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> If you have even a small solar install—which makes tons of sense in California—the load on the grid is near zero. Will most people be plugging in their cars

> If you have even a small solar install—which makes tons of sense in California—the load on the grid is near zero. Will most people be plugging in their cars during the day, though? Or will they be charging at night, at home?

Rebelgecko 6y ago
I haven't looked into stats, but I wouldn't be surprised if most people in California aren't able to charge at home. It would be neat to see incentives for adding charging infrastructure to apartment and other dense living situations
- p1mrx 6y ago
  Home charging is the most convenient form of charging, and should be encouraged, but people tend to be home when it's dark and (excluding the pandemic) away when it's sunny, so this doesn't align well with solar generation.
  - moftz 6y ago
    The panels can help reduce total grid usage during the day to help supply power to businesses where people are during the day. A home AC shouldn't be running much during the day if no one is home so that helps with reducing the load. Once it gets dark, the load shifts back to homes where people are charging their cars and running the AC more heavily. I imagine the heaviest load times would be in the evening when solar panels aren't providing much power, the AC is starting to run to cool the house down, and people are starting to plug in their cars. Large power storage systems should be in place to help smooth out these increases in demand.
    - DuskStar 6y ago
      > The panels can help reduce total grid usage during the day to help supply power to businesses where people are during the day. Daytime load is basically not a problem in California or elsewhere in the US. In fact, load minus solar is already lower at noon than at midnight. [0] This is referred to as the "duck curve". As such, load shifting should be the opposite of what you suggest - we should be doing things like cooling houses to 60 degrees during the day so that the AC doesn't have to be run in the evening, encouraging people to charge cars during the day and other things like that. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve
      - ogre_codes 6y ago
        > we should be doing things like cooling houses to 60 degrees during the day so that the AC doesn't have to be run in the evening I'm dubious that this is a good idea. Cooling your house to 60 degrees on a hot day burns a huge amount of power needlessly. The amount of energy loss in a typical house is so big, this is a massive waste. Your assumption seems to be that you can bank power, using air temperature to try and story energy when it's inside a big leaky box is futile. Keeping the indoor temp at 78 all day and cooling it to 72 around an hour before you get home is going to be far more efficient. If you want to burn power during the day, run your dishwasher and run a timed dryer load. If you want to bank it, buy a battery.
  - deadbunny 6y ago
    While I know "Zero Emissions" doesn't mean EV but assuming most people end up with one and chargers are ubiquitous (and free) you could use the EVs as grid storage. There are plenty of people who live in apartments where plugging into the grid at work makes a lot of sense.

Rebelgecko 6y ago

I haven't looked into stats, but I wouldn't be surprised if most people in California aren't able to charge at home. It would be neat to see incentives for adding charging infrastructure to apartment and other dense living situations

p1mrx 6y ago
Home charging is the most convenient form of charging, and should be encouraged, but people tend to be home when it's dark and (excluding the pandemic) away when it's sunny, so this doesn't align well with solar generation.
- moftz 6y ago
  The panels can help reduce total grid usage during the day to help supply power to businesses where people are during the day. A home AC shouldn't be running much during the day if no one is home so that helps with reducing the load. Once it gets dark, the load shifts back to homes where people are charging their cars and running the AC more heavily. I imagine the heaviest load times would be in the evening when solar panels aren't providing much power, the AC is starting to run to cool the house down, and people are starting to plug in their cars. Large power storage systems should be in place to help smooth out these increases in demand.
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    > The panels can help reduce total grid usage during the day to help supply power to businesses where people are during the day. Daytime load is basically not a problem in California or elsewhere in the US. In fact, load minus solar is already lower at noon than at midnight. [0] This is referred to as the "duck curve". As such, load shifting should be the opposite of what you suggest - we should be doing things like cooling houses to 60 degrees during the day so that the AC doesn't have to be run in the evening, encouraging people to charge cars during the day and other things like that. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      > we should be doing things like cooling houses to 60 degrees during the day so that the AC doesn't have to be run in the evening I'm dubious that this is a good idea. Cooling your house to 60 degrees on a hot day burns a huge amount of power needlessly. The amount of energy loss in a typical house is so big, this is a massive waste. Your assumption seems to be that you can bank power, using air temperature to try and story energy when it's inside a big leaky box is futile. Keeping the indoor temp at 78 all day and cooling it to 72 around an hour before you get home is going to be far more efficient. If you want to burn power during the day, run your dishwasher and run a timed dryer load. If you want to bank it, buy a battery.
- deadbunny 6y ago
  While I know "Zero Emissions" doesn't mean EV but assuming most people end up with one and chargers are ubiquitous (and free) you could use the EVs as grid storage. There are plenty of people who live in apartments where plugging into the grid at work makes a lot of sense.