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Sceptics say EVs will overwhelm the grid. In fact, they could be part of the solution
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024
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I as pro-EV as the best of them. A cradle to grave emissions drop of 40% is a great step forward on reducing transport emissions (public transport and active transportation are a whole other aspect of this we'll avoid here). However, characterizing the energy gap for EV charging as a non-issue is disingenuous.
You've correctly pointed out that peak hours are when the grid is most strained and vulnerable. Well, if most everyone who drives to work starts charging their EV when they get home from work, that is at the highest peak of the day: around 5-7pm. It's the addition to the peak curve that's the real concern. In most places, that means triggering on fossil fuel burning facilities to meet that peak demand. It also means increased peak loads on the transmission infrastructure that could overwhelm it.
That being said, there are some simple solutions: e.g. charge EVs on off-peak hours, smoothing out the demand on the grid. Where I live there is already an incentive to charge overnight in the form of ultra low overnight rates. I'm sure we'll find the solutions, but please don't pretend it's not a problem.
It’s not a critical problem. It won’t block anything. There are already possible solutions. As you said, utilities have been rolling out time of use metering for half a century, and already want it everywhere. My EV already has scheduling that can take advantage of that, and time of use metering would give me incentive to use that
It’s also not hard to imagine a service that could more intelligently coordinate the load for very low impact: I already have such a thing for my air conditioning
I charge at home. The general setup is that to utilize the best pricing people switch to variable pricing when getting an EV, because it uses a lot of electricity and it's really easy to time the charging. The best prices are obviously always out of the peak hours.
Anyway, why are we asking millions of people to time their consumption, when it would be easier to ask a single factory or two to time their consumption to utilise the best pricing?
The article is from UK and I know their grid is in peak at teatime.. like, would it be to much to ask the factory to take a break while people have water to boil?