Minimize battery degradation or minimize damage from battery degradation?

In the series of posts on the battery-life saving algorithm of the University of Warwick, I made (twice) the remark that the managers of vehicle-to-grid programs would not be very keen in implementing such an algorithm. This because this algorithm, although it is hailed as a break-though, will have a negative impact on the primary purpose of these schemes, therefor tolerating (some) battery damage might be the preferred option.

That made me wonder whether I could check this. The Warwick paper was published two years ago and the Smart Solar Charging program was presented as having developed its own bidirectional charging stations, so if there is some ability to make improvements based on this supposed break-through, then this project should be the one that will show it.

Two neglected findings

There are two findings in the battery-saving algorithm paper from the University of Warwick that I want to write about in this post. Both were mentioned only in passing in the paper. Although these findings are crucial information for those who want to implement such a system in the real world, these were not mentioned in the conclusion nor in the discussion nor in the list of things they want to improve upon.

These are the two findings:

Can a vehicle-to-grid extend battery-life of electric cars by ten percent?

In the previous post, I wrote about a report calculating the expected electricity price in a vehicle-to-grid system and the assumptions that went into it. One of the difficulties that was detailed in the report was the aging of the battery used in a vehicle-to-grid system. In the meanwhile, I read this 2017 article from the Dutch sustainability website wattisduurzaam.nl contradicting this. The author of the article writes that it is contra-intuitive, but that research from the University of Warwick revealed that a vehicle-to-grid system can even extend the lifetime of lithium-ion batteries…

I could somehow understand “minimize”, but a vehicle-to-grid system that extends battery life is a very strong claim.

Although the article was written in a cheering mode, it also acknowledges that battery degradation is a problem in current vehicle-to-grid systems, but that this research achieved an extended battery life. Not just a tiny extension, a whopping 10 percent extension of battery life by operating in the vehicle-to-grid system.

More averaging: impact of electric cars on the grid

The term “vehicle-to-grid” is mentioned twice in passing in the report detailing the impact of electric cars on our grid (see previous post). I wondered whether this vehicle-to-grid was the solution to their problem. After all, their calculation was done by averaging consumption, which is not really what will happen in the real world. But when they assume some top-down system of regulating demand, then I could somehow understand their reasoning.

I didn’t find any reference mentioning “vehicle-to-grid” in the report, but I wanted to know where the CREG got these assumptions from. I found that, to my surprise, the CREG earlier wrote a report on the impact of electric cars on a vehicle-to-grid system (pdf, Dutch ahead). The report is not new, it was published in 2010 with the data from 2007 and 2008. The subject of their research is the impact of the introduction of electric cars on the electricity spot market price.

The result of the 2010 report was similar to the 2016 report. They also researched the impact of 1 million electric cars and found that only 2.5% extra electricity needs to be produced on average (compared to 4% in the 2016 report) and that base load could easily absorb that extra electricity demand. The general conclusion of the 2010 report is that charging cars during off-peak hours will lower the spot prices. This because part of the capacity of the car battery could be used to trade on the energy market, buying electricity from the grid when it is cheap (during off-peak hours) and selling it at a high price when it is expensive (during peak hours).

It gets interesting when they explain their assumptions (on page 15 – 16):

Just 4 percent extra electricity required to accommodate 1 million electric cars?

My previous post was not completely finished when I learned that our new Flemish Minister of Energy was piggybacking on the resolved delivery problems of the Tesla 3. She wrote a post about the increase in electric car subsidy requests during the first three months of the year and framed it as a success story. It is best making hay when the sun is out.

While trying to find information on the subject of her post, I encountered a tweet in which she answered the question whether we would have enough electricity to supply for electric cars when we already now experience a substantial electricity shortage. I don’t understand the question very well (although our electricity supply is old and in disarray, we don’t have electricity shortages, yet), but her answer is intriguing (translated from Dutch):

Sales of all-electric cars finally kicking off?

A few days ago, I came across an article titled “Substantially more electric cars sold“. My first thought when reading this headline was: “Again?!”. It was only a few months ago that I looked into an increase of electric car registrations and I was not really impressed when I found out that it was all about a 1.94% increase of something with a share of 0.22%. Now we have yet another such claim.

The article is for registered users only, but this could be seen by non-registered visitor (translated from Dutch):

The sale of electric cars is finally kicking off in Belgium. A record number of 1,085 all-electric passenger cars were registered in March. This according to figures from the automobile federation Febiac.

Electric car registrations: a 2% increase of something tiny is still tiny

We have a new Flemish Minister of Energy since two days. As a result of the local elections of October last year, the previous Minister became mayor of his home town Ostend. That is a bit sad, he had the habit of enthusiastically sprouting meaningless claims about energy that were very easily debunked. I wrote several posts about such claims, so I will certainly miss his mindless claims.

The new Minister, Lydia Peeters, took the oath of office the day before yesterday. The first tweet on her twitter account came only a day later and is a retweet of a tweet written by her spokeswoman (translated from Dutch):

Nice increase becomes visible! @Lydiapeeters: “The switch to electric vehicles keeps going on” @BelgaPolitics Read it here: