Reusing EV battery for storing PV generated energy
This blog will collect information about (re)using EV batteries for storing PV solar generated electricity for residential use. A few key points:
1) Without a battery, if the grid goes down, my solar panels are useless - I cannot power my house on a sunny day because the panel output cannot be regulated when clouds pass by etc. This has not been a problem, but with worsening weather (read: more extremes such as microbursts) the overall reliability of the electric power grid can only be expected to fall.
2) EV battery capacity far exceeds what is available from conventional sources of solar-connected batteries such as Sonnen (maximum of 30 kW for high end EcoLinx https://sonnenusa.com/en/sonnen-ecolinx/), ranging from smaller models at 10 kWh. EV batteries range from 60 to 100 kWh https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/useable-battery-capacity-electric-car and even if a 100 kWh Tesla battery has degraded to 70% (unusable?) capacity, it's still more than double the largest Sonnen household battery. Rather than breaking down the batteries, why not just reuse the battery in the house?
3) Coordinating with existing controllers - when converting the DC (direct current) battery storage to AC (alternating current) in today's household electricity, the frequency and synchronization are some of the most critical aspects of running the system. Solar panels already have to do this - the DC generated by the panel is "inverted" (converted to AC) and synchronized with the grid power. https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/synchronizing-small-scale-pv-systems-with-the-grid Loss of synchronization leads to immediate disaster.