some hard to get to proprietary part that costs 100 times what it actually costs to produce is what's going to fail, and of course it will fail either outside warranty, or wasn't covered by warranty for this purpose anyway.

EDIT.. don't get me wrong, all vehicles with drivetrain batteries should have a way to get energy into or out of the battery from a plug.
EDIT2.. also, a hybrid drive train is more likely to encounter failures than a pure EV drive train.. just by nature of the ICE in it.

 

[pollenface]

Charging the car is easy. OP is in Sweden and wants to use the vehicle battery as an extension on the system to power the home.

You're right, i didn't read it properly before answering.

 

[chill633]

Like I mentioned earlier, it's not the battery cells failing that I'm worried about. It's the liquid coolant systems, inverters and other electronics. Some hard to get to proprietary part that costs 100 times what it actually costs to produce is what's going to fail, and of course it will fail either outside warranty, or wasn't covered by warranty for this purpose anyway.

EDIT.. don't get me wrong, all vehicles with drivetrain batteries should have a way to get energy into or out of the battery from a plug.
EDIT2.. also, a hybrid drive train is more likely to encounter failures than a pure EV drive train.. just by nature of the ICE in it.

Maybe. The maintenance schedule for my Hyundai Ioniq 6 calls for changing the coolant at 120,000 miles. The car has a maximum instantaneous power draw of 168 kW, which is 210A at 800V -- LOTS more than is going to be drawn by me just flooring it than ever being used as a standby battery. Most everything I've seen in V2H so far is in the neighborhood of 19.2 kW at 240V, so 80A max. The car's ICCU might be the weakest point -- especially Hyundai -- but the actual usage of an EV as a backup battery to a home PV system is such a mild use compared to actually driving the car, I'm skeptical of it having any noticeable impact at all. Neither Ford nor GM mention potential issues with their systems. I think the issue is simply lack of real-world data.

 

[Recovering EE]

I got the chargeverter as backup as well but my EV has small ac outlets. 1500W. So it will take a while to charge my bank.

I've also got an e-GMP archetecture Hyundai Ioniq 5, with a V2L adapter. I'm in the process of building a small-ish PV system, using a 120V 3kW AIO I bought for cheap at Walmart ($369), as a buffer between the vehicle and critical loads.

I'm planning to set it up initially with 5kWh of AGM PbA, which I already have, as well as 1.5kW of PV, that I already have. I'm putting the inverter and batteries on a cart, that I already have. Seeing all that useful equipment just sitting around, unused, was really bugging me.

In an emergency, I can hook the Ioniq 5's 1.5kW 120V 60Hz AC outlet to the AIO, to keep the batteries happy 24/7 (regardless of sun), and hook critical loads up to the AIO. That way, the critical loads can surge to 3kW, without tripping the protection in the Ioniq. Think using a 1000W microwave, and the fridge compressor starts up. Oops!

It will (hopefully) prevent me from needing to be constantly swapping extension cords between refrigerators (we've got three), when I want to zap something in the microwave.

Similar functionality as a Chargeverter, plus PV input, for about half the price of a Chargeverter (which is on backorder anyway).

Now, we'll see how well this cheap Chinese Walmart crap holds up...