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Bi-directional charging is going to change the way we think about what a car is (image: supplied).
Bi-directional charging is going to change the way we think about what a car is (image: supplied).

ScienceSeptember 19, 2019

More than a set of wheels: How electric vehicles could soon power your home

Contributing Writer
Bi-directional charging is going to change the way we think about what a car is (image: supplied).
Bi-directional charging is going to change the way we think about what a car is (image: supplied).

Covering Climate Now: The release of the new Nissan Leaf electric vehicle signals a shift in the role of cars in our society. Simon Day was at the launch of the new model. 

The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!

According to the Ministry of Transport 90% of travel by car in New Zealand is less than 90km. The average daily travel by car is less than 29km, and in urban centres, it’s just 22km per day. Yet, the major concern New Zealanders have about electric vehicles is their range. 

The obsession with range is part of a romantic vision of our car as a cruising machine built for long road trips along curling coastlines. In order to release the true potential of EVs to combat climate change, New Zealanders need to change the way we think about what our car is and what it does for us.

The true value of a new generation of electric vehicles is not as a traditional car, but as a giant battery. While the 2019 Nissan Leaf looks and feels like a car, it has the potential to be so much more. The new model is one of the first commercially available EVs that features bi-directional charging capability, meaning the car’s battery can return the energy stored in its battery to power your home, your office, or to sell back to the grid. 

This capability changes the car from a resource designed primarily for short-distance transportation (that then spends the vast majority of the day parked and useless), into an energy resource that can continue to work while it’s stationary. With bi-directional charging, an EV becomes a way of storing energy and using it when it’s needed. 

More than 80% of electricity in New Zealand is generated from renewable energy. But sources like solar and wind power are unpredictable and unreliable, and are not always available when needed. Because coal can be burned whenever it’s required it’s still an essential part of the grid. Bi-directional charging electric vehicles will allow renewable energy to be stored for when it’s needed. 

“Bi-directional charging EVs and renewable energy will all come together and it will be an energy sharing network,” says Glenn Inkster, e-mobility division manager for TransNet NZ, an electrical equipment supplier that provides EV charging hardware.  

In the not too distant future, cars will be an energy asset first, and a mobility asset second. 

The 2019 Nissan Leaf can receive and send electricity (image: supplied).

Many people have the misconception that what is powerful in a mechanical sense is also powerful in an electrical sense, Inkster explains. And this underestimates the potential of EV batteries as power sources. 

New Zealand homes use on average 15 – 25kwh of energy every day. The new Nissan Leaf’s 40kwh battery provides more than enough fuel to get the household through an evening of cooking, washing, heat pumping and Netflix. 

“An electrical vehicle driving 100km uses as much energy as your house does in one day,” he says.  “They can become mobile storage banks called electric cars, take the energy when it is available and use it when it is needed. Done properly and integrated into our lives it will make the whole system more efficient.”

Transnet hopes to have the Wallbox bi-directional charging units tested and available early 2020. While the tech develops it allows for a number of futuristic hypothetical energy scenarios to feel much closer. Imagine an office with solar panels on the roof with a fleet of electric vehicles. During the day the EVs would charge using the in-house electricity generation, after the relatively short commute home the car would then be used to power the house ensuring the energy generated by the solar panels wasn’t wasted and avoiding using the grid during the highest demand (and highest prices). Then the EV returns to the office the next day to recharge. Architects and developers are already thinking about how to future proof buildings for its arrival. 

The storage potential of EVs like the Leaf also creates resilience for when the grid is put under pressure. Bi-directional charging allows EVs to be used in response to events that will put the grid under extra stress. For example, as a storm approaches, like the April 2018 event that cut power to thousands of homes in Auckland, households would charge their EVs in preparation. And should they be disconnected from the grid the vehicle can be used to power the home. 

Japan has led the development of the bi-directional charging technology in response to the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Electric vehicles were vital tools to get food and aid to refugee centres, hospitals and schools as the electricity was quickly returned to parts of affected areas, while petrol-powered cars were crippled by fuel shortages. But the disconnection from the grid after the disaster also inspired Japan to examine how it could minimise the effect natural disasters have on the power supply and led to large trials of bi-directional charging and its ability to respond to natural disasters. 

So, as well as reducing emissions, EV technology will provide fortification as the effects of climate change grow more intense and more common. 

More Reading

    “A smartphone is called a ‘phone’ because this is what we have always called it. Yes, we still make phone calls on it, but we do a whole lot more with this device now,” says Inkster. 

    “A car will always be called a car, however, the way we use it and what we expect to get from it will completely change. We will still be able to drive it, but we will also be able to do a whole lot more.”

    The author attended the launch of the 2019 Nissan Leaf courtesy of Nissan New Zealand.

    Keep going!
    journalism stress typewriter getty

    ScienceSeptember 19, 2019

    Five of the most bizarre public submissions on the Zero Carbon Bill

    Contributing writer
    journalism stress typewriter getty

    Covering Climate Now: Earlier this year, the climate change response (zero carbon) bill had its first reading. The public was then invited to submit their takes on it to the government. We assessed a few of the stranger ones.

    The Spinoff’s participation in Covering Climate Now is made possible thanks to Spinoff Members. Join us here!

    The government has to weigh each bill submission as equal, because it loves democracy. Unfortunately, not all submissions are created equal. Some are copypastas from Generation Zero. Others are group brainstorms by farming collectives. Most have a firm grasp on the world around them.

    Around 15,000 submissions were received by the select committee on the zero carbon bill, and there were clear trends. More than 90% of the country wants:

    • A target of net zero emissions across all greenhouse gases by 2050
    • The establishment of an independent climate commission to advise government
    • Provisions to help the country adapt to climate change’s effects

    Suggestions almost as popular were:

    • Tighter methane restrictions
    • Increased urgency of carbon neutrality
    • Mandatory consideration of the bill by all government departments
    • Legal deterrents to failure

    The vast majority of submissions were by people who had read the bill, and had something to add. There were some off-beat submissions, sure: oil companies wanted to let the free market take care of things; farmers rambled about relaxing methane restrictions because it’s actually good for the planet; some submissions were just brags about a company’s environmental achievements. 

    Those were all expected. Others weren’t. These are submissions straight from Alex Jones’ fever dreams.

    Humans are meant to be carnivores

    Tony only eats meat and is terrified the meat will be taken away. He believes the gas emitted by people with fibrous diets is more of a concern than cow methane emissions, and honestly? I can’t find evidence to refute this. 

    This man, who we can assume is Jordan Peterson submitting under a pseudonym, sees a future in which drones will prowl the skies searching for climate criminals, ie anyone who owns an unregistered cow. 

    His suggestions for the bill include rethinking the big food lobby and funding independent studies on the human diet. He actually has another novel suggestion that’s actually relevant suggestion in a government-funded fossil fuel car buyback.

    Computers aren’t science

    Christopher, whose submission is entirely in bold, is unconvinced of man-made climate change and would like a royal commission of inquiry modelled on last year’s Housing New Zealand Meth Report.

    Fair’s fair, Chris won’t believe the climate crisis is happening until he has some cold, hard, royally-commissioned facts in front of him. It’s a good thing the best scientific minds in the world have reached a consensus on it then, eh?

    Ah, hang on a minute, did any of these scientists use computer modelling? Was any of the information “UN-initiated”? Nope, sorry, that’s not science.

    If we go zero carbon we will all die

    Peter paid attention in fifth form science. He knows that all life on Earth is carbon-based. So why are we trying to get rid of carbon?! It’s madness! Carbon monoxide is bad, he admits – but dioxide? No way.

    He says, without citing any sources, that if carbon dioxide drops then life on our planet could cease to exist. He has attached an image of a man with a pine tree, or perhaps four different pine trees, each with a number above it that probably indicates an amount of carbon dioxide (no explanatory information is provided). The more carbon dioxide the tree is exposed to, the bigger it is (again, this is a guess, no context has been provided for the image).

    What Peter’s done here is demonstrate carbon sequestration, which we will, in fact, be seeing more of thanks to the zero carbon bill. Nice one, Peter! 

    Carbon dioxide is fine

    Another big fan of carbon is old mate William, a “freelance scientist”. No specialty – he does it all. He went to the same university as UK weatherman Piers Corbyn (Jezza Corbyn’s brother), so he knows what he’s talking about when he says:  “CO2 IS irrelevant to climate change”.

    He alleges that Trump knows this, and that’s what guides his brilliant choices on climate. William believes the government should be reading the works of Habibullo Ismailovich Abdussamatov, who predicted an ice age would begin in 2014, and Dr Willie Soon, who has received over US $1 million from petroleum and coal companies.

    William feels very strongly that the mainstream media is hiding the truth, but can’t say why, or what exactly that truth is. Sadly, we are edgy and independent therefore cannot shine any light on what the mainstream media is hiding.

    We must immediately cull the population

    This is mostly a good submission. Paul is right to say we need to act quickly to avert the climate crisis. He talks about a circular economy, and about economies that function within the limits of the Earth’s resources.

    Nothing wrong with these suggestions until we get to his final one: “The human population on the planet must be kept below what will allow the resources of the planet to be shared equally.” There are probably some benign ways to interpret this, but given his emphasis on acting quickly, I think we all know what Paul is proposing.

    Soylent Green.

    All submissions are publically available, for those interested in learning more about the truth.