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
A 100% switch to electric vehicles isn’t happening overnight. It will take many decades at minimum, and electrical grids will slowly adapt.
Parked cars also don’t need to all charge at the same time. They can do it at night when electricity usage is low, and spread out the load over 8+ hours. The same doesn’t apply for air conditioning on a hot day.
Quick answer is EVs tend to charge a night (off peak). So peak power needs would be largely unchanged, but total power needed would increase about +25% – which frankly wouldn’t be that hard to increase overall production that much.
The major difference is that air conditioning demand all hits pretty much at once during the hottest hours of the day, but electric vehicle charging tends to be a slower trickle spread across many more hours. We would need to upgrade electrical infrastructure to handle the extra demand if everyone switched to electric cars, but we need to do that anyway.
Power plants have a hard time changing how much power they generate. They have to figure out how much power people will need, and then always produce that amount – even during hours when most people aren’t using any power. This means there is a lot of wasted power.
EVs are *very* helpful because they give a place for that extra power to go. EVs are charged with that power that would have been wasted.
I have a friend who manages power generation for plants in the Northeast. He is routinely frustrated by how much power is wasted to make sure there is enough during peak hours. He tells me all the time how he needs more people to buy EVs so he has a place to put all the excess power that goes down the drain.
AC is turning on all at the same time of day in every house. people charging their cars wont be charging every single day in every house and theyll be charging at night when theres less strain on the grid.
EVs are a very flexible demand. Charging doesn’t have to happen as soon as you plug in for most cases. That allows the load to be shifted away from peak hours. That’s very valuable to the electrical grid and why utility company are already willing to pay customers for this demand response capability.
EVs typically charge overnight. Air conditioning and high power appliances like stoves and dryers do not run during this time period.
it’s not like people are charging the whole battery every night. More like 10-20% for most people. Also at night when there is less demand
You can carry 20 boxes over a period of an hour, but you can’t carry 20 boxes all at once.
AC is blasting pretty much all at the same time whereas car charging is a bit more spread out.
There is a point of view that’s missing from the comments:
It takes a tremendous amount of electricity to refine crude oil into gasoline. Texas’ number one user of renewable energy by far is the oil industry example.
Take the 5kw needed to refine a gallon of fuel and distribute it to the end user to power their car (or home) instead of burning it to throw away 70% in heat and co2 and suddenly what do you know! There’s no shortage of electricity at all!
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