Why put them in households? Why not battery-bank them? Occupy warehouses in low value industrial areas near decent power infrastructure, and simply charge each night and discharge each day?

The infrastructure likely scales efficiently, and as batteries crap out they get cycled (pardon the pun) out for more effective ones.

Depending on the night/day price variation, the cost of the infrastructure, and the cost of disposal I don't know if the battery farm would buy batteries or charge money to collect them (and eventually dispose of them properly), but it seems far more efficient for a few large installations than thousands of one-offs, in terms of equipment, expertise, timing w.r.t. the grid, and so forth.

I don't know about warehouses, but putting the batteries close to the point of use minimizes grid load during the times they would be discharging.

Paul's application has merit specially when coupled with home solar cells. Overnight rates may go up when many million EVs are charging. That's good business sense.

A very recent study carried out by 250 scientists for our local Hydro Co. (Quebec Hydro) forecast that Northern area temperatures will go up by about +1C (Average) every 10 years for the next 60 years with 15% to 20% more rain/snow falls in the Northern part of the province where most of the large Hydro plants are. All Northern area Hydro plants will potentially produce more. The energy required for home heating will be progressively be less. Hydro energy surpluses will be more than enough for 1.5 to 2.0 EVs per resident. Wouldn't be surprised if Hydro Quebec gets involve into a generous EV support program to sell its surplus energy.

I feel that this is yet another million dollar waste - throw federal or other government money at primarily government & university agencies, who churn the money but rarely come up with anything useful or reportable.

Other reasons for household installation:

1) Households gain the means to survive emergency grid failure.
2) Households gain the means to better monitor energy consumption.
3) Households gain the choice of whether to drive or cut utility bills.
4) As fewer and shorter 'drives' become the norm, more 'routine travel' can be accomplished without having to drive.

Emergency drill: Pretend the grid goes down. Determine which electrical appliances are essential, which are non-essential. Monitor electricity consumption as minimal appliances are restored power running solely on batteries from a plug-in car or in a battery closet.

5) There are additional advantages to household battery closet installation, but these are the main ones.

One must consider that the very first (and lowest power density) batteries are all built to a 10 year minimum life cycle. So, ten years from now a few thousand used car batteries MIGHT be available for sale. Provided the cost of disassembling the EV is minimal.

Long before then, an enterprising entrepreneur will have groked the idea for electronics to allow V2H-ome UPS services. Solar packagers will be vying for ways to build PV storage systems from EV batteries. It has yet to be seen if these used batteries are better applied to storage solutions or recycled into new batteries with 100% capacity.

IF the used EV units can be obtained cheap enough there may be a viable application "time shifting" grid energy in high cost utility areas. Charge overnight, discharge into local loads during peak - save on e-billing.

Roger, it all depends on how many batteries you have tied together, what their rating is, etc. The battery management systems that come now with most residential gel-packs do a good job of regulating and maintaining constant load but, like all else, it depends on the individual batteries.
As you know, even the batteries on your car eventually die (7-10 years? You don't drive much, do ya?) so there's no reason to not expect the ones in the garage battery bank to do the same. We'll eventually come to a "time to change the battery, hon'" lifestyle, just like when you change the filters for the air conditioner.

ANOTHER million dollar STUDY.

Paid for by California, no less.

These guys are nuts.

But not to worry, this will NOT bankrupt California.
. . This is why they ARE bankrupt.

“Even after the end of usable battery life in the vehicle, the batteries will retain 70 to 80 percent of their residual capacity . .”

I thought they would have 100% of their residual capacity.

But there ARE no batteries from EVs.

There won’t be any very soon.

When there are, this out of date study will have to be re-done, if we even need a study (we won't).

When there are unusable batteries from EVs they won’t have no stinking 80% left; who’s going to junk $10,000 worth of batteries because their range went from 100 mi to 80?

When there are unusable batteries from EVs, and if they were usable for peak power, put them together - I think that scattering them all over, like the Chinese tried with home iron smelters, would not work except for a few fringe geeks, with time to waste.

citizen and mahonj have it exactly right.

Not only that, it means that load can be transferred to resources which peak in the evening or late at night (e.g. California wind). Handling these loads when ambient temps are lower increases the energy-carrying capacity of the grid; more power can be carried for the same temperature in the transformer.

Harvey, not sure the utils will want to buy V2G power at $.30 /kWh they just sold for $.10. But they could be mandated to buy it at some net profit to the seller.

If however, the electrification of North America is to be successful we will have to implement residential distributed energy. This means huge opportunities for domestic manufacturing as portions of municipal grids are retired and replaced by Residential Power Units functioning as combined heat, power and cooling systems.

Initially this shifts fuel consumption away from aging coal fired plants to much cleaner and lower emission GHG, methane/NG. Minimizing the need to build new power plants, maintain aging grid hardware, and removal of old power lines.

I could see these batteries in garages for home use, but also to provide quick charging for EVs. If I get home and I need 10 kWh in 15 minutes to do some more errands, I don't need to go to a quick charge station.

Carlos Ghosn has stated the batteries will be good for 15-20 years in secondary usage.. but I feel ToppaTom is right, people will junk these packs when they are DEAD, not just 80% down.. in any case they would make a hell of a battery for a home UPS or to buffer your solar installation.

Project Better Place will have many of these batteries sitting unused in the swap stations, they can make a tidy side profit selling grid stabilization to the local power company.