The recent power cuts across Spain and Portugal, remind us of the downside of living in an electrified society. Our large centralized power stations make countless millions of us dependent on the skills of a few operators. Despite this, electric vehicles kept the lights on for a fortunate few in Portugal and Spain.
Electric Vehicles Could Keep the Lights On For 6 Days
Someday we should all have community electrical storage, and homes with distributed renewable energy. The nonprofit Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit in London, ran the numbers to determine if electric vehicles could close the gap.
The Unit’s researchers found that a typical electric vehicle with vehicle-to-home capacity, ‘could provide the equivalent of 6 days of power for the average UK household’. Moreover, they could still hold 40% of their energy at the end of the backup period, if the batteries were fully-charged when the backup started.
But that’s not the end of the benefits of owning electric vehicles, if they have vehicle-to-home, and vehicle-to-grid functionality:
- The batteries could sell energy stored during off-peak, back to the grid during peak periods.
- While retaining 20% of their energy to power the household, if the grid went off-line for a day.
Electric vehicles kept the lights on for a fortunate few in Spain and Portugal. Just imagine the benefits if someday we all owned electric vehicles!
Reviewing and Wrapping up These Findings
Batteries already play a critical role in energy storage. Although they may be idle for long periods when they are used for UPS backup purposes. This study by Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit in London, raises an interesting question. What else could we do with idle batteries?
Using the family’s electric transport to power a home during an outage, is a great example of alternative battery usage. Feeding power to a grid during peak demand is another one. Batteries are expensive. We must find more ways to make them as productive as possible.
More Information
Surviving Power Cuts by Thinking Ahead
Lead-Acid Energy Storage Research
Preview Image: Three Smart Uses for EV Batteries
