This Has to be a Joke.

[mawnansmiff]

During my morning read of the news and of the front covers of the day's newspapers I spied this front page story from the Daily Telegraph, a popular and much respected (by some) broadsheet. It goes thus...

"Parked E-Cars Could Charge National Grid"
"Electric car owners could be called upon to help Britain avoid an energy crunch as suppliers prepare tariffs allowing them to draw power from parked vehicles at times of low supply of high demand. Cars charging on driveways are to be plugged into a system responsible for balancing the National Grid for the first time. If successful, it may pave the way for millions of electric cars to act as a giant battery so that supply is stable at times of low wind speeds after the transition to green energy. Full story page 6."

....apart from the ludicrous idea that cars might supply sufficient energy to power the nation, the idea is unbelievably corrupt.....akin to the government syphoning off petrol from modern cars whenever it suits them for whatever reason.

An early April Fool joke perhaps or just another sign of the totally mad times we now live in?

Regards,

Jay.

 

[smudgersmissingleg]

I'm guessing the people whose cars they're taking the energy from will get paid??‍

 

[bassbug]

So you siphon off electricity (which has already been paid for) without compensation at a time of high demand, which means the cars now have to be recharged, causing more time of high demand....now that's government genius for you...

The 8 scariest words ever spoken...I'm from the government, I'm here to help.

 

[Simmerdown☕️]

 

[mawnansmiff]

"I'm guessing the people whose cars they're taking the energy from will get paid??‍"

Quite possibly Chris, but then you find yourself unable to drive to work as your car won't make the journey, can't rush your pregnant wife to hospital in an emergency, etc etc.

I can think of heaps of reasons why this is wrong....but can think of nothing to support it.

Regards,

Jay.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

Looks like a voluntary pilot program around 100+ folks will get paid for participating in?

Not sure what the issue is.

 

[FurCoat]

Unbelievable.

 

[captpat]

Seems a bit far-fetched to me. After all how much energy could a car provide back to the grid relative to the need?

 

[smudgersmissingleg]

"I'm guessing the people whose cars they're taking the energy from will get paid??‍"

Quite possibly Chris, but then you find yourself unable to drive to work as your car won't make the journey, can't rush your pregnant wife to hospital in an emergency, etc etc.

I can think of heaps of reasons why this is wrong....but can think of nothing to support it.

Regards,

Jay.

Yeah, they don't seem to have thought this one through?. What a shock?

 

[Casual]

Technocrats need a fashion makeover. I’m thinking tar. And feathers.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I know that is some states, peoples' home batteries feed back into the power grid, without losing any power to the battery. I am no electrical engineer, nor do I know enough about how this works to make a joke that won't sound stupid when an expert corrects us all. But... I would probably go ahead and make a joke anyways, if I had a good one.

 

[Casual]

I know that is some states, peoples' home batteries feed back into the power grid, without losing any power to the battery.

Which state? I’m thinking it’s the state of delusion. If someone managed to violate the law of conservation of energy, I’d hope I’d have heard of it.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Which state? I’m thinking it’s the state of delusion. If someone managed to violate the law of conservation of energy, I’d hope I’d have heard of it.

It look's like most of them. Our state doesn't have metering, Alabama, but we get a check for appx $300 each moth for our solar panels. And, in NC, it is almost $1000, because we are hardly ever there. People ask me all the time, how much the panels cost, but they never seem to believe me that they pay me, not me buy them.

If you have solar panels, they create way more energy that I can use. It's almost silly not to get them. But, everyone that does have them is also charging the grid also. And, those new car batteries are kick ass way more powerful than my house batteries.

So, as I said, it sound very feasible to me.

States/territories that have mandated net metering for certain utilities​

Congratulations. If you live/work in one of these 34 states, D.C., or four territories, you are able to take advantage of net metering credits in some form. View the database on DSIRE for more details about your specific region.

Alaska
American Samoa
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Guam
Iowa
Kansas
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Puerto Rico
Rhode Island
South Carolina
U.S. Virgin Islands
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
Washington, D.C.
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

Source of information... Which states offer net metering for certain utilities? - https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2020/03/which-states-offer-net-metering/

 

[Streeper541]

I would probably go ahead and make a joke anyways, if I had a good one.

It's no joking matter. The planet gets dumber by the hour. There are in depth articles floating around the internet about gay & trans, Transformers. ?‍





Kinda brings a whole new meaning to trannys. I predict in the future, more people will laugh about gay Transformers than their grid charging electric car with the dead batteries. At least there might be light in the parking garage. ?

 

[cshubhra]

1. From engineering point of view, at a high level this solution is feasible

2. I would not know whether it is viable as there are multiple engineering problems to solve here, including economics, line losses, etc… I would assume there will be engineering studies to make this viable, including break even point

3. Let specialists do their job. There is a reason they are specialists. Generally specialists get paid because they make things happen for the rest of us, and non specialists do not generally get paid to critic that things would not happen without understanding the problem

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I can't speak to other states, but I have first hand knowledge that in SC and NC the sate has a program to pay for the panels, so that there's virtually no out of pocket.

 

[Casual]

It look's like most of them.

Looks like a misunderstanding. I was responding to your claim that you could discharge a battery into the grid without losing power from the battery. Looks like you were talking about solar panels.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Looks like a misunderstanding. I was responding to your claim that you could discharge a battery into the grid without losing power from the battery. Looks like you were talking about solar panels.

The solar panels are not connected to the grid. The batteries are. But, yeh, the solar panels during the day add power to the batteries, but in times of low sunlight and at night, the batteries are not drained but are still powering the grid. Does that make sense? I mean, understandable? Might still not make sense, ha ha.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

I watched a documentary about the U.K. power grid once, every morning at the end of a certain TV show everyone turns on their tea kettles all at once and national power consumption is something like 5x the normal average, building local power generators to handle that 15 minute spike would be hugely wasteful, so they import power from other grids across Europe.
So at 6AM every day a hydroelectric dam in France opens the gates to generate electricity for the U.K. to make tea.
If the national EV grid can end that practice it sounds like significant progress for U.K. independence.

 

[troutface]

1. From engineering point of view, at a high level this solution is feasible

2. I would not know whether it is viable as there are multiple engineering problems to solve here, including economics, line losses, etc… I would assume there will be engineering studies to make this viable, including break even point

3. Let specialists do their job. There is a reason they are specialists. Generally specialists get paid because they make things happen for the rest of us, and non specialists do not generally get paid to critic that things would not happen without understanding the problem

Exactly. Unless this idea was floated by a known crackpot, it would behoove the rest of us to let the engineers do their work and see if they can make it work. Many of my friends are engineers and they are a sober lot when it comes to thinking about and working on ideas like this.