Back to Winter Mode for my DIY ESS - Energy Storage System at Home making the best out of TOU rate

We are slowly entering winter here with pretty low temperatures in Paris, also the sun is lower and lower, allowing less and less solar production during the day, especially with grey clouds covering it sometimes all day long ....



So since last night, my DIY ESS goes back to its "Winter Mode", meaning it charges the battery pack at night, using half priced grid electricity - TOU plan -, and re-uses it through out the day



On the Power graph above, you can see that after the water heater has stopped at 00:30AM, the chargers continue to use 350W (limited to 4 chargers on purpose) until the electricity goes back to day rateat 6:24AM - and it started at 10:24PM the day before -

Follow my Live Power Usage and Generation with Solar and the DIY ESS



This is possible thanks to the Forced Charge Mode implemented in the Arduino program running my Home Energy Storage System




More on Forced Charge Mode on the DIY ESS Kit Website

TeleWatt - Charging Stations from Street Lights

For quite a while now, I have had this idea:

Why not set up a small waterproof charging station (composed of 3 outlets: 2 for electric cars, 1 for electric scooter) on every street light we already have on the sidewalk ?

People would park, plug in their Electric Car and recharge, even at a small pace (let's say 220V at 8A or 10A), but when they are parked for the whole night, it is more than enough to go to work the next morning;
People who don't have an EV want fast charging stations everywhere; like they are used to see gas stations, but, when you own one, drive it daily to commute and more, you realize that you do not need them, because you mostly charge at home, at night, slowly and when the electricity is cheaper
For people who do not have a parking/garage where they can install and outlet or wallbox, this street based charging possibility is a the key

Well, reading this article about ADEME (French Environment Agency) projects, I realize that this idea is going to be experimented for real in France soon by a project called TeleWatt with Citelum


Here is the transcript of their mission:

Develop and test a new solution of recharge from the existing network of public lighting

High amounts and time of return on investment, the importance of civil engineering, operations and strengthening connection of electrical networks and consequently delays implementation of equipment represent a real obstacle for the development of infrastructure recharge. TELEWATT project aims to deploy a network of intelligent charging stations quickly and on a large scale using existing infrastructure and public lighting.

This project has three main innovations:

• The simultaneous monitoring of electrical networks (power consumption, condition, etc..) And the establishment of a centralized management system to manage particular user access to the network.

• The establishment of taken "plug & play", with identification by IP address, which does not require installation engineering. This device can be deployed in the short term and may be taken simply displaced, according to the evolution of urban development and the needs of users.

• The development of a user interface on mobile phones to book, track and manage remotely and at any time the load of the vehicle.

I also had the idea of making this more simple, hallowing anybody to plug in for free (as a public service) to charge an electric vehicle, and replacing high consumption light bulbs with LED bulbs, reduicing the load on each charge point and saving money to the community / city ...

But this is a good first stetp, and I am really looking forward to hearing more about this !


Read more about this project here: ADEME (PDF file)
Citelum (street lights): Citelum & their Telewatt project

Nissan LEAF - Night Charge & The New Morning (Japan)

I like these Japanese family videos, and I think they just show how simple it is to use an electric car on a daily basis