7 ms·

When it reaches 100 million electric cars, Peaks are going to be really big on the power grids. The electrical grid needs improvement, a few battery hubs won't

When it reaches 100 million electric cars, Peaks are going to be really big on the power grids. The electrical grid needs improvement, a few battery hubs won't do. The energy to move 1 billion cars around needs to come from somewhere and it needs transportation for that energy from source to user. This requires big changes in power infrastructure. Wonder what the future holds.

neon_electro 9y ago
What are your thoughts on home batteries? Assuming the decline of battery prices is a major influence in the uptake of electric vehicles, I'm wondering if a similar uptake in home batteries (alongside residential solar) would mitigate stress on the grid.
- Freestyler_3 9y ago
  Home batteries would have to hold more than the car. This will still put the baseline of the grid higher, just averages it out possibly taking more when its a good time. I think batteries should be hosted/hooked up by the power company, so they can attach them to a power management system. (I think that already exists) I left out the "where will we get all this power" part, because that is already discussed a lot. I just wonder if the power grid will be able to handle this immense increase in usage, even if spread out. You still need to transport it. edit: I think the powering down of offices and business makes enough room for the evening to use more.
  - epistasis 9y ago
    What reason is there for a home battery to hold more than a car?
    - Freestyler_3 9y ago
      You can drive your car empty faster than your home battery might charge (due to supply/demand), and it is possible to give back to grid if there is a peak in your area.
- pmuk 9y ago
  With smarter grids that support dynamic realtime pricing of electricy to end users, I think electric cars, home batteries and even appliances like fridges, refrigerators and washing machines can help balance supply and demand in the grids, using electricity, pausing consumption or pumping it back into the grid as needed. The UK government recently performed an industry consultation on this subject and has released a plan to: * remove barriers to smart technologies (such as storage and demand-side response) * enable smart homes and businesses * improve access to energy markets for new technologies and business models https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/upgrading-our-energy-system-smart-systems-and-flexibility-plan https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/upgrading-our-ene...
philipkglass 9y ago
It's not necessarily going to lead to much higher peaks. Most EVs do not need to charge continuously from the moment the owner gets home until the owner leaves home the next morning. Simply time-shifting the bulk of charging to, say, between 9 pm and 6 AM would enable vehicle charging without boosting peaks on the California grid: http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx#SupplyandDemand http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx#SupplyandDeman... It's even better for places where renewable generation is more weighted toward wind than solar, like Texas, because wind output tends to peak while people are sleeping and demand is otherwise low: http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/CURRENT_DAYCOP_HSL.html http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/CURRENT_DAYCOP_HSL.htm...
- jasonmaydie 9y ago
  peaks will happen if enough people do it at the same time. Almost every summer (maybe except this one), there's always that heat wave that taxes the grid. A solvable problem for sure (just like how we can now handle cell phone overload during emergencies) but lets not pretend the problem doesn't exist.
  - epistasis 9y ago
    philipkglass showed how the problem is solved, he did not ignore the problem.
    - kronosEnvy 9y ago
      philipkglass showed how the problem is solved jasonmaydie showed that even if a problem is solved it can still be a "problem"
- Shivetya 9y ago
  It may require that electric providers require deferred charging, even to the point they set when you can. While you could defer your charging don't expect that everyone will. As we see with charging stations in areas with more EVs there are those who just don't care. We need to instruct future owners the expected etiquette
jhayward 9y ago
> Peaks are going to be really big on the power grids Can you supply some supporting documentation for this? All the studies I've seen have shown that the charge cycle is very flat, can be centrally demand controlled, and essentially "fills in" the night-time slump that saps much of the generating profit from major types (e.g., thermal) of generator plants.
- Freestyler_3 9y ago
  If every household hooks up, and all the trucks? Currently there is more investment in solar/wind, one is always unreliable and the other is certainly off at night. Now a grid of batteries might be enough to fill up the gaps today, but once that night slum is no longer a slum, who knows how big batteries you'll need.
  - epistasis 9y ago
    We're still at low levels of renewable penetration on our grid; once over 50%, all these vehicles become a fantastic source of "negative" demand response. Current demand response asks customers to decrease consumption when there's peak usage and the grid is strained. Negative demand response is a signal to consume electricity when a free-on-the-margin source like solar would otherwise be curtailed. The massive array of car batteries becomes an absolutely wonderful source of both positive and negative demand response. Currently, almost no one insists on driving around with a 100% full fuel tank. Those with electric cars commonly keep them around 80%. And daily usage of the battery is nearly always far less than 50%. And a decent sized EV battery is 1-2 days of household electricity usage. If a significant chunk (20%-30%?) of our electrical demand is for battery-powered transport, we've solved a huge problem that comes with high wind and solar penetrance on the grid, without having stationary batteries. As car batteries age and have reduced capacity, they will potentially have a second life as stationary storage, where power density doesn't matter as much. This means, that if we are able to install chargers at a percentage of workplaces, that car batteries will be able massively smooth out not only the daily duck curve of demand, but also deal with fluctuations where some days have more production and others less.
solaris_7 9y ago
I think the expectation is that as the grid slowly gets "smart" this will reduce the peaky-ness of demand generated by electric car charging. If the price of a kWh is dynamic based on current use then the combination of smart charging stations & locally installed batteries should even things out a lot. Obviously the total consumption will increase dramatically. If this shift takes place the society-wide energy mix will include a lot less petrol/gasoline/diesel and lot more electricity. Hopefully the prices of solar & wind will continue to fall and the shift in this mix will be massively to the advantage of the environment - and to the quality of life in our cities.
condiment 9y ago
> Peaks are going to be really big This got me thinking, what does the power draw look like? A Model S has two battery options - 60kWh / 335km @ 5.85km/kWh - 85kWh / 426km @ 5.01km/kWh So a battery will need to recharge 1kWh for each 5km traveled. The typical US commuter travels 48km per day. 50km per day / 5km/kWh is 10kWh per day of required draw. Say 10 hours of charging per day smooths this out to an additional draw of 1kW per driver (a big assumption). With 100M additional electric cars (there are only 165M daily commuters) in the US, the additional draw on the power grid would require 1,000GW of additional capacity. That's a 25% increase over 2016 power generation. Compared to the 1999-2016 growth rate of 9.5%, it is significant, but seems manageable. Especially considering it'll take 10+ years for electric cars to be widely used by a significant fraction of the US workforce.
- epistasis 9y ago
  This type of demand is far different from that 9.5% growth rate, and far more manageable, precisely because it happens during off-peak hours. At night, transmission lines are uncongested, and the wind (typically) blows more.
- Freestyler_3 9y ago
  Thanks, that's some good info. 10kWh × 165M on the night grid, that's big impact. I went and got the miles travelled per year and the total nr of vehicles, you are not far off. although we are forgetting that most traffic is during weekdays, and the size of the cars varies (and with it the usage) For convenience I don't do anything with the size of the cars. "According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics for 2012, there were 254,639,386 registered vehicles. Of these, 183,171,882 were classified as "Light duty vehicle, short wheel base", while another 50,588,676 were listed as "Light duty vehicle, long wheel base". Another 8,190,286 were classified as vehicles with two axles and six or more tires and 2,469,094 were classified as "Truck, combination". There were 8,454,939 motorcycles also listed along with 764,509 buses." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States#Total_number_of_vehicles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_Unit... 250m vehicles in us, if 150m of those are electrical at some point, and the number of miles driven total might be 3.5T miles by then (3.5×0.6=2.1T) 2.1/150m/313×1.6 (6 days of driving a week, and miles to km) comes to 71 km per day, which is 14 kWh (6/7 days) of required draw. I think it is manageable like you said, considering that it will take a while.
Florin_Andrei 9y ago
> Wonder what the future holds. I hope it holds a great shift towards decentralization of energy production. Not complete decentralization, but a blend of massive power plants like today, and lots and lots of homes with solar panels on roof tops and the like. I also hope fusion research is accelerated. Fusion in the sky, plus fusion down on Earth, that would cover a lot of bases. Portable fusion reactors would also truly open up the solar system - ride the fusion torch to your destination, power your habitat with fusion reactors.
- vl 9y ago
  EVs at home charge at night, solar panels produce energy during the day.
  - schiffern 9y ago
    Counterpoint: EVs plugged in at work charge during the day. Scaling up charging infrastructure at work probably pays for its own deployment in reduced energy storage costs. If the underlying economics are there, it's "just" about getting the incentives right. An always-connected EV fleet can dispatch charging from a central load-leveling server, passing a percentage of the utility revenue along to incentivize the EV owner. Such a car would always Do The Right Thing(TM) with respect to TOU/tiered metering, real-time (or forecast) renewable generation, local distribution grid loading, and the availability of any extra baseload generation at night. Personally I would want the option to always immediately charge the car to X miles of range (to drive to the local hospital), and to always charge to Y miles by Z:00 every day (for commuting). Subject to those constraints, the service provider is free to shift around the charging schedule to suit conditions on the local electric grid. The more leeway the service provider has to shift charging around, the more the EV owner earns. Obviously Tesla is pursuing this, but I hope they have competition.
    - Florin_Andrei 9y ago
      > EVs plugged in at work charge during the day. Good idea, but the infrastructure would have to be tied to the building, not to the companies operating in it. A lot of companies change offices all the time, and then there are all those small companies that can't afford to build this sort of thing. So it would have to be part of regular infrastructure just like running water or comm/data lines.

neon_electro 9y ago

What are your thoughts on home batteries? Assuming the decline of battery prices is a major influence in the uptake of electric vehicles, I'm wondering if a similar uptake in home batteries (alongside residential solar) would mitigate stress on the grid.

Freestyler_3 9y ago
Home batteries would have to hold more than the car. This will still put the baseline of the grid higher, just averages it out possibly taking more when its a good time. I think batteries should be hosted/hooked up by the power company, so they can attach them to a power management system. (I think that already exists) I left out the "where will we get all this power" part, because that is already discussed a lot. I just wonder if the power grid will be able to handle this immense increase in usage, even if spread out. You still need to transport it. edit: I think the powering down of offices and business makes enough room for the evening to use more.
- epistasis 9y ago
  What reason is there for a home battery to hold more than a car?
  - Freestyler_3 9y ago
    You can drive your car empty faster than your home battery might charge (due to supply/demand), and it is possible to give back to grid if there is a peak in your area.
pmuk 9y ago
With smarter grids that support dynamic realtime pricing of electricy to end users, I think electric cars, home batteries and even appliances like fridges, refrigerators and washing machines can help balance supply and demand in the grids, using electricity, pausing consumption or pumping it back into the grid as needed. The UK government recently performed an industry consultation on this subject and has released a plan to: * remove barriers to smart technologies (such as storage and demand-side response) * enable smart homes and businesses * improve access to energy markets for new technologies and business models https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/upgrading-our-energy-system-smart-systems-and-flexibility-plan https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/upgrading-our-ene...

philipkglass 9y ago

It's not necessarily going to lead to much higher peaks. Most EVs do not need to charge continuously from the moment the owner gets home until the owner leaves home the next morning. Simply time-shifting the bulk of charging to, say, between 9 pm and 6 AM would enable vehicle charging without boosting peaks on the California grid: http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx#SupplyandDemand http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx#SupplyandDeman... It's even better for places where renewable generation is more weighted toward wind than solar, like Texas, because wind output tends to peak while people are sleeping and demand is otherwise low: http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/CURRENT_DAYCOP_HSL.html http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/CURRENT_DAYCOP_HSL.htm...

jasonmaydie 9y ago
peaks will happen if enough people do it at the same time. Almost every summer (maybe except this one), there's always that heat wave that taxes the grid. A solvable problem for sure (just like how we can now handle cell phone overload during emergencies) but lets not pretend the problem doesn't exist.
- epistasis 9y ago
  philipkglass showed how the problem is solved, he did not ignore the problem.
  - kronosEnvy 9y ago
    philipkglass showed how the problem is solved jasonmaydie showed that even if a problem is solved it can still be a "problem"
Shivetya 9y ago
It may require that electric providers require deferred charging, even to the point they set when you can. While you could defer your charging don't expect that everyone will. As we see with charging stations in areas with more EVs there are those who just don't care. We need to instruct future owners the expected etiquette

jhayward 9y ago

> Peaks are going to be really big on the power grids Can you supply some supporting documentation for this? All the studies I've seen have shown that the charge cycle is very flat, can be centrally demand controlled, and essentially "fills in" the night-time slump that saps much of the generating profit from major types (e.g., thermal) of generator plants.

Freestyler_3 9y ago
If every household hooks up, and all the trucks? Currently there is more investment in solar/wind, one is always unreliable and the other is certainly off at night. Now a grid of batteries might be enough to fill up the gaps today, but once that night slum is no longer a slum, who knows how big batteries you'll need.
- epistasis 9y ago
  We're still at low levels of renewable penetration on our grid; once over 50%, all these vehicles become a fantastic source of "negative" demand response. Current demand response asks customers to decrease consumption when there's peak usage and the grid is strained. Negative demand response is a signal to consume electricity when a free-on-the-margin source like solar would otherwise be curtailed. The massive array of car batteries becomes an absolutely wonderful source of both positive and negative demand response. Currently, almost no one insists on driving around with a 100% full fuel tank. Those with electric cars commonly keep them around 80%. And daily usage of the battery is nearly always far less than 50%. And a decent sized EV battery is 1-2 days of household electricity usage. If a significant chunk (20%-30%?) of our electrical demand is for battery-powered transport, we've solved a huge problem that comes with high wind and solar penetrance on the grid, without having stationary batteries. As car batteries age and have reduced capacity, they will potentially have a second life as stationary storage, where power density doesn't matter as much. This means, that if we are able to install chargers at a percentage of workplaces, that car batteries will be able massively smooth out not only the daily duck curve of demand, but also deal with fluctuations where some days have more production and others less.

solaris_7 9y ago

I think the expectation is that as the grid slowly gets "smart" this will reduce the peaky-ness of demand generated by electric car charging. If the price of a kWh is dynamic based on current use then the combination of smart charging stations & locally installed batteries should even things out a lot. Obviously the total consumption will increase dramatically. If this shift takes place the society-wide energy mix will include a lot less petrol/gasoline/diesel and lot more electricity. Hopefully the prices of solar & wind will continue to fall and the shift in this mix will be massively to the advantage of the environment - and to the quality of life in our cities.

condiment 9y ago

> Peaks are going to be really big This got me thinking, what does the power draw look like? A Model S has two battery options - 60kWh / 335km @ 5.85km/kWh - 85kWh / 426km @ 5.01km/kWh So a battery will need to recharge 1kWh for each 5km traveled. The typical US commuter travels 48km per day. 50km per day / 5km/kWh is 10kWh per day of required draw. Say 10 hours of charging per day smooths this out to an additional draw of 1kW per driver (a big assumption). With 100M additional electric cars (there are only 165M daily commuters) in the US, the additional draw on the power grid would require 1,000GW of additional capacity. That's a 25% increase over 2016 power generation. Compared to the 1999-2016 growth rate of 9.5%, it is significant, but seems manageable. Especially considering it'll take 10+ years for electric cars to be widely used by a significant fraction of the US workforce.

epistasis 9y ago
This type of demand is far different from that 9.5% growth rate, and far more manageable, precisely because it happens during off-peak hours. At night, transmission lines are uncongested, and the wind (typically) blows more.
Freestyler_3 9y ago
Thanks, that's some good info. 10kWh × 165M on the night grid, that's big impact. I went and got the miles travelled per year and the total nr of vehicles, you are not far off. although we are forgetting that most traffic is during weekdays, and the size of the cars varies (and with it the usage) For convenience I don't do anything with the size of the cars. "According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics for 2012, there were 254,639,386 registered vehicles. Of these, 183,171,882 were classified as "Light duty vehicle, short wheel base", while another 50,588,676 were listed as "Light duty vehicle, long wheel base". Another 8,190,286 were classified as vehicles with two axles and six or more tires and 2,469,094 were classified as "Truck, combination". There were 8,454,939 motorcycles also listed along with 764,509 buses." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States#Total_number_of_vehicles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_Unit... 250m vehicles in us, if 150m of those are electrical at some point, and the number of miles driven total might be 3.5T miles by then (3.5×0.6=2.1T) 2.1/150m/313×1.6 (6 days of driving a week, and miles to km) comes to 71 km per day, which is 14 kWh (6/7 days) of required draw. I think it is manageable like you said, considering that it will take a while.

Florin_Andrei 9y ago

> Wonder what the future holds. I hope it holds a great shift towards decentralization of energy production. Not complete decentralization, but a blend of massive power plants like today, and lots and lots of homes with solar panels on roof tops and the like. I also hope fusion research is accelerated. Fusion in the sky, plus fusion down on Earth, that would cover a lot of bases. Portable fusion reactors would also truly open up the solar system - ride the fusion torch to your destination, power your habitat with fusion reactors.

vl 9y ago
EVs at home charge at night, solar panels produce energy during the day.
- schiffern 9y ago
  Counterpoint: EVs plugged in at work charge during the day. Scaling up charging infrastructure at work probably pays for its own deployment in reduced energy storage costs. If the underlying economics are there, it's "just" about getting the incentives right. An always-connected EV fleet can dispatch charging from a central load-leveling server, passing a percentage of the utility revenue along to incentivize the EV owner. Such a car would always Do The Right Thing(TM) with respect to TOU/tiered metering, real-time (or forecast) renewable generation, local distribution grid loading, and the availability of any extra baseload generation at night. Personally I would want the option to always immediately charge the car to X miles of range (to drive to the local hospital), and to always charge to Y miles by Z:00 every day (for commuting). Subject to those constraints, the service provider is free to shift around the charging schedule to suit conditions on the local electric grid. The more leeway the service provider has to shift charging around, the more the EV owner earns. Obviously Tesla is pursuing this, but I hope they have competition.
  - Florin_Andrei 9y ago
    > EVs plugged in at work charge during the day. Good idea, but the infrastructure would have to be tied to the building, not to the companies operating in it. A lot of companies change offices all the time, and then there are all those small companies that can't afford to build this sort of thing. So it would have to be part of regular infrastructure just like running water or comm/data lines.