Rather than being a problem for the electric grid, Electric Vehicles (EVs) hold the key to solving some rather big problems in our new era of renewable energy.
I’ll start by saying that the big problem for the electricity grid is not so much that renewable energy can’t produce enough energy for our needs, but that at times it produces too much of it, especially on cool sunny days when hundreds of thousands of rooftop solar systems send electricity into a grid designed to send it the other way, creating congestion.
A recent story on the ABC highlighted the problem and the important role of flexible export limits in solving it, unleashing the power of household solar to meet more of Australia’s energy needs.
But there’s another solution too, and it’s batteries. They can store excess electricity from rooftop solar while the sun’s shining, and rather than send the surplus to the grid, they store it and release it for when it’s needed either in the home or back to the grid when electricity retailers are buying it.
Household batteries are a game changer for homes with solar panels. I recently moved to a house with an 8.8kwh solar array and a battery that now meets around 96% of my electricity needs while exporting a lot of electricity to the grid. It’s hard to believe, but I’m actually looking forward to my first electricity bill.
But electric vehicles with their much bigger batteries can do all this and more with the addition of V2G – that’s vehicle to grid technology – that allows you to plug your car in at home or work and use that big battery to export to the grid when there’s high demand, cutting out all those fossil-fuel powered generators adding CO2 to the atmosphere.
And it gets even better because those big batteries allow households to put bigger solar arrays on their roof. Without batteries there are limits to the size of household arrays to prevent the problem of too much energy going into the grid. Batteries solve that.
All that while also giving you a vehicle that isn’t emitting CO2 from its non-existent tailpipe while you’re driving it.
So EVs can play an important role in stabilizing the Australian electricity grid and enabling the growth of renewable energy. By using V2G technology, smart charging, and battery storage, EV owners can help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to a more sustainable energy future.
But before electric vehicles can reach their full potential in reducing emissions some changes are required to allow that all-important V2G technology to be introduced. That could be some months, or even years away.
But even without V2G technology an EV garaged in a home with solar panels and a domestic battery has huge potential for saving money and CO2 emissions. My domestic solar array with its battery is exporting so much surplus electricity to the grid while still powering my home that an EV has become a complete no-brainer.
The smart way to get behind the wheel of a new EV, of course, is through a money saving Fleetcare Novated Lease, and right now Fleetcare has a range of tempting novated lease deals that will see you enjoying big savings at the time of purchase that continue through the length of your lease.
To find out more, contact Fleetcare today on 134 333.