Is There Enough To Go Around?

[TwilightZone]

I have received no such message. Link?

Reality is CA utilities have been saying to give your appliances the afternoon off since at least the 1960s. No solar or wind back then.

Here is a link that says they did. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...discouraged-residents-charging-electric-cars/
And here is a link that says they didn't.

Fact check: California didn't require electric car owners to stop charging in heat wave

A post on Facebook claims California "literally" told electric vehicle owners to stop charging because of power shortages. That is false.

www.usatoday.com

The one that says they didn't, says that they did ask specifically for ev's, just any major electrical appliances, to not be charged between certain hours.
How about I just retract the statement about California? I really don't care either way. I was just trying to use something I'd seen in the news lately to illustrate my point. But instead of getting dragged off target, I'll just concede. It doesn't change my estimation of local to me infrastructure. Here in the mid west, not only would we need more generation capacity, but also transmission upgrades down to each neighborhood, and most homes. Tons of folks here still live with 100a services on their home. If you already have an a/c, an electric water heater, an electric dryer, etc, and you want to ad an ev charger too?

 

[time2roll]

Unless you have a 100+ mile daily commute, a 12 amp level 2 charger would work fine in most cases to charge overnight. I have a rental house with 100 amp service and a 24 amp charger. Electric double oven but the dryer and water are heated with natural gas. Yes the EV is one more thing and in my experience it is easily managed. 2 to 4 kW solar on the houses would also minimize the additional transmission necessary.

 

[TwilightZone]

Tons of folk here do have a 100+ mile round trip commute. Mostly to drive to larger towns for better pay. I drive 60 minimum myself.

 

[time2roll]

Pick your poison. I think you could make it work but it is a bit of a leap of faith. I have it easy with typical 25 miles per day and free 20 amp L2 charging at work. No way could I go 50 miles to work then 50 miles home again every day. Certainly many situations have limitations that cannot be ignored.

 

[Bob B]

Pick your poison. I think you could make it work but it is a bit of a leap of faith. I have it easy with typical 25 miles per day and free 20 amp L2 charging at work. No way could I go 50 miles to work then 50 miles home again every day. Certainly many situations have limitations that cannot be ignored.

After you do it a while it seems normal.... My work location moved around .... I either went to a construction site or a customer site that could have been as much as 90 miles away.

 

[TwilightZone]

I have no dog in the fight of weather to drive an ev or not. I personally don't care what someone else chooses. I could probably live with one day to day just fine. Although weather and road conditions would have something to say about it. I live a few miles back on gravel roads that get terribly soupy when it rains. And illinois can get alot of snow, and at least a week or 2 below zero. I currently drive a 3/4 ton 4x4, so I can tow my fifth wheel, and gooseneck equipment trailer. We've tried to get a second, more fuel efficient vehicle a few times, but it never really works out. But all that said, back to my original point. I don't believe that we have the infrastructure. And I fear mandates being pushed before the infrastructure is in place. If you (you as in a politician, or political party) want everyone to drive ev's, lay out a plan starting with infrastructure first. Not just mandates and tax breaks for the end product.

 

[12VoltInstalls]

If we had the infrastructure, why are there ‘limit use’ notices and demand billing? If there was enough, it would probably not even matter.

 

[Diysolar123]

If we had the infrastructure, why are there ‘limit use’ notices and demand billing? If there was enough, it would probably not even matter.

and its that simple.... end of discussion..
everywhere is at the limits, one heat wave, or cold snap, and bad things happen to the electric grid. You can watch this yourself by just carefully monitoring your line AC voltage, it moves quite a bit as load changes.

You can get an understanding of the complexity of the power grid here:

U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis

www.eia.gov

 

[time2roll]

If we had the infrastructure, why are there ‘limit use’ notices and demand billing? If there was enough, it would probably not even matter.

The limit notices have been going for 60+ years. This is normal due to fluctuation in demand.

Demand fees are charged because if a business uses an excessive amount of power for 30 minutes only twice a month there still needs to be the large connection that is mostly underutilized and the utility needs to have the capacity in constant reserve.

The grid has been at the limit ever since Edison himself installed the first DC power distribution system. One of the primary reasons we needed the new technology of AC to distribute more power over a wider area. The grid has been under continuous improvement ever since. The improvements are continuing every day and will for another hundred plus years.

http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/default.aspx

 

[Hedges]

Having EVs plugged in and able to be charged whenever there is surplus power available could result in higher utilization of the grid. That reduces cost per kWh.
Having the EV charging able to be curtailed when insufficient power is available or a transmission line is down would make the grid more resilient.
Having EVs able to support the grid (in exchange for a fee, of course) would do even more.

 

[12VoltInstalls]

Demand fees are charged because if a business uses an excessive amount of power for 30 minutes only twice a month there still needs to be the large connection that is mostly underutilized and the utility needs to have the capacity in constant reserve.

that’s not what I was referring to. Variable rates, demand sensitive metering, etc.

When PSAs mention ‘approaching optimal limits’ and the occasional grid browns or locality crashes occur that’s not from capacity in reserve.

Having the EV charging able to be curtailed when insufficient power is available or a transmission line is down would make the grid more resilient.
Having EVs able to support the grid (in exchange for a fee, of course) would do even more.

That’s ok up until a hot august week and everybody’s running AC, or around here it’s 20 below zero in January and people are running their 1500W space heaters.
And I don’t have enough juice in my Tesla to get to my job flipping burgers at McDonald’s.

kidding aside: I have no faith in the grid

and vulnerable? I can think of three places where major transmission lines exist here in Vermont close to the Canadian border.
One run from Hydro Quebec would be a disaster if it failed.
I remember thinking with the Sept-eleventh debacle: if they weren’t trying to make a statement (symbols were attacked) one unobserved munitions guy with a backpack and timers could do more damage taking out a few towers

 

[Bob B]

All the power companies are either giving away or offering smart WiFi connected thermostats very inexpensively .... and there is a reason for that.
They are going to want to be able to remotely control the settings of your thermostat. Not sure if that's going to be voluntary or not ..... I guess that is a good thing if it keeps the grid alive when it otherwise might crash.

There is large manufacturer who has a lot of plants in my area. I installed an maintained a lot of equipment that load shed to knock the top off their peak .... whatever the peak was for the month determined their rate. That equipment paid for itself in about a year.
The power company also gave them a huge break to have their backup generators remote controlled by them.

When EV's become more and more prevalent, I could see these kind of strategies becoming the norm.

 

[time2roll]

I have a utility controlled load shed device on my A/C compressor. I get paid about $120 a year to have this connected. Generally it is utilized during peak loads when I do not use my A/C so it has only once in 15 years impacted my lifestyle. I let my house run hot during the day and the cool at night (10p to 6a) for sleep. Power crunch is generally over by 10 pm so it is a non issue.

Yes I could see the same control on EV charging. TOU rates tend to put most people into charging overnight at this point. However this may change as eventually solar powers most of the grid and is abundant during the day and more battery power is used at night. The utility scale batteries in CA are already charging during the early part of the day and discharging into the grid as the sun sets.

Scroll down and look at the batteries here:
http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html
Going to be more and more capacity for this every year.

 

[MurphyGuy]

We can just go get more by mining 16 Psyche.. it is worth more than the entire economy of our planet.

I'm sure Elon Musk will have a go at it..

 

[12VoltInstalls]

utility scale batteries in CA are already charging during the early part of the day and discharging into the grid as the sun sets.

I have a EE friend that deals with the gigawatt contribution scale of battery/inverter setups.
Not in Cali but I’d wager that is demand/off-peak profit scaling, not specifically solar fed. Basically storing power when it costs the utility less and folding it back in when the profit is good. That’s what all his client’s goals are: profit.

 

[Texas-Mark]

There are many people in the city who park on the street because they do not have a garage. How will those people charge a EV? Run an extension cord across the sidewalk?

 

[dweick]

Well..... seems like it is 1/2 true. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/california-electric-cars-charge/

But .... has anyone really tried to calculate how much additional demand there is going to be on the power grid if a large % of people ... and 18 wheelers are electric vehicles? It seems to me that residential electrical demand is going to increase dramatically if everyone is trying to charge their EV overnight. A hot summer night would be a S^*T show.
It there enough money in this infrastructure bill they are trying to pass to make any difference? It seems to me that the grid is going to have to be REALLY beefed up and I'm not sure that can happen fast enough.
Every car maker is heading towards EVs at a very fast pace and it doesn't seem to me that anyone who has the power to do anything about the power grid it has really thought this thru.

I would love to see the grid power more "modularized". About 10 years ago, I though ever body would have a refrigerator sized fuel cell behind their house that would be providing their power.
Where I live, I'd have to have my neighbors cut their trees down to have any shot at enough solar production. Heck, I can't even get satellite TV.

I would like to have an EV .... but want more like 450 miles range ... and unlike Will, I am never going to be able to harvest enough solar to power an EV. Heck, the Rivian plant is only about 40 miles from where I live.

When gasoline automobiles were brought into being there were no gas stations and limited production of gasoline. Did people run around wondering how we would get the gasoline for them or did people see an opportunity to build refineries and gas stations?

To put EVs into perspective, just start with passenger automobiles. Roughly 1.4 trillion miles/yr in the US. At an average efficiency of 3mi/kWh that would require 466G kWh of annual electrical energy. Utility scale generation of electricity in the US is on the order of 4T kWh/yr so if every passenger car was converted to electric that would require a roughly 10% increase in utility scale power generation.

466G kWh is close to how much wind power is produced annually in the US, up from close to 0 20 years ago.

Utility scale solar is expected to increase by roughly 400G kWh by 2030.

Utilities are constantly thinking this sort of stuff through, putting up more transmission lines is just a matter of having the demand to call for it. It isn't that big of a deal.

The load on the power grid for an EV driven 30 miles/day is roughly the equivalent of someone running a PC+GPU mining crypto. 400W 24x7.

In summary, fears that EVs are going to wreck the grid are overblown

 

[dweick]

There are many people in the city who park on the street because they do not have a garage. How will those people charge a EV? Run an extension cord across the sidewalk

They will certainly find it less convenient than someone with a garage, the future would likely be very different than today with a plethora of both L2 chargers at work/parking garages and even perhaps on the street and L3 DCFC will be available for charging just like they are today, just more of them.

Demand leads to supply and solutions.

 

[dweick]

All the power companies are either giving away or offering smart WiFi connected thermostats very inexpensively .... and there is a reason for that.
They are going to want to be able to remotely control the settings of your thermostat. Not sure if that's going to be voluntary or not ..... I guess that is a good thing if it keeps the grid alive when it otherwise might crash.

There is large manufacturer who has a lot of plants in my area. I installed an maintained a lot of equipment that load shed to knock the top off their peak .... whatever the peak was for the month determined their rate. That equipment paid for itself in about a year.
The power company also gave them a huge break to have their backup generators remote controlled by them.

When EV's become more and more prevalent, I could see these kind of strategies becoming the norm.

Both major utilities in Arizona offer discounts on smart thermostats and currently give you an annual payment in exchange for being able to remotely change the temperature by a few degrees during the summer at times when demand gets too high. Being able to load shed and level demand saves the utilities a lot of money.

By switching to a solar plan and being able to peak shave with a battery, ideally cutting grid draw to 0 during peak hours, you can effectively cut your power rate (per kWh) by more than 50% as well as reduce monthly kWh due to the solar. Just a matter of getting batteries at a reasonable cost

 

[svetz]

Is There Enough To Go Around?​

Even if there wasn't enough capacity they could just build out more.
CA's Time-Of-Use policies incentivize people to conserve during low capacity hours.