EV general discussion

**NavyDiver** · 2nd January 2024, 08:57 AM

Originally Posted by DiscoDB

The National Energy Market is certainly a strange one, and one which large power consumers and generators could potentially manipulate to make money - the same way stock markets can be manipulated.

I have no doubt that private investors will be actively looking at how they could use V2G to make money. The spot market for short duration energy can be highly profitable if you have the ability to either load shed quickly or put extra energy back into the grid for short duration blocks of time.

And a big part of it is about preventing coal power plants from tripping as the start up times are significant.

Major electricity traders will jump on it but I personally feel Power Generation and Distribution should have never been privatised, but at the same time I wouldn’t trust short term focused governments getting this right either.

We probably really need long term ethical based investors getting behind this, and some strong governance to protect the end consumers. Certainly a tricky area to get the policy right.

It's tricky as its several distinctly separate parts. The hardest part to understand is more is not the only key. It the correct balance to meet demand as it surges and drops off. IF and I mean IF it was possible to have two to several weeks storage

"Australian Energy Update 2023" might give some guidance.

Sailing records about "Doldrums" or seasonal changes are interesting to consider for the "Its Easy" types

The 32% of 'renewable' power in 2021-2022 is fantastic. Issue is its not always available at peak demand and the low hanging fruit is already in place. The cheap and fast wind, solar...... is already in place and the massive constraints of:

Poor state to state interconnections.
10,000km of unfunded HV transmission lines
No possibility of short, medium term Entire grid scale back up

Other countries have woken up that the existing infrastructure can be recycled using nuclear energy.

A quick google of Melbourne suggested "The city receives only 48.6 clear days annually, making it the cloudiest capital city in Australia, and it has 180 overcast days annually, with 54 more cloudy days than Queenscliff to the south of the city, and 19 more than Mount Buller to the north."

It clear as

. My solar is kicking in 1.5kwh at the moment. My EV is taking 7kwh

At the risk of making a political bit trust the new Vic SEC 1 billion of our money promises already shown to be MIA is singing loud and clear on that topic.

Back to EVs. RACV review of a BYD dolphin had range then IF open road less 100km range

MY sub 400km range with more than 6000km traveled in the last few weeks Promises "435km range#####" is a bit like the SEC? I am being nasty to MG. Its much closer than the new Vic SEC

Other EV news. Ballarat EV charging stations were smashed by 'party' people. Only a few were working yesterday. Noted 2 security cameras covering. Hope the new year is quietly paid for by those people.
50kWh charging places in soooo many country towns now. Maryborough, Avoca, Ararat, Beaufort, Camperdown, Ocean Grove, Queensclife ......They are often in pairs. If two charge the charge rate is usually 1/2 each

Not a problem really until we get solid state next year. Then fast charging may be 1000kWh per hour or 5 minutes IF infrastructure was nuclear

It's not here of course. We are far too smart?

Hope you all had great NYE.

**DiscoDB** · 2nd January 2024, 02:28 PM

There is an app for iPhone which allows you to watch the NEM spot market in real time - PocketNEM. It is quite fascinating to watch.

At times power generators will actually pay for consumers to take power to avoid shutting down. You can even see notifications for when AEMO intervenes.

So it can even be in the generators interest to have distributed “virtual” storage farms by way of hundreds of thousands of EVs that can be slowly charged when there is excess power and later discharged to meet short term peak power demands.

A study from the UK shows that V2G can help avoid billions in infrastructure upgrades by helping to level out these peaks and troughs.

Case study (UK): Electric vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging | Ofgem

Of course the EV owners should be fairly compensated for this - the same as residential solar should be compensated when feeding the grid.

**Captain_Rightfoot** · 2nd January 2024, 03:17 PM

Originally Posted by Tombie

I’m aware of this! I’m pointing out to get to “grid scale” is hundreds/thousands of hectares of land consumed by storage units.

Pumped hydro, well, I was deeply involved in a project (we have a few of those 4,500 suitable sites). Had plenty of meetings of all types with the AER, power networks, the wholesalers. Worked on the modelling for behind/in front of meter options. Worked on route to market upgrades including stakeholder engagement with landowners. Worked with the design team on the storage dams, on the high density concrete structures required, even had a plan to float solar on top of the holding dam to reduce evaporation and add power to the pumping operation.

Project shelved - simply doesn’t stack up. The economics are horrendous, water usage is borderline criminal due to losses. The time for the dam to fill before first use was nearly 10 months!

As for grid stability well isn’t it quite cute currently.

LPMA, Castalloy, LBB, and several others all ramp down during high power demand periods.

It buffers the grid, sure, and the government quietly pays the agreed penalties to each group for the inconvenience.
The compensation hourly is quite extraordinary and has to cover lost productivity, refractory damage, reduced asset life due to increased process variability and cycling.

Another subsidy to the renewable grid that isn’t openly known.

Hey just for my curiosity - was the "criminal water losses" more or less than the average coal fired power station of 158 mega litres.

These guys estimated that coal fired power stations use enough water for 5 million people nationally. Those criminal water losses must be really something.

EDIT: link won't work but there you go.

403 Forbidden.

**Captain_Rightfoot** · 2nd January 2024, 03:36 PM

Originally Posted by DiscoDB

There is an app for iPhone which allows you to watch the NEM spot market in real time - PocketNEM. It is quite fascinating to watch.

At times power generators will actually pay for consumers to take power to avoid shutting down. You can even see notifications for when AEMO intervenes.

So it can even be in the generators interest to have distributed “virtual” storage farms by way of hundreds of thousands of EVs that can be slowly charged when there is excess power and later discharged to meet short term peak power demands.

A study from the UK shows that V2G can help avoid billions in infrastructure upgrades by helping to level out these peaks and troughs.

Case study (UK): Electric vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging | Ofgem

Of course the EV owners should be fairly compensated for this - the same as residential solar should be compensated when feeding the grid.

That is exceptionally cool.

Shame the power companies don't allow end users to be able to buy/sell into the market with instant power pricing. I guess.. it's not to their advantage..

**DiscoDB** · 2nd January 2024, 04:07 PM

Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

That is exceptionally cool.

Shame the power companies don't allow end users to be able to buy/sell into the market with instant power pricing. I guess.. it's not to their advantage..

The power companies don’t decide this or manage this - that is the role of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).

AEMO | Who we are

How does the Australian electricity market work? - What's Watt

Private companies can register to be participants in the NEM.

But it would be cool if you could be a micro-trader and buy and sell direct into the NEM bypassing the energy providers.

**RANDLOVER** · 2nd January 2024, 04:52 PM

Originally Posted by DiscoDB

The National Energy Market is certainly a strange one, and one which large power consumers and generators could potentially manipulate to make money - the same way stock markets can be manipulated.....

Here in Qld price manipulation is being alleged in a class action law suit QLD Electricity Class Action (qldenergyclassaction.com.au)

May 2016
in May 2016 - The Queensland Productivity Commission recommended that the Government require CS Energy and Stanwell to develop and adhere to a voluntary Code of Conduct in respect of their rebidding behaviour.
FULL REPORT BY THE QUEENSLAND PRODUCTIVITY COMMISSION
September 2017
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) conducted an extensive inquiry into this issue.
PRELIMINARY REPORT BY THE ACCC
Throughout 2017
In 2017, intense media scrutiny on Stanwell and CS Energy artificially increasing prices finally pushed the State government to issue a direction that their 'bidding games' need to stop.
July 2018
In July 2018, The Grattan Institute published a report concluding that Stanwell and CS Energy "game" the system by using their market power to create artificial scarcity of supply and so force prices up.
FULL REPORT BY THE GRATTAN INSTITUTE
December 2018
AER concluded in its December 2018 report that Stanwell and CS Energy "…appeared to have exercised market power at times in the past five years."
FULL REPORT BY AER
July 2019
In July 2019, when media attention was elsewhere, the Queensland Government removed their previous direction regarding "bidding games", leaving Queenslanders and Queensland businesses once again vulnerable to energy price spikes and related job losses.

**Tombie** · 3rd January 2024, 10:20 AM

Originally Posted by DiscoDB

The power companies don’t decide this or manage this - that is the role of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).

AEMO | Who we are

How does the Australian electricity market work? - What's Watt

Private companies can register to be participants in the NEM.

But it would be cool if you could be a micro-trader and buy and sell direct into the NEM bypassing the energy providers.

It could be and it could be detrimental.

We monitor energy pricing live on site - and make decisions to idle plants when pricing jumps (production loss $ vs cost).

I’ve seen power prices spike in the realm of $15k mWh. I wouldn’t want to be using at that point!

**Tombie** · 3rd January 2024, 10:24 AM

Biggest renewables in Aus.

And today we’re drawing everything in!

**DiscoDB** · 3rd January 2024, 11:54 AM

The spot price movements are amazing. $16,600/MWh is the maximum the market is currently capped at, but can also go below zero to -$1,000/MWh.

You will often see the coal plants in Victoria go negative during the day when renewables max out and the coal plants back off to their minimum load. Have even seen renewables sold at negative pricing as AEMO decides who supplies based on the lowest spot price so this keeps the appearance of some “competition”.

Of course not all energy is traded at spot pricing - a portion of the base load is on fixed contracts.

I fully support the idea of keeping Coal as the base load, and the Aluminium industry has been a key enabler underpinning base load power generation in Victoria.

The idea though that an essential service can be traded to maximise profit doesn’t always sit well - but then you see the claims that the QLD government owned generators allegedly manipulating the market and you shake your head.

**NavyDiver** · 3rd January 2024, 11:55 AM

"QuantumScape has posted its Q3 2023 report, and A0 prototype testing has delivered results that were better than expected."
"The company states that although its commercial target for its solid-state cells remains at 80% energy retention through 800 charge cycles, one prospective automotive customer found much better results testing the A0 cells."

Smaller, lighter, higher energy density Significantly faster charging with no risk of fires

"Those labs completed over 1,000 full cycle equivalents and achieved over 95% discharge energy retention using test conditions of C/3 charge and C/2 discharge with QuantumScape’s standard temperature and pressure conditions, and 100% depth of discharge. In the Q3 report, QuantumScape patted itself on the back for this encouraging result, but isn’t shopping for yachts any time soon – there is still plenty of room for improvement. Per the company:
We emphasize that this is the best-performing cell and we have work to do on aspects such as reliability. Nonetheless, this is an exceptional result. We are not aware of any automotive-format lithium-metal battery that has shown such high discharge energy retention over a comparable cycle count, at room temperature and modest pressure, regardless of C-rate. We believe that no competing electrolyte — solid or liquid — has demonstrated sufficient stability with lithium metal to achieve this, and that this result sets a new high-water mark for lithium-metal battery performance."

"QuantumScape’s Q3 report states that the company’s single-layer solid-state cells have now achieved between 1,500 to 2,000 cycles with approximately 80% discharge energy retention with zero externally applied pressure. For comparison, QS states that 500 to 1,000 charge-discharge cycles represents the key life cycle threshold for most consumer electronics applications."

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. There are others racing to get hard core (Solid State)

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