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If charging commuter cars how much does this change the equation? Where I live, law dictates that power companies don't have to pay for excess power that not-t
by mgerdts 4y ago
If charging commuter cars how much does this change the equation?
Where I live, law dictates that power companies don't have to pay for excess power that not-the-power-company puts onto the grid. Thus, everyone that puts solar panels on their roofs shoots for putting up capacity to that is slightly under what they expect to consume. Businesses that have large roofs but comparatively little electricity demand are disincentivized from rooftop solar.
We need to change this. Building codes should require that every roof that faces a suitable direction and is not obscured by landscape, buildings, etc., must include rooftop solar. Every new garage stall should be equipped with a charger. Cars that spend the day at home can be topped off (or to 90%, whatever works best for the battery tech) during the day and be drained to run the house/neighborhood and charge daytime commuters during the night.
I have a pretty good idea when I will need to have more than 50 - 100 miles of range in my car. I don't feel like my gas tank needs to be full every day. Likewise, if my EV with a range of 200 - 300 miles has 100 miles of range most days, I have no worries at all. If I'm expecting a longer trip, I should be able to say "be sure I have 300 miles of range by 8:00" or pop in for a one-off charge at a charging station.
Surely this doesn't address dominated by multi-story apartments. Arguably, those are also the areas that have less dependence on cars and make up a minority of the housing in the US. According to the US census, 29 million people live in urban clusters and the remaining 220 million live in less densely populated areas.
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/geo-areas/urban-rural/ua-facts.html https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g...