<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/made-in-the-shade-how-electric-vehicles-could-be-the-perfect-partner-to-rooftop-solar-in-tropical-cities/>
"As rooftop solar uptake spreads to all corners of the globe, the problem of
how to manage distributed generation in cities with tropical climates – where
rolling thunderstorms regularly eclipse the sun – is becoming increasingly
acute. But what if cars could come to the rescue?
New research published this week has demonstrated how electric vehicles (EVs)
could better enable the large-scale adoption of solar PV in tropical cities by
storing solar and acting as temporary grid capacity when clouds roll in.
In a paper published in the prestigious
Nature journal, researchers from
Columbia University in the United States and the Singapore-ETH Centre
highlighted the potential role that electric vehicles could play in mitigating
the downsides of building solar PV systems in tropical cities.
One of the authors of the paper, civil engineer Markus Schläpfer, moved to
Singapore a decade ago and began noticing the emerging engineering challenge of
afternoon thunderstorms, which can plunge entire neighbourhoods into temporary
moments of darkness.
Standalone storage is obviously one solution – as is being played out across
Australia, with large-scale batteries and smaller-scale community and home
batteries – but Schläpfer and his colleagues considered a second option, one
that would avoid expensive infrastructure buildouts.
“If you have a thunderstorm moving over an area with solar energy, you can have
your electric cars that are parked serve as the energy source and balance out
this lack of energy generation,” said Schläpfer, assistant professor of civil
engineering and engineering mechanics at Columbia Engineering.
“When the thunderstorm moves away, the cars are charged again by the
photovoltaics.”
Tropical thunderstorms do not necessarily last for long, and can often affect
some neighbourhoods and not others, despite their proximity. As such,
electricity can be transported from neighbouring regions that are generating
power, but even if the journey is only a mile or two, the amount of electricity
flowing through powerlines can often overwhelm the grid’s capacity.
Traditionally, in order to fix the problem, new infrastructure is required that
will be capable of carrying increased levels of electricity, but this can be
expensive – especially in dense cities like Singapore, where underground
transmission lines, for example, cost around 60 million Singapore dollars per
kilometre (around $A66.7 million).
“Building new infrastructure is extremely challenging and expensive in dense
cities,” Schläpfer said.
“This is a way to use the existing network in a more efficient way and
integrate more solar photovoltaics, which would otherwise need more
transmission line capacity.”
That’s where electric car batteries could potentially come into play, according
to Schläpfer and his colleagues. When a thunderstorm rolls over a particular
neighbourhood or region, nearby parked EVs discharge their stored energy into
the local grid, absorbing the shortfall without the need for transporting
electricity from elsewhere. And when the storm passes, the solar panels are
able to quickly recharge the cars."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
