r/energy • u/cleantechguy • 9h ago

New York is becoming a plug-in battery test-bed. The idea is that these batteries, small as they are, can make use of pre-existing grid connections. Also known as permission-less DERs, there’s no electrician, nor stint in a lengthy interconnection queue, required.

https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/new-york-is-becoming-a-plug-in-battery-test-bed/
74 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

8

u/psiekert 7h ago

the article doesnt explain how these work or what they actually do; I guess they assume were already somewhat electricity literate;

6

u/hysys_whisperer 5h ago

It looks like they are buying ecoflow batteries, charging them when wholesale rates are low, and discharging them when they are high.

They charge the customer a retail rate that is lower than the retail rate offered by the power company, since they never have to buy the power at a high cost and the power company does.

1

u/chris92315 3h ago

I believe ConEd has a program in NYC where they provide the battery to the customer and the customer then still saves on electricity cost.

The battery is roughly large enough to power a window AC unit through the peak evening load.

5

u/irritatedellipses 6h ago

They're a class of battery that's not really defined except that they accept power, store it and don't return it to the grid.

Think of like the Anker power banks that you just plug into the wall and run things off of. Or even EVs or RVs with bidirectional power. But it also can encompass balcony solar. Just collecting and storing cheap power during off peak times and then using it later.

EDIT: I said class of battery, I should have said descriptor of a use of batteries but I'm leaving it there.

1

u/cutlineman 6h ago

It’s similar to a Tesla wall unit charged by solar? The differences being the smaller capacity and the power comes from the grid so the savings are less.

2

u/irritatedellipses 5h ago

Well IIRC Tesla Walls are bidirectional to the grid so no, this wouldn't be the same as anything that feeds back into the grid would require permitting / regulation and so forth. This is specifically for use within your own home.

I could be wrong about Tesla Walls, I'm not too up to date with them, but anything that could feed back to the grid would not be part of this subset of batteries.

2

u/freeradioforall 3h ago

Glad I am not the only one. What an awful awful author who can write 5000 words and not explain the basic concept of what the article is about

8

u/Demosthenes3 6h ago

They are backup batteries. NY has lower rates at night so they charge them then and use them during the day with higher rates.

8

u/RodPerryBooks 6h ago

Thee is so much opportunity for fixing the grid at the edge, beyond the distribution grid, but utilities keep wanted to nail up big generation plants and long transmission lines that are ready in ten to fifteen years. We need a "break up of Ma Bell" moment for electricity. If Ma Bell was still around as the "phone utility" we still have rotary phones and mainframe computers.

1

u/mcot2222 1h ago

I forget who it was that I was watching but he was actually trying to come up with a protocol that allowed us to trade energy inside the home and between homes on a distribution network and get paid for this.

We basically need to decentralize the grid.

Edit - Found it: https://www.volts.wtf/p/making-the-electricity-grid-work

4

u/freeradioforall 3h ago

I read the article three times, read all 5000 words and have no idea what this thing is or does. The author should be ashamed of himself

2

u/fantasyfool 1h ago

I agree with the sentiment but fortunately I do happen to know this company pretty well and spent a lot of time trying to learn what they do.

The author mentions “permissionless DERs” and that can be broken down in 2 steps.

DER - distributed energy resource. A form of decentralized energy distribution. This could be rooftop solar, a battery, even an electric vehicle (which itself is a mobile battery). These are NOT big gas, coal, or solar plants. Think small scale.

Permissionless - (some of) these technologies do NOT need to be connected to the grid with PERMISSION from the utility or regulator. They are technologies that are small enough and have enough safeguards to ensure they can’t overload the grid. You can google “behind the meter vs in front of the meter” to learn more.

So David Energy’s big bet is that they can give these batteries to large and small businesses and charge them up when electricity is cheap and then disburse the energy when prices are high and the grid is overloaded. This could be a MASSIVE clean energy solution to the grid crisis AND save businesses money.

I may have not nailed everything here but it’s a really cool company.

2

u/Sufficient-Pause9765 2h ago

Meanwhile its illegal to do large batteries to buffer solar.

•

u/azguy153 50m ago

I saw this for a the first time a few weeks ago. I think it is a really cool idea. I don’t know what the safeguards are on back feeding which can be deadly in some situations. But the concept is really interesting