The Acadia Center policy-wonks seem to think that by 2030 the RGGI signatory states of northeast (including NY) can be running the grid, with 57% renewables. Under that scenario they are envisioning 20% of transportation energy will have been replaced by clean energy, and 30% of building energy (including plug loads, lights, AC, but heat pumps too) would be from clean energy. Lots of tabs to clicks for details (none of which take a deep dive into their analysis- but these folks aren't mere armchair analysts like me.), starting here:


http://2030.acadiacenter.org/

http://2030.acadiacenter.org/electric-generation/

http://2030.acadiacenter.org/transportation/

http://2030.acadiacenter.org/buildings/

http://2030.acadiacenter.org/grid-modernization/

A NY-ISO specific view starts here:

http://2030.acadiacenter.org/regions/new-york-region/

Some details of the analysis here (but still not very deep into the weeds.):

http://2030.acadiacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Acadia-Center-EnergyVision-2030-Technical-Appendix-05092017.pdf

Piling on to just how quickly necessary batteries for managing "the electrification of everything" scenarios are dropping in price, OPEC & Wall Street (and some oil-majors) have revised their electric vehicle projections RADICALLY upward in just the past year:

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/everyone-is-revising-electric-vehicle-forecasts-upward

Elon Musk is projecting that half of all new cars in the US will be EVs by 2027:

https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-50-new-cars-will-electric-10-years-no-steering-wheel-20-years/

Problems I see:

Car batteries are only good for so many cycles. I would not allow the grid to use a cycle of my battery, not even once, let alone everyday.

A electric car is like a cell phone. We all keep it charged so it is ready when we need it because we never know when we will.

Current infrastructure of car charging doesn't allow charging and discharging through the EVSE and the car itself doesn't allow it.

Car manufactures aren't going to warrantee and replace a battery because it was being used to power your house.

One solution might be to have the Government mandate all large battery's have 10% reserved for grid use and the owner could only use 90% of the charge.

It is apparent that many commenting on this thread have never owned a electric car. Once you own one you think different, I do.

None of those are really issues that will much matter in 15 years.

Cycling degradation is seeing year on year incremental improvements as the technology matures. But sure, they will still lose peak current and total capacity eventually. And if they PAID you sufficiently for use of the battery ... ??? Not that they will have to pay much, given that:

Used EV batteries still have the capacity to be employed as grid batteries even LONG after they have lost the ability deliver enough peak current to make your P85D go from 0-60 mph in 3.1 seconds.

Used EV batteries suitable for grid batteries or home storage will already be CHEAP 20 minutes after EVs are 50% of the US car market, which is Musk's 2027 projection. He could be wrong on the timing, but it won't be THAT wrong.

And by then NEW EV batteries will be cheap enough that many people (maybe not you) would be willing to take money from the utility to use it for grid services, within reasonable limits (to be set in the standard contracts.)

The state of charging infrastructure and utility regulatory environments or what the capability of current model cars to export to the grid (or not) is completely irrelevant to the "electrification of everything" environment.

But even without export capability on the car, smart car chargers can (and have) turned fleets of EVs into grid resources capable of providing frequency & voltage stabilization services, and to take up excess mid-day PV on the grid. This technology exists today, and where utility regulations allow it's being done. The Los Angeles Air Force Base has had a fleet of EVs and smart chargers being used to provide ancillary services (2- way power flows) to the grid for a few years now. (https://www.princetonpower.com/pdf-new/LAAFB_Case_StudyC.pdf , https://building-microgrid.lbl.gov/projects/los-angeles-air-force-base-vehicle-grid ) They're essentially getting the energy for free, and are earning another ~$100 per car per year for the ancillary services.

As California adds ever PV to the grid the mid-day backfeeding or ramping-to-peak issues (the famous CAISO "duck curve") will be a serious grid managment problem by 2025, maybe even 2020, and there would be ample arbitrage opportunity or energy discount for smart car-chargers or home batteries taking up the mid-day excess at low (or even negative) mid-day pricing rather than having to simply curtail the PV output.

Posted By newbostonconst on 18 Jul 2017 02:58 PM
Problems I see:

Car batteries are only good for so many cycles. I would not allow the grid to use a cycle of my battery, not even once, let alone everyday.

A electric car is like a cell phone. We all keep it charged so it is ready when we need it because we never know when we will.

Current infrastructure of car charging doesn't allow charging and discharging through the EVSE and the car itself doesn't allow it.

Car manufactures aren't going to warrantee and replace a battery because it was being used to power your house.

One solution might be to have the Government mandate all large battery's have 10% reserved for grid use and the owner could only use 90% of the charge.

It is apparent that many commenting on this thread have never owned a electric car. Once you own one you think different, I do.

I agree with you, I own 3 electric cars, 1 ccASHP in my office I monitor, a few geo systems which I also monitor. The data we have is striking, and made me start this thread. For me it is not thesible to put in ccASHP in NYS climate on a large scale, given how the ccASHP performs compared to the geo system during peak heating load times. We simply won't have enough electric capacity, and the cost for building it is too high.

Posted By Dana1 on 06 Jul 2017 09:15 PM


Like you, I'm more than just a bit skeptical about the economics of the thermal battery/ ice storage tank folks, but threw it out there simply as an existence proof that ice storage is being done in space heating apps, not just cooling apps. They claim it's cheaper and more efficient than drilling for it and using standard GSHP + PV, but I've never seen them show the math.

I don’t know, you seem to throw a lot of things out there, and there is not much substance to it. Maybe you could be a bit more constructive and actually add something of merit to the subject.

Posted By Dana1 on 06 Jul 2017 09:15 PM


The 561 kwh of storage per house is too ridiculously overstated to take seriously. Large temperature differences between the land mass and the ocean quite literally guarantees off shore and near shore wind capacity. Reality is probably on the order of 10% of that number, which is roughly one used mid-sized Tesla P65 battery or at most 25%.

How would you power a 2 ton mini split ccASHP to heat a 60,000 BTU/H house when it is -6F outside, you need about 3 of them if not more, going through the defrost cycle, running at a COP of 1, that is about 17.5 KW per hour, that is about 32 hour cold span, only for heating, no other energy use in the house, if done with ASHPs. No electric car charging, no hot water production, no TV, no internet accounted for. 561 kw/h. Show me the math how you do this with 10% of the storage. No solar PV power. How would you even heat the house through the night? When the wind happens not to blow either, which I assure you happens….

Posted By Dana1 on 06 Jul 2017 09:15 PM



The cost of upgrading the grid to handle the capacity of charging all EVs overnight at the same time (even without the heat pump loads) would be gia-normous, and you can pretty much bet the planners have this already figured out in better than just a crayon-on-napkin math.

This is actually the quintessence of the issue. ASHPs during peak demand wil use more than electric car charging, but will run the whole night, and during peak nights, they will run all full out the whole night long. Indeed giga-normous.