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Electric Yellow Schoolbus Will Try To Make Vehicle
Electric Yellow Schoolbus Will Try To Make Vehicle To Grid Power Work
The renewable power grid of the future needs energy storage and lots of it. Many have been attracted to an idea called “Vehicle to Grid” (V2G) as a possible solution. The idea is that the giant fleets of electric cars that are coming have tons of spare battery capacity. With the right gear, if they are plugged in when the grid needs power, they can quickly provide that power and get a good price for it. No need to build massive grid batteries — just use the batteries already being deployed. slotpg
Now a new partnership between Zūm and AutoGrid wants to make this happen not with cars, but with a coming fleet of electric school buses. The theory is the electric school bus needs a big battery (it’s a bus) but only drives for an hour or two in the morning, and again in the afternoon. Otherwise it sits around — plugged in — and can help the grid. Can it? The answer is “maybe.”
The challenge that faces V2G is that the grid needs help very specifically from 4pm to 9pm, and most of all around 7pm on hot summer evenings. That’s not only the time of the most electrical demand, as people return home, offices and stores are still running, and air conditioning load is very high. It’s also the time when all the solar panels have shut down. The worst thing happens — the grid needs the most power, and it can’t get it from photovoltaic solar. We’re going to build a lot of solar, because it’s now the cheapest power you can build, and we’ll build enough to handle that load from 4pm until the sun starts fading. We’ll even wastefully point the panels west just so they can do the most at that time of day, throwing away their power in the morning. We may also build solar thermal plans, which cost way more than solar panels, but keep churning into the night.
The renewable power grid of the future needs energy storage and lots of it. Many have been attracted to an idea called “Vehicle to Grid” (V2G) as a possible solution. The idea is that the giant fleets of electric cars that are coming have tons of spare battery capacity. With the right gear, if they are plugged in when the grid needs power, they can quickly provide that power and get a good price for it. No need to build massive grid batteries — just use the batteries already being deployed. slotpg
Now a new partnership between Zūm and AutoGrid wants to make this happen not with cars, but with a coming fleet of electric school buses. The theory is the electric school bus needs a big battery (it’s a bus) but only drives for an hour or two in the morning, and again in the afternoon. Otherwise it sits around — plugged in — and can help the grid. Can it? The answer is “maybe.”
The challenge that faces V2G is that the grid needs help very specifically from 4pm to 9pm, and most of all around 7pm on hot summer evenings. That’s not only the time of the most electrical demand, as people return home, offices and stores are still running, and air conditioning load is very high. It’s also the time when all the solar panels have shut down. The worst thing happens — the grid needs the most power, and it can’t get it from photovoltaic solar. We’re going to build a lot of solar, because it’s now the cheapest power you can build, and we’ll build enough to handle that load from 4pm until the sun starts fading. We’ll even wastefully point the panels west just so they can do the most at that time of day, throwing away their power in the morning. We may also build solar thermal plans, which cost way more than solar panels, but keep churning into the night.