Currently we are told the power grid struggles to handle the power load demand during the summer due to air conditioners. Yet scientists claim this same power grid could handle an entire nation of EVs. How? What am I missing?
In: 20541
It would be slowly upgraded as the demand materialized.
Although many providers charge higher rates during summer afternoons explicitly to discourage users from running electrical demands during that time, and provide incentives to charge EVs at night.
EVs charge at different rates at different times. Not every single car is going to pull 12kw. My car is a edge case but I slow change at 800w all night, that’s less than a microwave.
Most EVs can be programmed to start charging at a specific time, likely to take advantage of tiered electricity.
Considering the AVERAGE American drives something like 20 miles one way, most daily driver EVs can get away with a hour or two charging at night.
Going forward with this logic I can see smart plugs or EVSEs being used by utility companies. They can turn on chargers in phases as to not overwhelm generators. I imagine this mind experiment technology can be manually bypassed, like if you absolutely need a full charge before a morning road trip.
EVs can be charged night time to balance the load. This reduces the need to have to use less efficient methods of channeling excess overnight electricity such as steam storage or resevoir pumping.
My kids owned an EV when they lived here, it used about 1/50 the amount of juice to charge as my 5-Ton AC unit.
The YouTube channel Engineering Explained [did a great in depth video on the subject. ](https://youtu.be/7dfyG6FXsUU)
It’s worth watching the full 16 minute video, but the answer is that the grid would need about 25% more capacity if every single person in the US switched to electric vehicles. And the grid operators can easily increase the capacity by 25%. The electric grid from 1960-2000 increased capacity by 4% per year, so it would only take about 7 years to fully increase the grid.
As for why it can get overwhelmed by AC during heat waves, that is a business choice not a physics choice. The grid could be designed to handle any demand from all the AC. But that only happens a few days a year and not even guaranteed every year. That peak capacity is wasted most of the time. This is especially true because thst demand is only for a few hours a day even on the worst days. A peak demand like that is the hardest and most expensive way to produce electricity.
EV charging is perfect for electric generation. You can charge during off peak hours, when the generators are otherwise idle (or worse, spinning down but still producing electricity). They also charge at a lower, steady rate.
Edit- had a few repeat comments so want to link my replies
Using EV as energy storage for the grid
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byu/MonstahButtonz from discussion
inexplainlikeimfive
About using batteries as storage to supply peak power (the whole comment chain has a great discussion, I just added to it)
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byu/MonstahButtonz from discussion
inexplainlikeimfive
Short answer: Everyone who is in the same geographical region is going to generally get hot at the same time, but not everyone would be fast-charging their EVs at the same time.
There are only so many days per year when it’s hot enough for everyone to be running their ACs simultaneously, and the hottest hours of those days are going to be absolute peak usage. Many power companies often don’t have the capability to meet this peak demand because it doesn’t happen frequently enough for them to see it as profitable to invest in beefing up their equipment to be able to reliably supply a peak demand that only happens for a statistically small percentage of the time. Also, I imagine it’s something that goes up each year, as populations and global warming both increase.
Many people would be charging their EVs at night while sleeping, when it’s cooler and less ACs, lights, etc are running. The charging rates can be adjusted on most vehicles, so they can use less wattage than an AC.
And, possibly the biggest thing, if EVs became the norm, power companies would see more reason to invest in better, more reliable delivery. And, with people putting their money into their electric bill instead of their gas tank, they would have the money to invest in these improvements.
Nighttime is when a lot of /most vehicles get charged, at least where I live, because utilities offer lower rates overnight, and because that’s when the cars aren’t being driven. There’s exceptions of course.
This is my career. I have worked for four major electric and gas utilities in the US. The answer to this question is there is not enough generation capacity at this current time. Each electric utility has a department called Resource Planning. They are responsible for what is called an “Integrated Resource Plan” which is filed usually every 1-3 years with the Public Utility Commission which is the State regulatory body overseeing the utility. In this resource plan they forecast demand for electric vehicles based on the current economic conditions, federal regulations, EV sales, etc. Based on this forecast, a department called Generation Modeling plans for how much generation is needed to meet this new demand. These resources can be new power plants as well as programs called demand side management where utilities give incentives to curb usage during peak times where the system is likely to brown/black out. These incentives can be based around rate design where the price is cheaper during off peak hours (10pm-5am). Or they can apply to large industrial customers that get a cheaper rate all the time but can have their service interrupted at times of peak demand.
TLDR: electric utilities are forecasting the demand for EV vehicles and are planning for this demand by either building new power plants or designing programs to reduce demand around peak hours.
Peak demand for power is late afternoon, that is when all the AC is on.
EVs typically charge at night, and are incentived to do so by lower rates. Nighttime consumption by EVs is still tiny compared to afternoon consumption by ACs.
Most people charge at night, there is not a lot of demand at night usually as a lot of industry is closed, people are sleeping
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