6 ms·

I do wonder how the electrical grid in Norway is going to hold up to the massive increase in demand that EV charging will cause.

by botto 7y ago

Traster 7y ago
Norway is in a great position, they're world leaders in hydro and their geography makes that a great source of energy. In 2015 Norway's Hydro-electric generation accounted for 95.8% of it's electricity generation. Norway accounts for half of Europe's entire hydro reservoir capacity. Meanwhile if demand rises they can also import electricity via the North Sea wind power hub, or from Sweden. That's one of the great things about electric cars in Norway - you're actually going to get electricity from renewable sources.
- arcticfox 7y ago
  What is the ecological impact of hydro there? In the US PNW we seem to be taking out hydro due to fish rather than putting in new dams, although I haven't followed it closely
  - tyfon 7y ago
    Building damns have a huge impact and there have been many fights over them as in Alta [1]. They also have a large CO2 cost [2] when being built as it requires massive amounts of concrete. However they are now built and there is still plenty of capacity so there have been no new major ones built for a long time. There are some smaller privately owned ones being built but not on a big scale. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alta_Hydroelectric_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alta_Hydroelectric_Power_Stati... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concrete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concre...
- atomwaffel 7y ago
  > That's one of the great things about electric cars in Norway - you're actually going to get electricity from renewable sources. This is true in a way, but only part of the picture. While virtually all the electricity that is produced in Norway does come from renewable sources, Norwegian energy producers sell a lot of their “guarantees of origin”[1] to energy companies in other European countries, who are then in turn allowed to market their energy as renewable. You can think of these as a kind of “virtual export”: Norway sells its energy to the rest of the continent and receives the “European Attribute Mix” in return. Since it would be pointless and inefficient to physically transfer this energy, virtual certificates are traded instead. Because of this, the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate declares the energy consumed in Norway as being 58% fossil, 33% nuclear, and only 9% renewable[2], but Norwegian politicians and energy companies tend to forget this and prefer to emphasise the point that 98% of all energy produced in the country is renewable. Both claims are true, but somewhere someone is getting screwed over. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarantee_of_origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarantee_of_origin [2] https://www.nve.no/energiforsyning/varedeklarasjon/nasjonal-varedeklarasjon-2018/ https://www.nve.no/energiforsyning/varedeklarasjon/nasjonal-... (in Norwegian)
disordinary 7y ago
In NZ they recon that electrifying the entire vehicle fleet will only add about 25% demand to the grid, this is somewhat mitigated by the vehicles charging mostly off-peak and when hooked up to a smart meter would actually feed electricity back into the grid when required making the grid more efficient.
- Theodores 7y ago
  This is the future, a vast fleet of mobile batteries that smooth out the grid enabling renewables that only work when the sun shines or the air moves to supply all the electricity we need. People also overlook the costs of refining petrol and getting it distributed preferring to stress out about how on earth are we going to charge every car. This latter point is quite simple albeit requiring infrastructure. Lamp-posts are charging points in the making as are car parks. We dug up the roads to put in broadband internet quite recently, it is for the politicians to rig the market for EV cars and charge points so that there is a similar roll out.
pi-rat 7y ago
We're handling it with smart grids and variable pricing. 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 installed 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. Public parking garages with hundreds of chargers install battery banks to even out the load. See a video tour of one of them[5]. [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 [5]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktNKWLwjQJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktNKWLwjQJM
petascale 7y ago
Not all that massive: 6% increase if all cars and vans (excluding e.g. big rigs and tractors) go electric, according to the Norwegian national grid institute[1] (in Norwegian). Some local grids will need an upgrade, but the national transmission and distribution grid can handle it if 'smart' charging solutions shift the bulk of the charging to happen at night and other low-demand periods. Norway uses a lot of electricity even without EVs, so it's not a very large increase percentage wise. E.g. we don't have gas pipes to homes like some places in the USA, so stoves are all electric and a lot of heating is electric as well. [1] https://www.nve.no/nytt-fra-nve/nyheter-energi/stromnettet-er-klar-for-elbilene/ https://www.nve.no/nytt-fra-nve/nyheter-energi/stromnettet-e...

I do wonder how the electrical grid in Norway is going to hold up to the massive increase in demand that EV charging will cause.

by botto 7y ago

I do wonder how the electrical grid in Norway is going to hold up to the massive increase in demand that EV charging will cause.

Traster 7y ago

Norway is in a great position, they're world leaders in hydro and their geography makes that a great source of energy. In 2015 Norway's Hydro-electric generation accounted for 95.8% of it's electricity generation. Norway accounts for half of Europe's entire hydro reservoir capacity. Meanwhile if demand rises they can also import electricity via the North Sea wind power hub, or from Sweden. That's one of the great things about electric cars in Norway - you're actually going to get electricity from renewable sources.

arcticfox 7y ago
What is the ecological impact of hydro there? In the US PNW we seem to be taking out hydro due to fish rather than putting in new dams, although I haven't followed it closely
- tyfon 7y ago
  Building damns have a huge impact and there have been many fights over them as in Alta [1]. They also have a large CO2 cost [2] when being built as it requires massive amounts of concrete. However they are now built and there is still plenty of capacity so there have been no new major ones built for a long time. There are some smaller privately owned ones being built but not on a big scale. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alta_Hydroelectric_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alta_Hydroelectric_Power_Stati... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concrete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concre...
atomwaffel 7y ago
> That's one of the great things about electric cars in Norway - you're actually going to get electricity from renewable sources. This is true in a way, but only part of the picture. While virtually all the electricity that is produced in Norway does come from renewable sources, Norwegian energy producers sell a lot of their “guarantees of origin”[1] to energy companies in other European countries, who are then in turn allowed to market their energy as renewable. You can think of these as a kind of “virtual export”: Norway sells its energy to the rest of the continent and receives the “European Attribute Mix” in return. Since it would be pointless and inefficient to physically transfer this energy, virtual certificates are traded instead. Because of this, the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate declares the energy consumed in Norway as being 58% fossil, 33% nuclear, and only 9% renewable[2], but Norwegian politicians and energy companies tend to forget this and prefer to emphasise the point that 98% of all energy produced in the country is renewable. Both claims are true, but somewhere someone is getting screwed over. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarantee_of_origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarantee_of_origin [2] https://www.nve.no/energiforsyning/varedeklarasjon/nasjonal-varedeklarasjon-2018/ https://www.nve.no/energiforsyning/varedeklarasjon/nasjonal-... (in Norwegian)

disordinary 7y ago

In NZ they recon that electrifying the entire vehicle fleet will only add about 25% demand to the grid, this is somewhat mitigated by the vehicles charging mostly off-peak and when hooked up to a smart meter would actually feed electricity back into the grid when required making the grid more efficient.

Theodores 7y ago
This is the future, a vast fleet of mobile batteries that smooth out the grid enabling renewables that only work when the sun shines or the air moves to supply all the electricity we need. People also overlook the costs of refining petrol and getting it distributed preferring to stress out about how on earth are we going to charge every car. This latter point is quite simple albeit requiring infrastructure. Lamp-posts are charging points in the making as are car parks. We dug up the roads to put in broadband internet quite recently, it is for the politicians to rig the market for EV cars and charge points so that there is a similar roll out.

pi-rat 7y ago

We're handling it with smart grids and variable pricing. 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 installed 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. Public parking garages with hundreds of chargers install battery banks to even out the load. See a video tour of one of them[5]. [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 [5]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktNKWLwjQJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktNKWLwjQJM

petascale 7y ago

Not all that massive: 6% increase if all cars and vans (excluding e.g. big rigs and tractors) go electric, according to the Norwegian national grid institute[1] (in Norwegian). Some local grids will need an upgrade, but the national transmission and distribution grid can handle it if 'smart' charging solutions shift the bulk of the charging to happen at night and other low-demand periods. Norway uses a lot of electricity even without EVs, so it's not a very large increase percentage wise. E.g. we don't have gas pipes to homes like some places in the USA, so stoves are all electric and a lot of heating is electric as well. [1] https://www.nve.no/nytt-fra-nve/nyheter-energi/stromnettet-er-klar-for-elbilene/ https://www.nve.no/nytt-fra-nve/nyheter-energi/stromnettet-e...