[wil421]

No they wouldn’t. Steam turbines can take days to ramp up and connect to the grid. Several dams in my state barely reach full capacity and are not running 24/7. The co-op that supplies my power offers a flex plan that gives you free power from 11pm-6am. You’re supposed to schedule your car to charge during that time. If half the cars in my county did this nightly it would be easier to predict the nightly loads.

[eldaisfish]

For a forum focused on meaningful and substantive discussion, the amount of incorrect information around EVs and the power grid is shocking.

GP's point is a good one although there is work happening to address that very problem. The point stands, though. EVs are a significant bump in both power and energy and will require significant investment in shoring up grid capacity. Sad this is downvoted.

>Steam turbines can take days to ramp up and connect to the grid

How is this relevant here? Also, the typical steam turbine takes hours to spin up and sync to the grid, not days. I am not aware of any steam turbines that require burning two day's worth of fuel just to connect to the grid.

>Several dams in my state barely reach full capacity and are not running 24/7.

Again, how is this relevant in a broader context? Lots of places have dams running dry just as equally many have dams overflowing.

>The co-op that supplies my power offers a flex plan that gives you free power from 11pm-6am.

Ok? This is not par for the course so i'm nor sure why you're mentioning it.

>You’re supposed to schedule your car to charge during that time.

And if you can't? What if offices suddenly have 50 EVs charging at the same time? Will this not lead to a capacity constraint? If you broaden the horizon, can this not lead to a localised collapse of the grid due to a demand surge?

>If half the cars in my county did this nightly it would be easier to predict the nightly loads.

It would also lead to a huge surge in power at the times when solar output is literally zero.

[emilecantin]

This is obviously going to be region-dependent, but I don't think upgrading the grid is avoidable, even if we kept using ICE cars. Energy usage _is_ going to continue increasing as population grows and HVAC requirements increase.

Also, I'd like to add some perspective with actual numbers: My whole house consumed 109.49 kWh yesterday, of which only about 12kWh was my car charging (I have a PHEV). That number wouldn't change significantly if I had an EV, as my driving habits would probably stay roughly the same.

So car charging accounts for ~10% of my electricity consumption these days. Yes, that's not insignificant, but it's also not 50-75%. It's probably less impact on the grid than adding a central heat pump to a house, and I don't see people spreading FUD about heat pumps.

For the grid itself, time-of-use is _the_ important factor, as the size of wires, equipment, etc. is what determines the peak load the grid can handle. If the actual demand exceeds that for even only one minute in the year, it means we need to upgrade the grid. Operators are very interested in flattening that peak, so will offer incentives to move electricity consumption to off-peak times. Here in Québec, the evening / night is peak time in winter, as we all have electric heating, and night-time is colder. If vehicle charging is a significant burden, they'll offer incentives to move that to daytime.

[natch]

>What if offices suddenly have 50 EVs charging at the same time?

They do. No problems so far.

>Will this not lead to a capacity constraint?

No. Batteries and rooftop solar.

>If you broaden the horizon, can this not lead to a localised collapse of the grid due to a demand surge?

Not with batteries and rooftop solar, no. We good?

>It would also lead to a huge surge in power

It's not a "huge surge." Many other appliances are off at night. The grid has excess power at night. The larger problems are in the day, caused by things like massive use of AC, which problems will be ameliorated by installation of more rooftop solar. Win win.

>at the times when solar output is literally zero.

Batteries.

And, sometimes, when needed, you also, wait for it… use fossil fuels or other non-solar sources! We can cut fossil fuel use drastically and cut carbon emissions, but still use them when needed, and everything will be OK!

[ben_w]

> We can cut fossil fuel use drastically and cut carbon emissions, but still use them when needed, and everything will be OK!

Not to detract from your core point as there are ways to solve this[1], but long term the necessary level of solution is 99.9% reduction over all sources of CO2, so no, it isn’t OK unless it’s no more than 8 hours per year[1].

[0] hydrogen, synthetic hydrocarbons, even burning wood instead of coal works in this situation, so long as the costs are lower than for fossil carbon

[1] on average, with a margin of error of way more than 100% depending on all the carbon sources that aren’t electrical

[ben_w]

> The co-op that supplies my power offers a flex plan that gives you free power from 11pm-6am. You’re supposed to schedule your car to charge during that time.

One thing I’ve realised recently, is that while this is an improvement compared to the status quo, at some point we’re likely to be running houses off car batteries in these hours and charging the cars off PV during the day. By the continuum hypothesis, at some point the net average power transfer into/out of cars/any given car is going to be zero, and I wonder what that will look like economically?

[tannedNerd]

You won’t be doing that unless it’s a blackout. The amount of extra cycles that would put on your battery wouldn’t be worth it. Considering the vast majority of the cost of a EV is your battery, the cost savings just don’t add up when you add the damage to your vehicles range and worth.

[ben_w]

I’m not sure what average domestic nighttime electrical power use currently is, but 500 watts seems plausible, and cycling 6 kWh per day of an EV’s battery doesn’t seem like it will add much wear compared to normal use, unless you have better figures to estimate from?

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

> The co-op that supplies my power offers a flex plan that gives you free power from 11pm-6am.

Can you sign up for that plan and just mine Bitcoin during that time?

[loonster]

Just call it an electric heater.

[flyinghamster]

Also, a major source of electrical demand is being systematically diminished: lighting. Energy-efficient lighting is more and more prevalent with each passing day.

Last year, my town's side streets were equipped with LED streetlights, which meant replacing 175W mercury-arc and 150W HPS fixtures with 40W LEDs that are noticeably brighter and produce a far more pleasant light.

[fnord77]

> The co-op that supplies my power offers a flex plan that gives you free power from 11pm-6am.

where are you? how are crypto miners not all over this?

[CyanLite2]

Two of the biggest crypto miners are in Texas, where (until very recently) power was essentially free at night. The winter storm this past February changed the economics a little bit, but for the most part, the Texas Power Grid creates more power than can be consumed at night. And supposedly if the power grid (ERCOT) has enough consumption, they will pay the miners to shut down.

[jacquesm]

But then it almost certainly wouldn't be free anymore.

[ZeroGravitas]

It probably will still provide some "payment" back, as long as some control is allowed for the grid operator.

At the moment they're happy with "charge any time between these hours", once everyone starts doing it it'll probably be "free if you leave your car plugged in and let us decide when and how much to charge".

Shifting demand has a price and they'll pay that to the users that help them achieve it in some form or other.

After all, if you don't charge it then, they'll need to provide the power later when it could cost them many multiples, it's just good business sense.