4 ms·
This is coming from a person who would like to buy an electric car. But lets say we get to batteries that can survive incredibly high charge rates, aka the 10 m
by sbradford26 8y ago
This is coming from a person who would like to buy an electric car. But lets say we get to batteries that can survive incredibly high charge rates, aka the 10 minute charge time.
Some quick math:
100kWh battery needs 100 kW to charge in an hour.
To charge in 10 minutes we need 100kW * 6 = 600kW.
Now that is a bit of an over simplification but it gives the magnitude of instantaneous power needed.
From a grid perspective charging a lot of cars slowly is not terribly difficult to handle because it appears mostly as base load, but if you have ton of cars starting and stopping charging at 600kW you will get massive fluctuations.
Thankfully a lot of cars will just slow charge overnight most of the time. Then for a fast charging station they could have large batteries or super capacitors to help offset the fluctuations.
- cmiller1 8y agoAlternative solution: when technologies like resonant inductive coupling improve enough for efficient medium to long range wireless transfer of power we could just build cars with small batteries or capacitors that are almost always trickle charging.
- UI_at_80x24 8y agoEasy, just put a pebble-bed reactor every few blocks. /s We have come full circle Mr.Edison. Nikola would be spinning in his grave. (just attach magnets!)
- arkh 8y agoThere is already a way to manage that: remove the petrol from petrol stations and add huge batteries / capacitors. Charge those at normal grid load when no one is using the station then unload like crazy.
- epanchin 8y agoThis has the added advantage of levelling the grid load beyond just the charging, like V2G without the car.
- jdietrich 8y agoEVs make it easier to manage the grid - the challenges are in local distribution. The vast majority of EV charges are overnight, because that's when electricity is cheap, because that's when we have more supply than demand. Most generation sources can't be quickly switched on and off; renewables generate whenever the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. EVs help to balance the grid simply by sucking up lots of off-peak capacity. The next generation of cars and charging points are expected to support vehicle-to-grid technology; in exchange for a reduction in your cost of charging, you allow your car to be used as a grid storage battery when you're not using it. A few million cars with 40kWh batteries add up to a very big storage reserve, even if you only take a couple of percent from each car. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid