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If you were to take every single car on the road today and replace it with an electric car overnight there would be massive, massive blackouts, everywhere. Car

If you were to take every single car on the road today and replace it with an electric car overnight there would be massive, massive blackouts, everywhere. Cars use a whole lot of energy, gasoline stores a whole lot of energy. I doubt there are many places around the world where electric power distribution systems are equipped to serve vehicles, on top of cooling, heating, refrigeration, electronics, etc.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> If you were to take every single car on the road today and replace it with an electric car overnight there would be massive, massive blackouts, everywhere. Half-credit. The DOE has shown that 77% of light vehicles could move over to overnight electric charging without adding any additional grid capacity. If we need more capacity, we add additional renewables to the grid.
MrRadar 11y ago
> If you were to take every single car on the road today and replace it with an electric car overnight there would be massive, massive blackouts, everywhere. Not quite true. It's estimated[0] that up to 75% of light-duty vehicles (the kind regular people drive) could be converted to electric without requiring major grid upgrades. The one major assumption is that most people would be charging their vehicles at off-peak hours (overnight) which is already the case[1]. [0] http://www.technologyreview.com/news/518066/could-electric-cars-threaten-the-grid/ http://www.technologyreview.com/news/518066/could-electric-c... [1] http://www.powermag.com/impact-of-electric-vehicle-charging-on-grid-may-be-far-less-than-feared/?printmode=1 http://www.powermag.com/impact-of-electric-vehicle-charging-...
mikeash 11y ago
But the conversion doesn't happen overnight. EV adoption will happen slowly over the course of decades. That's plenty of time for the grid to be upgraded in a slow, incremental fashion. The same could be said of the hydrogen infrastructure, except that hydrogen faces a massive chicken-and-egg problem. There are a grand total of twelve hydrogen fueling stations in the US at the moment. These stations cost a ton of money to build. Who will build them if there are almost no hydrogen cars on the road? Who will buy hydrogen cars if there are almost no filling stations? EV charging infrastructure is relatively cheap. That means it doesn't face the same chicken-and-egg problem. A person whose daily driving fits entirely within their EV's range doesn't need any charging stations except the one at his house, which can typically be installed for $0-2,000. (The $0 is for if a suitable outlet is already available and you just use the mobile charger that comes with the car.) And since the stations are relatively cheap, that means that businesses can install a few to attract EV owners without making it a major investment. Because of this, there are already over 10,000 public charging stations in the US, with more showing up all the time. Each additional station stresses the grid a little bit more. But it also contributes money to maintaining and upgrading the grid. As long as stupid political forces don't prevent utilities from gradually upgrading over time, there will be no problem there.
WorldMaker 11y ago
Electric cars primarily "fill in the bathtub". If you look at a chart of energy demand over 24 hours the off-peak (cheaper) hours are often referred to as the "bathtub" because that's what the chart resembles. To deal with the bathtub electric companies have to turn on/off electric generation systems appropriately. Most of those generation systems (hydro and even coal, as two examples) are more efficient if they run continuously rather than start/stop. So electric companies want to fill in the bathtub, and are already willing and eager to fill in the bathtub. This is also where you get into discussions about the "smart grid". The thing to note is that the grid in most countries is already "smart" on the production/generation side: it has to be to deal with changes in demand over time, particularly given something like the bathtub that happens every single day. The goal of the "smart grid" is to make consumption smarter by signaling better when demand might change (my owner just got home from work for the day, your house says, so please get ready for higher power needs this evening) and electric cars are a vanguard for the "smart grid" precisely because they are programmable consumption devices with useful consumption patterns that can be smartly adjusted. An electric car (or its charger, same difference) can ask the grid for energy and adjust its energy input to the grids needs (and vice versa), charging on a slow trickle during high demands and a full blast to help fill in the bathtub. Cars use a whole lot of energy, but primarily in short bursts (trips to/from a destination) and ultimately spend a lot more time parked. With a little bit of information from the user, or a bit of inference from pattern matching, a car can predict about how long it will be parked and about how much charge it will need for the next trip (which is not always 100%; if you drive to lunch from work you probably are only planning to go a short distance because you have to return to work just after lunch). The energy grid loves this because it can better predict demand over time and better adjust consumption to meet generation and vice versa. (This is all even before you get the "smart grid" facets that electric cars are giant parked batteries and that a truly "smart grid" could borrow energy from an electric car to meet high demand and then repay that energy (with "interest") as demand shrinks back down. It's this part that gets a bunch of interest when people talk about the "smart grid", but that's actually a less practically useful part of it than just consumption demand knowledge and preparation/time-shifting. The "battery loans" would more likely be useful and actionable merely at the scale of between your personal car and home than at the level of the grid.)

toomuchtodo 11y ago

> If you were to take every single car on the road today and replace it with an electric car overnight there would be massive, massive blackouts, everywhere. Half-credit. The DOE has shown that 77% of light vehicles could move over to overnight electric charging without adding any additional grid capacity. If we need more capacity, we add additional renewables to the grid.

MrRadar 11y ago

> If you were to take every single car on the road today and replace it with an electric car overnight there would be massive, massive blackouts, everywhere. Not quite true. It's estimated[0] that up to 75% of light-duty vehicles (the kind regular people drive) could be converted to electric without requiring major grid upgrades. The one major assumption is that most people would be charging their vehicles at off-peak hours (overnight) which is already the case[1]. [0] http://www.technologyreview.com/news/518066/could-electric-cars-threaten-the-grid/ http://www.technologyreview.com/news/518066/could-electric-c... [1] http://www.powermag.com/impact-of-electric-vehicle-charging-on-grid-may-be-far-less-than-feared/?printmode=1 http://www.powermag.com/impact-of-electric-vehicle-charging-...

mikeash 11y ago

But the conversion doesn't happen overnight. EV adoption will happen slowly over the course of decades. That's plenty of time for the grid to be upgraded in a slow, incremental fashion. The same could be said of the hydrogen infrastructure, except that hydrogen faces a massive chicken-and-egg problem. There are a grand total of twelve hydrogen fueling stations in the US at the moment. These stations cost a ton of money to build. Who will build them if there are almost no hydrogen cars on the road? Who will buy hydrogen cars if there are almost no filling stations? EV charging infrastructure is relatively cheap. That means it doesn't face the same chicken-and-egg problem. A person whose daily driving fits entirely within their EV's range doesn't need any charging stations except the one at his house, which can typically be installed for $0-2,000. (The $0 is for if a suitable outlet is already available and you just use the mobile charger that comes with the car.) And since the stations are relatively cheap, that means that businesses can install a few to attract EV owners without making it a major investment. Because of this, there are already over 10,000 public charging stations in the US, with more showing up all the time. Each additional station stresses the grid a little bit more. But it also contributes money to maintaining and upgrading the grid. As long as stupid political forces don't prevent utilities from gradually upgrading over time, there will be no problem there.

WorldMaker 11y ago

Electric cars primarily "fill in the bathtub". If you look at a chart of energy demand over 24 hours the off-peak (cheaper) hours are often referred to as the "bathtub" because that's what the chart resembles. To deal with the bathtub electric companies have to turn on/off electric generation systems appropriately. Most of those generation systems (hydro and even coal, as two examples) are more efficient if they run continuously rather than start/stop. So electric companies want to fill in the bathtub, and are already willing and eager to fill in the bathtub. This is also where you get into discussions about the "smart grid". The thing to note is that the grid in most countries is already "smart" on the production/generation side: it has to be to deal with changes in demand over time, particularly given something like the bathtub that happens every single day. The goal of the "smart grid" is to make consumption smarter by signaling better when demand might change (my owner just got home from work for the day, your house says, so please get ready for higher power needs this evening) and electric cars are a vanguard for the "smart grid" precisely because they are programmable consumption devices with useful consumption patterns that can be smartly adjusted. An electric car (or its charger, same difference) can ask the grid for energy and adjust its energy input to the grids needs (and vice versa), charging on a slow trickle during high demands and a full blast to help fill in the bathtub. Cars use a whole lot of energy, but primarily in short bursts (trips to/from a destination) and ultimately spend a lot more time parked. With a little bit of information from the user, or a bit of inference from pattern matching, a car can predict about how long it will be parked and about how much charge it will need for the next trip (which is not always 100%; if you drive to lunch from work you probably are only planning to go a short distance because you have to return to work just after lunch). The energy grid loves this because it can better predict demand over time and better adjust consumption to meet generation and vice versa. (This is all even before you get the "smart grid" facets that electric cars are giant parked batteries and that a truly "smart grid" could borrow energy from an electric car to meet high demand and then repay that energy (with "interest") as demand shrinks back down. It's this part that gets a bunch of interest when people talk about the "smart grid", but that's actually a less practically useful part of it than just consumption demand knowledge and preparation/time-shifting. The "battery loans" would more likely be useful and actionable merely at the scale of between your personal car and home than at the level of the grid.)