When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say „How wonderful!
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@etchedpixels I've seen some really good V2G solutions for big charging stations for delivery vehicles/trucks. They are mostly parked between 21:00-6:00 and they mostly arrive with still 30-60% charged. So topping them up only takes a few hours. You can feed 10-20% per vehicle into the grid in the hours before midnight and gradually move to charging between 2:00-6:00. Do that with 50-100 vehicles and it starts making a lot of sense. @ammdias @eoinho
@jwildeboer @ammdias @eoinho Ok that makes a lot more sense. For home it's looking marginal at best.
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@jwildeboer @ammdias @eoinho Ok that makes a lot more sense. For home it's looking marginal at best.
@etchedpixels The company behind this, The Mobility House in Munich, is now also offering free charging at home with a wallbox when they are allowed to V2G your car with their system.
"if an electric car is connected and available for bidirectional charging for an average of 14 hours per day, the charging costs for a driving distance of 10,000 kilometres can practically be reduced to zero."
https://www.electrive.com/2026/04/15/the-mobility-house-to-offer-free-electricity-for-v2g-customers/ -
@Reinald @jwildeboer @openrisk
We can extract minerals without destroying environments and exploiting people. We should. But currently we don't.
Natrium? I'm guessing that's what I know as sodium? Yes, there are promising developments there.
I'm not well informed on the chemistry - lithium requires cobalt in the anode which is also problematic.The issue as I see it is scaling storage to run industrial plant to support the global population
@OneInterestingFact @jwildeboer @openrisk yes, sorry, it is sodium in english language.
Cobalt free cell cemistry is available.
Again: responsible mining is an issue. We always can do better. The Lithium mining is nevertheless WAY less damaging for nature as oil business is and has been.
Industry scale batteries are done regulary, BMW has a factory with windturbines with battery backup. California has Megawatts capacity to stabilize the network. There are loads of examples.
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@etchedpixels I've seen some really good V2G solutions for big charging stations for delivery vehicles/trucks. They are mostly parked between 21:00-6:00 and they mostly arrive with still 30-60% charged. So topping them up only takes a few hours. You can feed 10-20% per vehicle into the grid in the hours before midnight and gradually move to charging between 2:00-6:00. Do that with 50-100 vehicles and it starts making a lot of sense. @ammdias @eoinho
@jwildeboer @etchedpixels @ammdias @eoinho yes but do those vehicle owners get paid for the additional wear and tear of their batteries?
- If not they don't!
- Even if it's just "freely charged full at the planned departure time"…
- If not they don't!
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@jwildeboer @etchedpixels @ammdias @eoinho yes but do those vehicle owners get paid for the additional wear and tear of their batteries?
- If not they don't!
- Even if it's just "freely charged full at the planned departure time"…
@kkarhan Current research indicates that modern batteries in vehicles last far longer than the vehicle itself, so the wear and tear aspect is severely overrated, in my opinion. Just another "yes but" to stifle progress
See https://www.geotab.com/press-release/ev-battery-health-degradation-fast-charging-study/ @etchedpixels @ammdias @eoinho - If not they don't!
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@kkarhan Current research indicates that modern batteries in vehicles last far longer than the vehicle itself, so the wear and tear aspect is severely overrated, in my opinion. Just another "yes but" to stifle progress
See https://www.geotab.com/press-release/ev-battery-health-degradation-fast-charging-study/ @etchedpixels @ammdias @eoinho@jwildeboer @etchedpixels @ammdias @eoinho yes and no.
All batteries degrade over useage and time, depending on cycles & discharge depth. -
@jwildeboer @etchedpixels @ammdias @eoinho yes and no.
All batteries degrade over useage and time, depending on cycles & discharge depth.@kkarhan Whch is exactly what the research I linked to shows. Batteries degrade, but the rate of decay is lower than most expected. Fast charging raises the rate of decay, but not as severe as many have feared. A typical EV battery will outlast the car it was built into, leading to the secondary market you mentioned. @etchedpixels @ammdias @eoinho
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@kkarhan Whch is exactly what the research I linked to shows. Batteries degrade, but the rate of decay is lower than most expected. Fast charging raises the rate of decay, but not as severe as many have feared. A typical EV battery will outlast the car it was built into, leading to the secondary market you mentioned. @etchedpixels @ammdias @eoinho
@jwildeboer @kkarhan @etchedpixels @eoinho
Also, for most people -- who only commute daily to work --, fast charging is mostly unnecessary. The car could be slow charging when parked at work (or in the parking lot where it awaits the return of its owner) **and** at night, at home.
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When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say „How wonderful! Let’s find ways to store that excess electricity so we can share it back to the grid when needed.“ Instead we sing the song of fossil fuel capitalism that claims this is a BAD thing and we need to shut down the renewable plants so The Grid can keep on working based on scarcity and rent seeking. It's like we all have been brainwashed by the grid operators and the fossile fuel industry.
@jwildeboer of course in reality this does happen, but it's also a matter of where your generation and storage are. You can't absorb excess supply from Scottish wind farms with EVs in London, for example.
Grids are definitely getting smarter, but maintaining grid stability with additional renewables and increased electrification is neither trivially easy nor cheap.
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@jwildeboer Maybe use the excess to crack water into hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles.
@timjclevenger Hydrogen powered vehicles are barely a thing, but we need to generate it anyway to produce essential stuff like GHG-free steel and fertilizer. It makes more sense to do that than to pursue buy-low-sell-high battery storage schemes. #hydrogen
@jwildeboer -
@OneInterestingFact @jwildeboer @openrisk yes, sorry, it is sodium in english language.
Cobalt free cell cemistry is available.
Again: responsible mining is an issue. We always can do better. The Lithium mining is nevertheless WAY less damaging for nature as oil business is and has been.
Industry scale batteries are done regulary, BMW has a factory with windturbines with battery backup. California has Megawatts capacity to stabilize the network. There are loads of examples.
@Reinald @OneInterestingFact @jwildeboer @openrisk my understanding about grid scale batteries was that they were only good for the short term
As in: grid balancing, best case scenario day/night load shifting?
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@Reinald @OneInterestingFact @jwildeboer @openrisk my understanding about grid scale batteries was that they were only good for the short term
As in: grid balancing, best case scenario day/night load shifting?
@GuillaumeRossolini @Reinald @jwildeboer @openrisk
Mine too - storing PWh to use in 6 months time is way beyond the scale of any tech I'm aware of. -
@GuillaumeRossolini @Reinald @jwildeboer @openrisk
Mine too - storing PWh to use in 6 months time is way beyond the scale of any tech I'm aware of.@OneInterestingFact @Reinald @jwildeboer @openrisk apparently we’re capable of storing heat for seasonal cycles, though I’m skeptical of the numbers presented in this article
Reinald Kirchner (@Reinald@nrw.social)
@passwordsarehard4@mastodon.social @jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net @openrisk@mastodon.social local heat storage seems to be more feasible than global water pumping. https://www.review-energy.com/almacenamiento/finland-builds-the-world-s-largest-seasonal-thermal-energy-storage-facility There are other concepts with temperatures up to several 100 (500? 600?) °C as well heating up sand oder ceramic rubble.
NRW.social (nrw.social)
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@simo5 France demands solar panels to cover any parking site with more than 80 parking spaces. EPBD (Energy Performance of Buildings Directive) demands solar design as part of the permit process for new building. Things are changing. https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/energy-efficiency/energy-performance-buildings/energy-performance-buildings-directive/solar-energy-buildings_en
@jwildeboer they aren’t rushing to comply, I’m telling you

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When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say „How wonderful! Let’s find ways to store that excess electricity so we can share it back to the grid when needed.“ Instead we sing the song of fossil fuel capitalism that claims this is a BAD thing and we need to shut down the renewable plants so The Grid can keep on working based on scarcity and rent seeking. It's like we all have been brainwashed by the grid operators and the fossile fuel industry.
There's only one reason to promote oil and curb the renewable development - to make every last dollar possible from petroleum products. Given that premise, nothing should be surprising.
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@OneInterestingFact @Reinald @jwildeboer @openrisk apparently we’re capable of storing heat for seasonal cycles, though I’m skeptical of the numbers presented in this article
Reinald Kirchner (@Reinald@nrw.social)
@passwordsarehard4@mastodon.social @jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net @openrisk@mastodon.social local heat storage seems to be more feasible than global water pumping. https://www.review-energy.com/almacenamiento/finland-builds-the-world-s-largest-seasonal-thermal-energy-storage-facility There are other concepts with temperatures up to several 100 (500? 600?) °C as well heating up sand oder ceramic rubble.
NRW.social (nrw.social)
@GuillaumeRossolini @OneInterestingFact @jwildeboer @openrisk yes, that is current state of technology. Seasonal storage is not yet solved. Heat solutions start working, but more as one-off prototypes. No proven turnkey solutions yet.
Flow batteries have unsolved issues with charge loss - not ready yet. For the time being, storage via heat seems to be a good bet.
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@GuillaumeRossolini @OneInterestingFact @jwildeboer @openrisk yes, that is current state of technology. Seasonal storage is not yet solved. Heat solutions start working, but more as one-off prototypes. No proven turnkey solutions yet.
Flow batteries have unsolved issues with charge loss - not ready yet. For the time being, storage via heat seems to be a good bet.
@Reinald I read that rock is supposed to be able to keep a huge % of heat, I think I read upwards of 70% (which seems crazy to me)
But like you said, there are barely any demo projects anywhere, this is unproven
See here:
Mikel - Covivienda rural Bioketa (@mikels@masto.es)
@GuillaumeRossolini@infosec.exchange I was thinking about the low tech version, using the mass of the underground of a house to store the heat in the summer and reduce or eliminate heating expense in winter. Heat captured circulating outdoor air, with solar colectors, from excessively warm interior air, below roof air, photovoltaic panel refrigerating air... Do you think that this doesn't "work"? If you want more technical info: - Thermal modeling of an annualized geo-solar building, David Elfstrom. - Merging Geo-Solar Exergy Storage Technology (GEST) and Environmental Quality Management (EQM): A Practical Solution for NZEB Retrofit. - Extending the Passive House approach with Geosolar Exergy Storage Technology. - Techno-economic aspects of seasonal underground storage of solar thermal energy in hard crystalline rocks. - https://diygreenbuildingwithjerry.blogspot.com/2024/06/thermal-performance-first-18-months.html
Mastodon en masto.es (masto.es)
[edit] link
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@Reinald I read that rock is supposed to be able to keep a huge % of heat, I think I read upwards of 70% (which seems crazy to me)
But like you said, there are barely any demo projects anywhere, this is unproven
See here:
Mikel - Covivienda rural Bioketa (@mikels@masto.es)
@GuillaumeRossolini@infosec.exchange I was thinking about the low tech version, using the mass of the underground of a house to store the heat in the summer and reduce or eliminate heating expense in winter. Heat captured circulating outdoor air, with solar colectors, from excessively warm interior air, below roof air, photovoltaic panel refrigerating air... Do you think that this doesn't "work"? If you want more technical info: - Thermal modeling of an annualized geo-solar building, David Elfstrom. - Merging Geo-Solar Exergy Storage Technology (GEST) and Environmental Quality Management (EQM): A Practical Solution for NZEB Retrofit. - Extending the Passive House approach with Geosolar Exergy Storage Technology. - Techno-economic aspects of seasonal underground storage of solar thermal energy in hard crystalline rocks. - https://diygreenbuildingwithjerry.blogspot.com/2024/06/thermal-performance-first-18-months.html
Mastodon en masto.es (masto.es)
[edit] link
@GuillaumeRossolini @OneInterestingFact @jwildeboer @openrisk it is proven. It is demoed. What is missing is commercial scaling and size scaling. Some way of chemical conversion might be inevitable. But there might be some issues with continuity of chemical processes, that might make it difficult to switch/scale that "on demand" when there is excess energy. There are still challenging issues to solve. Nevertheless building up renewables is the way to go.
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@Reinald @jwildeboer @openrisk
Batteries come with their own set of problems, which is not to say these are insurmountable, specifically social and environmental costs in acquiring the raw materials.The real difficulty, as I see it, is that we can produce excess energy for half the year but consumption in the other half exceeds production. Can we run energy intensive industries for just half the year? Otherwise we need ways to store energy for the other half.
@OneInterestingFact @Reinald @openrisk @jwildeboer I believe that in some places companies can get discounted energy, but if there is excess demand they will get disconnected to rebalance the grid. It's a bit of a niche thing, because not every company can be disconnected at a whim, but it is an option for low production times.
on the other end of things, if the price companies pay is more volatile than that for individuals/families, some industries are encouraged to plan their most energy intensive activities for the times when energy is less expensive.
Both are things that are being done *now*, not new ideas, we only need to have more of them.
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When renewables flood the grid with more electricity than is needed at that moment, we don’t say „How wonderful! Let’s find ways to store that excess electricity so we can share it back to the grid when needed.“ Instead we sing the song of fossil fuel capitalism that claims this is a BAD thing and we need to shut down the renewable plants so The Grid can keep on working based on scarcity and rent seeking. It's like we all have been brainwashed by the grid operators and the fossile fuel industry.
@jwildeboer

The same about the grid. If in region A is constantly produced more electricity than in B, why not create a better grid spread best across countries (here: whole EU)?