When high temperatures and power outages have become a stumbling block for electric vehicle owners, in order to improve the user experience, is there any good way for car manufacturers? Recently, a Weilai car owner who had only 37 kilometers of battery life and was about to change power at a nearby power exchange station encountered the problem that the power exchange power station could not operate due to a power outage, resulting in the problem of almost lying on the road.
access:
Ali cloud server selection special: 1 core 1G cloud server as low as 0.9 yuan / month
Weilai Vice President Shen Fei replied directly to the user on Weibo: We have just finished the meeting and discussed, we will improve the next product, so that in the state of partial power outage, the battery energy storage station can be used to power the swap station itself, and the reverse Replace the battery to obtain a fully charged battery and continue to provide battery replacement services.
Source: Screenshot of Weilai Vice President Shen Fei’s Weibo
For the small probability event of power outage, NIO needs to improve the power exchange station for users. Is this the pursuit of the ultimate user experience, or is it seeking a new energy utilization method in the operation of reverse power exchange?
From the perspective of energy utilization, Tesla already has some practices.
In California, Tesla Powerwall users can get paid $2 per kilowatt-hour for returning stored electricity to the grid.
A Powerwall is a lithium-ion battery most commonly used to store energy produced by Tesla’s solar panels. Virtually any power source can be used to charge the Powerwall for use as a backup power source during a power outage.
On August 17, Tesla Powerwall users were reportedly asked to supply power to the grid for the first time, and “delivered up to 16.5 megawatts of solar power to the grid when it was most needed.”
Tesla Powerwall image source: Tesla China official website
Of course, what really realizes these power dispatching is the centralized control platform behind which a large amount of user power consumption data flows, so that the power distributed in the energy storage equipment can be dispatched on the cloud.
If the Powerwall is replaced with a power station and the power station is used as an energy storage device, this kind of virtual power plant is also operational in Weilai.
Moreover, before Tesla, the Weilai power station also completed a scheduling practice of a grid virtual power plant.
In July, as the outdoor temperature in Hefei exceeded 37 degrees for several consecutive days and the power grid load was heavy, Hefei Power Grid sent a response demand to the energy management systems of Hefei Weilai Automobile, Hefei Tedian Automobile Charging Co., Ltd. and several commercial complexes through the virtual power plant system. .
At the same time after receiving the order, 15 Weilai car swap stations and more than 500 special electric vehicle charging piles in Hefei received the order. “The power reached 1630 kilowatts.
“Virtual power plant is a kind of energy Internet technology that integrates power loads such as charging piles, air conditioners, energy storage and other power loads scattered in different regions and different clients, as well as new energy sources such as photovoltaics, to achieve unified and precise intelligent control and coordinated optimization.”From the perspective of virtual power plant operators, the energy data that can be integrated by the power grid includes various energy storage devices in the entire city or region, and even air conditioners in office buildings and shopping malls.
Of course, for the Weilai power station, it needs to participate in the peak regulation of the power grid at a designated time. In participating in the scheduling of the power grid virtual power plant, the Weilai power station itself also acts as a small virtual power plant.
During this period, NIO owners may have extended the charging time by less than 5 minutes, but under the dispatch of the entire virtual power plant, the whole city of Hefei quickly reduced the load power by 2.22 MW, which is equivalent to the total household electricity consumption of more than 2,000 ordinary Hefei citizens. .
Judging from the capabilities of the Weilai battery swap station, the current Weilai battery swap station is equipped with 13 batteries. According to estimates, each battery swap station has an energy storage capacity of 600-700 kWh at any time. When the user replaces the required battery, the other 10-11 batteries can be discharged to the grid for 5-10 minutes, and can accept the command of the grid to discharge to the grid or increase the charging power at any time, which hardly affects the normal battery replacement service of the user.
The fundamental reason for the rapid mobilization is NIO’s energy cloud. Based on the big data of users’ power-up, NIO’s energy cloud can mobilize the charging and swapping resources to fully interact with the power grid, and charge during the load valley.
Source: Weilai App
Charging piles, swap stations and even electric vehicles, as different forms of energy storage equipment, form distributed energy sources. These data are dispatched in the cloud to form a small virtual power plant.
Compared to energy saving and carbon neutrality, the most practical example for electric car owners is that electric car owners can use the difference in electricity prices between peaks and valleys to earn lunch money.
There are 15 two-way charging pile pilots in the parking lot of NIO Shanghai headquarters building, which are characterized by being able to charge and discharge.
Electric vehicle owners can charge with 0.3 yuan of electricity at night, and use two-way charging piles in the company to complete a power transaction at the price of 1.3 yuan per kilowatt-hour of electricity during peak hours.
Electric vehicle owners use the price of power resources at different times to complete charging and discharging. Although they cannot obtain much profit, they also make a small contribution to the power load invisibly.
If it is said that for a city, virtual power plants can integrate various distributed energy sources for aggregate control, then for car manufacturers, what they provide is actually a part of it, as a special power plant to participate in power grid operation and power market power Coordinate management system.
However, compared with foreign countries,my countryThere is currently no viable business model for virtual power plants.This is because, unlike foreign market-oriented ideas, my country’s power supply pressure is relatively large, and it is impossible for 80% of the power to be placed in the spot market. If there is no spot power, there is also a lack of business model space.
Image source: from the Internet
Europe and the United States have explored the business model of virtual power plants earlier, with mature upstream, midstream and downstream facilities, and can rely on flexible business strategies to make profits.
Such as the Tesla Powerwall mentioned at the beginning of the article, is built on the basis of cooperative projects, as part of the virtual power plant business model, so that Powerwall customers and Tesla owners can join the project and obtain benefits through the Tesla application.
my country requires electricity to maintain stability, which means that electricity prices will not fluctuate too much. Many vehicle companies, including NIO, are more likely to join government-led pilot projects.
For example, the North China Energy Regulatory Bureau previously formulated the “Rules for Third-Party Independent Subjects to Participate in the North China Electric Power Peak Shaving Auxiliary Service Market”, allowing electric vehicles to participate in the peak shaving market in the form of aggregators.
NIO participated in the trial and mobilized users to participate through NIO points and other means. Under the full mobilization of the data on users’ charging and swapping, the peaks are cut and the valleys are filled, providing greater flexibility of the power grid.
It is also a virtual power plant without deduction mode. Tesla owners can try to get rewards, while Weilai owners are participating in a social development practice.
This may be the fundamental reason why car companies invest in research and development without a viable business model.
From another perspective, a big goal of developing electric vehicles in my country is carbon neutrality. Electric vehicles have also often come under fire for using coal-fired power for not being environmentally friendly enough.
In fact, in Sichuan, Chongqing and Northwest provinces where clean energy is used more, it is the province with the largest use of clean energy. How to consume more clean energy and improve the utilization rate of green electricity through safe and stable operation? From the point of view, it is a social value that is more sustainable and worthy of long-term exploration.
For electric vehicle users, although there is a power outage or a short-term power supply problem caused by a natural disaster, the electric vehicle will not suffer from the problem of use, and may even become part of the reverse output, circulating the power on the cloud.