Help us Elon !

[thatsbaseball]

"Just how much juice can an EV provide? The automaker says that a vehicle like the Audi e-tron can power a single-family home for about a week with its fully charged battery."

I ran across this and just thought of all the misery it could have saved if we had this technology available this week. I know the concept has been around for quite a while but is anyone getting close to marketing a storage system utilizing EV class batteries for emergency residential power ? If anyone does it will probably be Musk but just curious.

 

[msudawg12]

I call ********.

It can power a car for only a couple hundred miles but run a full home for a week? Maybe just fridge and a few lamps. Not heat/AC

 

[Mobile Bay]

"Just how much juice can an EV provide? The automaker says that a vehicle like the Audi e-tron can power a single-family home for about a week with its fully charged battery."

I ran across this and just thought of all the misery it could have saved if we had this technology available this week. I know the concept has been around for quite a while but is anyone getting close to marketing a storage system utilizing EV class batteries for emergency residential power ? If anyone does it will probably be Musk but just curious.

Tesla Powerwall has been on the market a while now.

 

[NWADawg]

"Just how much juice can an EV provide? The automaker says that a vehicle like the Audi e-tron can power a single-family home for about a week with its fully charged battery."

I ran across this and just thought of all the misery it could have saved if we had this technology available this week. I know the concept has been around for quite a while but is anyone getting close to marketing a storage system utilizing EV class batteries for emergency residential power ? If anyone does it will probably be Musk but just curious.

I've seen tesla batteries in conjunction with solar systems for houses. I've never seen them just as a backup battery.

 

[engie]

Tesla already makes powerwalls. This is essentially the same thing. But the numbers you posted are really “out there”. Gonna require a tremendously large power inverter to run a house too, in a system that’s far from lossless. My guess is on an inverter big enough to fully run a house gives you a couple of hours at best on any current ev battery.

ETA: We have done a good bit with great big self-contained inverters in golf tournaments so I have a bit of background on the topic. Some absolutely big enough to run a house for a couple of hours. The kicker being they are extremely expensive rentals and you still need a pretty big generator on that location to recharge them essentially double-pricing every spot you put one. They save a crap ton on fuel, but not enough to cover the cost. These things can be ideal when/if they start making modular battery packs that can all be taken back to a common charge location, allowing them to be stand-alone. Sorry for the tangent

ETAx2: A 36kW generator running a house on heat in this weather is going to burn 30-40 gallons of diesel per 24 hours. That can be cut to 3-5 gallons set up to recharge a powerwall/inverter setup as needed. You can do the math, but it takes a long time to pay for itself.

 

[johnson86-1]

Tesla Powerwall has been on the market a while now.

I think the Powerwall is a good bit bigger/heavier than what goes in EVs?

I would agree with msudawg12 that it doesn't seem like pushing a car for a couple hundred miles would translate to covering a house's load for a week. Seems like it's obvious it wouldn't. That's just a gut check though; don't know the numbers.

 

[thatsbaseball]

Thanks, I'm actually gonna check on one that can be charged from the grid. May not "pan out' but won't hurt to explore.

 

[thatsbaseball]

Here's the article....I don't have a clue about it's validity

https://www.autoweek.com/news/technology/a33433564/audi-wants-to-let-your-ev-power-your-home/

 

[Ralph Cramden]

If it can run a home for a week it must last a month in a car. Surely all the appliances and heat and air would be a much larger draw than pushing a car down the road at 70 mph

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

It absolutely can power a house for a week. But it would depend on your usages and whether you have gas or all electric. During a cold snap like this in the south, if you have gas heat and conserve a little, a week is doable.

I'm not conserving at all and average around 15kw per day this winter in a much colder climate. The model 3 has an 82 kw capacity. 10-12 kw per day for 7 days would be completely reasonable.... The summer would be harder because of AC relying on electricity.

View attachment 19503

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[engie]

I read through it. It's being intentionally misleading IMO.

An Audi e-tron with near-series charging technology was used in the research project. In the test grid, the fully electric Audi model operated with a DC wall box, which enables a charging capacity of up to 12 kW, and a flexibly extendable home storage unit with a capacity of 9 kWh."

This is the money quote. In which it can accomplish this "with a DC wall box" which it fails to define what is entailed. You can power anything for an infinite amount of time with an infinite number of 18650 cells in parallel...

 

[Go Budaw]

If it can run a home for a week it must last a month in a car. Surely all the appliances and heat and air would be a much larger draw than pushing a car down the road at 70 mph

You think running a compressor in a fridge or HVAC unit takes more energy than pushing a 2,500 lb hunk of metal down the road at 70 mph? Seriously?

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

It takes a lot of energy to power a car. If I remember correctly 39,000 watts equals about 50 hp. That would be enough to power about 400 modern 55" TV's.. About what DS would need during an outage. And yet, it would barely get a car down the road.

 

[engie]

.

I see where both you and the author got it lost in translation now.

82 kWh @ DC ?x?V /=/ 82kWh @ AC 120V or 240V. And the conversion is far from lossless.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

Good point on the conversion loss. 20% or so?

 

[fishwater99]

I see where both you and the author got it lost in translation now.

82 kWh @ DC ?x?V /=/ 82kWh @ AC 120V or 240V. And the conversion is far from lossless.

And how much will it cost retrofit a house's electrical to run off the batteries?

 

[Dawgsnsaints]

Was the Author from Lucedale?

 

[engie]

Good point on the conversion loss. 20% or so?

I'm not sure there's good data out there on inverters of the size needed to accomplish this. But there's a reason they aren't widespread(and you can't get very big generators in inverter style despite the amount of fuel savings they create). It was one of the first things I researched when I started current job, which runs a rental fleet of close to 1000 big diesel generators all over the country. From what I could tell at the time, the losses get worse as the amperage and heat goes up. Obviously this will be figured out and overcome at some point. Since running generators at 1800 or 3600 rpms is archaic.

 

[Dawgology]

All I know is my central heat hasnt stopped running for about 72 hours. I will have to take a loan out to pay my power bill.

 

[engie]

And how much will it cost retrofit a house's electrical to run off the batteries?

Ideally you don't retrofit anything, just run a big enough inverter to convert it... Although it would be more efficient if converted to run on DC...

ETA: In research, it looks like Tesla runs at 400v nominal. I'm sure AUDI is similar. So it's going to take a custom-built and I'm sure Tesla or Audi branded inverter to convert a "proprietary" voltage like that to AC. But it looks like Tesla's biggest pack is broken down into 16 modules of 25v each, in series. That's an easy conversion with existing 24v inverters if you separate them out.

100kWh @ 400v = 250Amps for 1 hour. Meaning each 25v module theoretically produces 250A each, in series. Which translates to about 45A for one hour at 120v per module. The average home draw right now is probably close to 200A. So, 4 modules in parallel through a monstrous 24v inverter to run a home for an hour right now. In which case Tesla's biggest pack gives you about 4 hours. I think, realistically, it would be a good bit better than this. But that's just my quick math on what an average idiot like myself could get out of it with off the shelf equipment.

Obviously there are more efficient and better ways to do this and I am looking forward to them figuring it out, and helping me understand it, going forward. But the running a house for a week thing is pie in the sky.

 

[Captain Ron]

If you avoided running the dryer and high load items, at 75kw usable it could actually run your fridge, lights (LED) etc for a long time. If you have electric heat and AC, even only running half the time at least at 3500w, I just don’t see it going for much more than a day.

If you want to reverse engineer the numbers, the battery in mine equates to 300 miles. At 240v and 30A, that equates to about 30mph of recharge and over 9 hours of charging if you started at zero. That is 7.2kwh per hour. That would give you roughly 20 hours of run time for you home AC assuming it is a smaller unit. Throw in the fridge at 200w, lights blah blah blah.. it might get you a day or so.

disclaimer, I just did public math

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

Wikipedia says its batter has a 95 kWh capacity, with 86.5 kWh usable. A week has 168 hours. That means the house is using 500 watts. What the hell kind of house only uses 500 watts?

 

[HumpDawgy]

Not sure I want this technology in my home just yet.

View attachment 19507

 

[WrapItDog]

I watched Long Way Up on Apple TV where they rode electric Harley Davidson motorcycles from the tip of South America to LA. Those battery powered Harley's sucked when it got below freezing. Range dropped to about 20 miles and all kinds of problems trying to charge them.

 

[thatsbaseball]

Damn, I had a buddy AND HIS WIFE ride their Harley's from Jackson to Anchorage and I thought they were crazy. **

 

[engie]

I watched Long Way Up on Apple TV where they rode electric Harley Davidson motorcycles from the tip of South America to LA. Those battery powered Harley's sucked when it got below freezing. Range dropped to about 20 miles and all kinds of problems trying to charge them.

Same with power tool batteries, or really any batteries. Go outside and lay your phone on a table and watch how the battery performs. And that’s apple.

But battery tech has come a long, long way. Tesla’s upcoming cells are supposed to be a game changer. We shall see.

 

[TNT.sixpack]

Ford is coming out with an F150 in the next few years that's fully electric. The marketing draw is that it can also be used to power tools and equipment at constructions sites. So i can only assume powering appliances in a house would be a no-brainer. There's been times I really would have appreciated the ability to do that when I was at a remote construction site working.

 

[engie]

Ford is coming out with an F150 in the next few years that's fully electric. The marketing draw is that it can also be used to power tools and equipment at constructions sites. So i can only assume powering appliances in a house would be a no-brainer. There's been times I really would have appreciated the ability to do that when I was at a remote construction site working.

Do you not just do it with an inverter and chargers? All of those trucks have 120 out now.

I see what you are saying, but they'll never get together to enough of an extent to really simplify/integrate it very far beyond where it's at now IMO... We shall see... As someone that's intrigued by electric while also realizing it's just not quite there yet.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

You are on it.
The 2021 F-150 hybrid is the best of both worlds. 430 ho, 570 lbs of torque, 20+ mpg, 30 gallon fuel tank , and a 7.2KW generator built in including 30 amp service. 750+ miles of range.

In 10 years battery tech may allow for heavy towing at decent range for all electric, but for now this hybrid is the deal. I might give it another year or 2 to work out the kinks, but I am getting one pretty soon.

 

[thatsbaseball]

And I'm sure it's reasonably priced. **

 

[RBDog82]

I’m on the list for TSLA solar panels and Powerwall as soon as it becomes available in MS.

 

[patdog]

I've looked into it. Payback for me would be close to 30 years, and that's only for the incremental cost over a standard roof and taking tax incentives into credit. So looks like no solar roof for me.

 

[thatsbaseball]

In the brief reading I did it looked liked the batteries could also be charged from the grid. Can you buy just the charger & batteries (no solar) just for emergency power ?

 

[engie]

In the brief reading I did it looked liked the batteries could also be charged from the grid. Can you buy just the charger & batteries (no solar) just for emergency power ?

You are now asking the right question. Congrats on stumbling down that wormhole. Hope you aren’t busy for a couple of hours if you are like me in these things. A whole bunch of full tutorials of home made power walls out there using salvaged 18650 cells. Probably so popular now that it’s very difficult to impossible to salvage enough of the cells to really get ahead. I’ve been saving them for years in old laptop batteries, etc that are thusfar unused. But have become determined to use them as external power sources on deer cameras and feeders in the last week or two and have done a ton of research on it. It’s insanely simple with cheap parts.

 

[dudehead]

I’m on the list for TSLA solar panels and Powerwall as soon as it becomes available in MS.

Curious: Did you look into their solar shingles as well? I will soon need a new roof and I know they are expensive, but...

 

[SheltonChoked]

Ideally you don't retrofit anything, just run a big enough inverter to convert it... Although it would be more efficient if converted to run on DC...

ETA: In research, it looks like Tesla runs at 400v nominal. I'm sure AUDI is similar. So it's going to take a custom-built and I'm sure Tesla or Audi branded inverter to convert a "proprietary" voltage like that to AC. But it looks like Tesla's biggest pack is broken down into 16 modules of 25v each, in series. That's an easy conversion with existing 24v inverters if you separate them out.

100kWh @ 400v = 250Amps for 1 hour. Meaning each 25v module theoretically produces 250A each, in series. Which translates to about 45A for one hour at 120v per module. The average home draw right now is probably close to 200A. So, 4 modules in parallel through a monstrous 24v inverter to run a home for an hour right now. In which case Tesla's biggest pack gives you about 4 hours. I think, realistically, it would be a good bit better than this. But that's just my quick math on what an average idiot like myself could get out of it with off the shelf equipment.

Obviously there are more efficient and better ways to do this and I am looking forward to them figuring it out, and helping me understand it, going forward. But the running a house for a week thing is pie in the sky.

How big is your house? You say you need a 14Kw generator and you use 200 amp service. My house only has 200 amp service and my peak usage is about 60 kwh/day.

You know that the power wall in on the market now? https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/solar-inverter/tesla-solar-inverter. The inverter Efficiency is 97.5%.
Installed and no one has near the size you think you need for your house. Are you running arc sodium lights everywhere?

 

[bulldogcountry1]

I’ve liked the idea of solar panels for years, but it just isn’t cheap enough yet. I check into it every couple years, and it’s still 20+ years to break even. What’s the chance the panels even least that long? It doesn’t make sense, and you would have to have a battery backup for situations like what is going on now.

I always come back to the fact that a battery bank the charges off the grid and could power about 50% of my home for 3 days would be just fine 99.95% of the time.

But I can do something close to that now with my $400 generator.

 

[dudehead]

I've looked into it. Payback for me would be close to 30 years, and that's only for the incremental cost over a standard roof and taking tax incentives into credit. So looks like no solar roof for me.

The last time I ran the numbers, the payback was way out there too, and that was with a 30% tax credit. My hope has been that the tech would really advance and make it a must buy but that has not happened yet, that I know of.

 

[engie]

How big is your house? You say you need a 14Kw generator and you use 200 amp service. My house only has 200 amp service and my peak usage is about 60 kwh/day.

You know that the power wall in on the market now? https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/solar-inverter/tesla-solar-inverter. The inverter Efficiency is 97.5%.
Installed and no one has near the size you think you need for your house. Are you running arc sodium lights everywhere?

I'm playing with average numbers posted out on the internet, not my actual consumption, which I don't rightfully know. I didn't say anything about a 14kw generator so I have no idea where you are coming with that. A 200A service translates to a ~ 30KW generator with power factors. Bigger than a 20kW anyway. Most people can run almost everything on a 20, if they do a decent job of load balancing both hots on the 240.

If you are only using 2500 watts average on the average day, you can run your entire home on a honda 3000. That consumption is about 1/8 of what I'd consider average. It won't even consider running electric heat. Nor will it run even the smallest AC and microwave at the same time. The discussion began in the current situation. Which assumes relief from a worst case scenario for electricity usage. Not a 70* day in May, like you are apparently using right now, or a majority natural gas home with a limited number of uber-efficient appliances...

And Tesla is using creative wording in that inverter language for efficiency, when the whole system is something like 30% efficient. Although in research these high voltage DC inverters are infinitely more efficient than the ones I'm used to dealing with converting 12 or 24v AC and was a good find on your part. Makes it much more doable.

It's not rare, in good times, for my group to presumably use 20-30 kWh at a big tailgate. 10 hours @ > 2000w with two 2000i's load sharing on 4-5 crock pots, two tvs, fans, pellet grill, etc...

 

[SheltonChoked]

I'm playing with average numbers posted out on the internet, not my actual consumption, which I don't rightfully know. I didn't say anything about a 14kw generator so I have no idea where you are coming with that. A 200A service translates to a ~ 30KW generator with power factors. Bigger than a 20kW anyway. Most people can run almost everything on a 20, if they do a decent job of load balancing both hots on the 240.

If you are only using 2500 watts average on the average day, you can run your entire home on a honda 3000. That consumption is about 1/8 of what I'd consider average. It won't even consider running electric heat. Nor will it run even the smallest AC and microwave at the same time. The discussion began in the current situation. Which assumes relief from a worst case scenario for electricity usage. Not a 70* day in May, like you are apparently using right now, or a majority natural gas home with a limited number of uber-efficient appliances...

And Tesla is using creative wording in that inverter language for efficiency, when the whole system is something like 30% efficient. Although in research these high voltage DC inverters are infinitely more efficient than the ones I'm used to dealing with converting 12 or 24v AC and was a good find on your part. Makes it much more doable.

It's not rare, in good times, for my group to presumably use 20-30 kWh at a big tailgate. 10 hours @ > 2000w with two 2000i's load sharing on 4-5 crock pots, two tvs, fans, pellet grill, etc...

My bAd it was a 36KW generator for a house. 14 is about right for a big whole house unit.

ETAx2: A 36kW generator running a house on heat in this weather is going to burn 30-40 gallons of diesel per 24 hours. That can be cut to 3-5 gallons set up to recharge a powerwall/inverter setup as needed. You can do the math, but it takes a long time to pay for itself.

Unless you have a huge house like 10,000 sq ft, you are doing something dumb to max out 200 amp service, much less average 200 amp draw.