3 ms·

Electric cars won't overload the power grid – they help modernize infrastructure

• mintaka5 4y ago
  • 7thaccount 4y ago
    Well. That's because they are a strain on the grid. All major utilities and RTO/ISOs do 10-20 year planning studies (a lot easier back when we only had nuke/coal/gas and consistent 4% load growth) and EV projections are definitely a part of that now as people will charge their cars at roughly the same times. Put another way, it'll be an increase to the peak load that must be served. This doesn't mean EV's are bad, but it is another source of demand when the grid is already highly constrained capacity-wise. Can car batteries also be a source of supply and not just additional demand? Yes, of course. I believe power walls (I don't think the cars themselves) have collectively done this in a limited sense in California. I think it's more common to just ask folks not to charge at a certain time to keep that load down. We're getting to a more advanced future, but the grid is so important and risk adverse and beaureacratic that it has to be done slowly. Of course Carlson is a political tool to push back against any human progress. We could discover free energy and he'd be complaining about the impact on oil executives fourth homes.
• tomohawk 4y ago
  Government officials are already telling people not to charge their cars at various times to avoid grid overload.