3 ms·

Besides garage orphans, also those with self standing homes and a garage will have (or become) a problem. Say that in you street that are 50 single family home

by jaclaz 7y ago

Besides garage orphans, also those with self standing homes and a garage will have (or become) a problem. Say that in you street that are 50 single family homes connected to a same cabin/transformer. The electric infrastructure powering them (lines, transformer, etc.) has been dimensioned to power them at their average current power consumption rate + something to take care of peaks + something more to take care of eceptions (like - say - a constructions site for the renovation of one of the homes). Now the existing infrastructure will have no issue with your single electric car charging at night, and probably with that of your neighboor on the left and that of your neighbour on the right, but the moment a given number of families will have an electic car, each of them will try to use 5 kW of additional power more or less at the same time. That is a lot of "juice" and it sums up quickly. I believe (correct me if you have better data) that in the US the infrastructure is generally dimensioned for something like 6 or 7 kW per unit, so, adding to each house some "constant" 5 kW (even if only at night) is almost using all the capability of the infrastructure.

ses1984 7y ago
I believe that some of that is covered by other appliances becoming more efficient. How many 60-100w light bulbs did people used to run in their home? Tube tvs? Those devices have largely been replaced by more modern versions that use an order of magnitude less power.
- rhombocombus 7y ago
  This is my understanding as well, I remember reading something that said new power consumption is either flattening or decreasing because modern electronics and appliances are getting more and more efficient.
  - ses1984 7y ago
    Except for air conditioning in very hot days. We still break records on hot days.
  - rconti 7y ago
    In California, at least, yes, energy demand seems to be declining. I can't find the graph I saw a year or two ago. Peak usage was in 2006, although it sounds like Sep 1 2017 usage was ALMOST as high. State population is growing overall, but not fast. I think it's roughly flat now, but has grown since 2006 for sure. > Energy consumption of the state's residential sector per capita is lower than that of any other state except Hawaii thanks to relatively mild climate. > California's peak electricity demand occurred on July 24, 2006, at 2:44 pm, with 50,270 megawatts. Since then measures to reduce peak load have resulted in decreased peak demand, even as the state's population has continued to grow.[28] In 2017, the peak load was 50,116 MW, on September 1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_California https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_California
  - stordoff 7y ago
    This is certainly the case in the UK. Electricity usage has dropped by 9% meant 2010-2017[1], despite a growing population (and by 18% over a longer period). https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/30/uk-electricity-use-falling-economy-weather https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/30/uk-electric...
teknopaul 7y ago
People put 5kw of solar on the garage roof. When everyone has electric cars you also have a huge mobile battery fleet.
rconti 7y ago
My Model 3 charges at ~240v/48a, which is around 11kW. At peak times in our house, say, heat on, lights on, TV on, cooking, doing laundry, we pull perhaps 3kW. Our house is pretty efficient; gas appliances, LED lights, no air conditioning, etc. The car charges after 9pm, but that's just because our rate drops then. If midnight was even cheaper, it would charge then. We don't charge every day, but if we did, it would take perhaps 1 hour. And this is for a car we drive 18,000 miles on in its first year. 3-4x the demand of a 'normal' household is not nothing, but it's not insane, either. Considering EVs don't need to charge every day, or every hour of every night, it's not that tricky to see the aggregate load as fairly similar to peak afternoon/evening hours in your average suburb as people return home from work. To be sure, if everyone started charging their EVs at 6pm, we might have a problem. Likewise, if everyone had an EV and they all clicked on at midnight, we might have a problem. But the load on the grid is not that huge from an instantaneous perspective, and can be managed by variable pricing and/or some kind of grid scheduling tech.
- jgust 7y ago
  I imagine a world where the electricity grid is intelligent enough to have a "conversation" with appliances to efficiently spread load across the day, more accurately plan capacity, and do it at a lower cost to consumers and the environment.
  - pi-rat 7y ago
    That's happening here, my power company has a GraphQL API[1] where I can read my current consumption (5 second resolution), they also offer up the current price, including an indicator of the price level compared to how they see the rest of the day (CHEAP, NORMAL, EXPENSIVE). All houses/apartments in Norway got new smart power meters the last couple of years. They standardized on a data interface (a bus you can connect to using a RJ45 plug), so you can access your own data if you don't want to go via your power companies API. There are EV chargers[2] and other appliances (Heat pumps/ACs) that can react to this price indicator, charging your car when power is cheapest. It will also load balance based on how much the rest of your house is using, they're moving towards an "wattage" fee here, to avoid massive loads at peak hours. If you get near the limit, the car charger can slow down. Here's some images of what their app gives me[3]. It's easy to pull their data into home automation systems, here's mine[4]. You can do pretty smart stuff like: Charge my car when it's cheap, but it must be ready by 07:00. [1]: https://developer.tibber.com/docs/guides/calling-api https://developer.tibber.com/docs/guides/calling-api [2]: https://norge.tibber.com/products/easee/ https://norge.tibber.com/products/easee/ [3]: https://imgur.com/a/RYYqcjY https://imgur.com/a/RYYqcjY [4]: https://imgur.com/a/8ef0jck https://imgur.com/a/8ef0jck

by jaclaz 7y ago

ses1984 7y ago

I believe that some of that is covered by other appliances becoming more efficient. How many 60-100w light bulbs did people used to run in their home? Tube tvs? Those devices have largely been replaced by more modern versions that use an order of magnitude less power.

rhombocombus 7y ago
This is my understanding as well, I remember reading something that said new power consumption is either flattening or decreasing because modern electronics and appliances are getting more and more efficient.
- ses1984 7y ago
  Except for air conditioning in very hot days. We still break records on hot days.
- rconti 7y ago
  In California, at least, yes, energy demand seems to be declining. I can't find the graph I saw a year or two ago. Peak usage was in 2006, although it sounds like Sep 1 2017 usage was ALMOST as high. State population is growing overall, but not fast. I think it's roughly flat now, but has grown since 2006 for sure. > Energy consumption of the state's residential sector per capita is lower than that of any other state except Hawaii thanks to relatively mild climate. > California's peak electricity demand occurred on July 24, 2006, at 2:44 pm, with 50,270 megawatts. Since then measures to reduce peak load have resulted in decreased peak demand, even as the state's population has continued to grow.[28] In 2017, the peak load was 50,116 MW, on September 1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_California https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_California
- stordoff 7y ago
  This is certainly the case in the UK. Electricity usage has dropped by 9% meant 2010-2017[1], despite a growing population (and by 18% over a longer period). https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/30/uk-electricity-use-falling-economy-weather https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/30/uk-electric...

teknopaul 7y ago

People put 5kw of solar on the garage roof. When everyone has electric cars you also have a huge mobile battery fleet.

rconti 7y ago

My Model 3 charges at ~240v/48a, which is around 11kW. At peak times in our house, say, heat on, lights on, TV on, cooking, doing laundry, we pull perhaps 3kW. Our house is pretty efficient; gas appliances, LED lights, no air conditioning, etc. The car charges after 9pm, but that's just because our rate drops then. If midnight was even cheaper, it would charge then. We don't charge every day, but if we did, it would take perhaps 1 hour. And this is for a car we drive 18,000 miles on in its first year. 3-4x the demand of a 'normal' household is not nothing, but it's not insane, either. Considering EVs don't need to charge every day, or every hour of every night, it's not that tricky to see the aggregate load as fairly similar to peak afternoon/evening hours in your average suburb as people return home from work. To be sure, if everyone started charging their EVs at 6pm, we might have a problem. Likewise, if everyone had an EV and they all clicked on at midnight, we might have a problem. But the load on the grid is not that huge from an instantaneous perspective, and can be managed by variable pricing and/or some kind of grid scheduling tech.

jgust 7y ago
I imagine a world where the electricity grid is intelligent enough to have a "conversation" with appliances to efficiently spread load across the day, more accurately plan capacity, and do it at a lower cost to consumers and the environment.
- pi-rat 7y ago
  That's happening here, my power company has a GraphQL API[1] where I can read my current consumption (5 second resolution), they also offer up the current price, including an indicator of the price level compared to how they see the rest of the day (CHEAP, NORMAL, EXPENSIVE). All houses/apartments in Norway got new smart power meters the last couple of years. They standardized on a data interface (a bus you can connect to using a RJ45 plug), so you can access your own data if you don't want to go via your power companies API. There are EV chargers[2] and other appliances (Heat pumps/ACs) that can react to this price indicator, charging your car when power is cheapest. It will also load balance based on how much the rest of your house is using, they're moving towards an "wattage" fee here, to avoid massive loads at peak hours. If you get near the limit, the car charger can slow down. Here's some images of what their app gives me[3]. It's easy to pull their data into home automation systems, here's mine[4]. You can do pretty smart stuff like: Charge my car when it's cheap, but it must be ready by 07:00. [1]: https://developer.tibber.com/docs/guides/calling-api https://developer.tibber.com/docs/guides/calling-api [2]: https://norge.tibber.com/products/easee/ https://norge.tibber.com/products/easee/ [3]: https://imgur.com/a/RYYqcjY https://imgur.com/a/RYYqcjY [4]: https://imgur.com/a/8ef0jck https://imgur.com/a/8ef0jck