Tesla and other electric cars drives parts of Norways electric net to its knees

[grumpydoc]

It's very clear. If a car charger is going to draw 10 or 20 kW continuously for several hours overnight, and every house is going to have one of these chargers installed (or more than one charger for multi-car families), then the distribution network absolutely cannot handle that demand. The existing network is sized for much lower average power demands than that, probably 10% of that.

All that is required is for the demand to be a bit smarter. Fast charging overnight is an oxymoron. Overnight charging should be slow by definition. Simple variable pricing which already exists is the way to solve it. Just expose the customers to the variable pricing.

The average draw just needs to replace the average daily consumption, which is probably in the 10kWh - 20kWh range - based on a quick google on consumption/km and a 60km commute.

So based on that you have all night to charge 20kWh - which is 10 hours at 2kW, which is the same as running an electric heater all night. I think the grid will cope with that.

The nice thing is that it is fairly easy to work out based on published figures rather than guesswork and I did some back of envelope calculations a while ago

In the UK there are approx 240 billion vehicle miles travelled by car per year (2016 figures)¹

Assuming 3 miles per kWh that would need 80 billion kWh if it were all in EVs

Daily electricity demand varies from a trough of around 26GW to a peak of around 50GW² - Generating capacity in 2015 was just over 78GW³

80 trillion WH is 219 billion WH per day, if this were delivered in 8 hours overnight that would add 28GW to demand for those 8 hours. Let's say this is 10pm - 6am - demand is still quite high 10pm-midnight (low 30's of GW) so the peak demand would increase to something like  60GW which is significantly higher than currently but the grid as it stands could probably deliver on overnight charging.

If, on the other hand, the charging was all done in the 8 hours from 9am - 5pm the grid would be at the point of collapse.

The trouble is that, AIUI, grid capacity is set to fall as elderly fossil fuel stations are decommissioned and not replaced - or rather replaced with renewables. There are worries about meeting current demand - much less the roughly 27% increase that 100% EV penetration would bring.

Edit: PS the above assumes commercial traffic continues to use fossil fuels.

[1] https://www.licencebureau.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/road-use-statistics.pdf
Total vehicle miles is plausible, given 28 million private vehicles that is about 8500 miles per vehicle per year which seems reasonable and ties in with other published figures.

[2] http://www2.nationalgrid.com/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=8589939291

[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/633779/Chapter_5.pdf

[kaz911]

It's very clear. If a car charger is going to draw 10 or 20 kW continuously for several hours overnight, and every house is going to have one of these chargers installed (or more than one charger for multi-car families), then the distribution network absolutely cannot handle that demand. The existing network is sized for much lower average power demands than that, probably 10% of that.

All that is required is for the demand to be a bit smarter. Fast charging overnight is an oxymoron. Overnight charging should be slow by definition. Simple variable pricing which already exists is the way to solve it. Just expose the customers to the variable pricing.

The average draw just needs to replace the average daily consumption, which is probably in the 10kWh - 20kWh range - based on a quick google on consumption/km and a 60km commute.

So based on that you have all night to charge 20kWh - which is 10 hours at 2kW, which is the same as running an electric heater all night. I think the grid will cope with that.

The nice thing is that it is fairly easy to work out based on published figures rather than guesswork and I did some back of envelope calculations a while ago

In the UK there are approx 240 billion vehicle miles travelled by car per year (2016 figures)¹

Assuming 3 miles per kWh that would need 80 billion kWh if it were all in EVs

Daily electricity demand varies from a trough of around 26GW to a peak of around 50GW² - Generating capacity in 2015 was just over 78GW³

80 trillion WH is 219 billion WH per day, if this were delivered in 8 hours overnight that would add 28GW to demand for those 8 hours. Let's say this is 10pm - 6am - demand is still quite high 10pm-midnight (low 30's of GW) so the peak demand would increase to something like  60GW which is significantly higher than currently but the grid as it stands could probably deliver on overnight charging.

If, on the other hand, the charging was all done in the 8 hours from 9am - 5pm the grid would be at the point of collapse.

The trouble is that, AIUI, grid capacity is set to fall as elderly fossil fuel stations are decommissioned and not replaced - or rather replaced with renewables. There are worries about meeting current demand - much less the roughly 27% increase that 100% EV penetration would bring.

Edit: PS the above assumes commercial traffic continues to use fossil fuels.

[1] https://www.licencebureau.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/road-use-statistics.pdf
Total vehicle miles is plausible, given 28 million private vehicles that is about 8500 miles per vehicle per year which seems reasonable and ties in with other published figures.

[2] http://www2.nationalgrid.com/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=8589939291

[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/633779/Chapter_5.pdf

Great calculations thanks - but there is a huge difference is what is produced and what is actually delivered to customers - so add about on average 40% in delivery cost/losses.  So when you use 10A they probably have to generate around 14A on average. Then add another 10-20% for energy losses during charging as no charge cycle is 100% efficient.  So I think realistically divide the 1kW/3miles with factor 1.5 or 1.6.

The other issue is the capacity from transformer station to the endpoint. Just because someone have like me a 100A circuit - does not mean I and all my neighbours can pull 100A continuously (or even 1/2 or 1/3 - or even 1/5)

I think the "close to consumer" distribution points are the main bottlenecks. And worst places are old cities with very old infrastructure or "remote" villages where infrastructure is expensive to get all the way. New'ish city suburbs is probably the best areas.

[grumpydoc]

Great calculations thanks - but there is a huge difference is what is produced and what is actually delivered to customers - so add about on average 40% in delivery cost/losses.  So when you use 10A they probably have to generate around 14A on average. Then add another 10-20% for energy losses during charging as no charge cycle is 100% efficient.  So I think realistically divide the 1kW/3miles with factor 1.5 or 1.6.

The other issue is the capacity from transformer station to the endpoint. Just because someone have like me a 100A circuit - does not mean I and all my neighbours can pull 100A continuously (or even 1/2 or 1/3 - or even 1/5)

I think the "close to consumer" distribution points are the main bottlenecks. And worst places are old cities with very old infrastructure or "remote" villages where infrastructure is expensive to get all the way. New'ish city suburbs is probably the best areas.

While you are completely correct in that I didn't really account for losses they are not, I think, as high as you suggest - OFGEN gives a figure significantly less than 10% for grid losses, for example.

I think you have a very valid point about the "last mile" though which I suspect is not sized for everyone pulling an extra 20-30kWh overnight.

One point in all of this is that it is all very well making 24 hour demand flat - or even pushing the peak demand around midnight unless you are relying on solar for a good proportion of your capacity 

[tszaboo]

I hope everyone knows, that the solution is obvious. You need to place smart (and not fast) chargers at your workplace. Which will charge the car with solar, during the day. You need to encourage the companies to install this, and the employees to use it. For example price reduction for the electricity, incentives, tax free stuff. And install solar panels.
In the meantime, they need to work on the low voltage network. This "sun is shining too high, car charging too low" means they need more cabling. It is really not the consumers problem, but the DSO-s.

[voltsandjolts]

I hope everyone knows, that the solution is obvious. You need to place smart (and not fast) chargers at your workplace. Which will charge the car with solar, during the day.

Norway is a beautiful country but from what I remember there isn't a whole lot of sun in winter.

Edit: Added quote to clarify what I was responding to.

[tszaboo]

Norway is a beautiful country but from what I remember there isn't a whole lot of sun in winter.

"Over 99% of the electricity production in mainland Norway is from hydropower plants." Well my solution still stands. And it is applicable to the other countries with the electric car "problem".

[hendorog]

Norway is a beautiful country but from what I remember there isn't a whole lot of sun in winter.

"Over 99% of the electricity production in mainland Norway is from hydropower plants." Well my solution still stands. And it is applicable to the other countries with the electric car "problem".

My solution made your solution completely unnecessary several posts back
 

[grumpydoc]

I hope everyone knows, that the solution is obvious. You need to place smart (and not fast) chargers at your workplace. Which will charge the car with solar, during the day. You need to encourage the companies to install this, and the employees to use it. For example price reduction for the electricity, incentives, tax free stuff. And install solar panels.
In the meantime, they need to work on the low voltage network. This "sun is shining too high, car charging too low" means they need more cabling. It is really not the consumers problem, but the DSO-s.

Yeah, if you live somewhere with high insolation perhaps lots of local solar charging during the day would work.

Not sure the UK is such a place.

As noted above the grid will not cope with significant amounts of charging during the day as things stand.

[fcb]

I think you're all being a little negative about the situation and the future.  I've lived with an EV for over two years now, and I've had a hand in designing some of the chargers for them, so have been pretty immersed in the field.

Outside of Norway, the uptake as a % of total is small (although China is the one to watch), it's growing for sure, but it looks like the car manufacturers will win in delaying the switch to 100% EV with mild hybridisation for sometime to come.  Will we all be buying EV in the future - yes, in the next 5 years no.  Mild plug in's aren't a big threat to the grid.

Chargers are getting more intelligent. The vast majority of KWh's delivered to EV's are from home, in the evening - I have the data to back this up.  Next is workplace charging and that is intelligent (we can do active load management, load-balancing, remote grid control etc..), all this goes to protect the local grid and works now.  Home chargers will have this capability next year, and you can throttle the car charger comfortably from 1.5KW to 7.2KW (& off) in around a second, and this functionality will probably be mandated in the next couple of years.

In my experience (40,000 miles +) you use something like 0.250KWh per mile travelled, so a 10 hour charge (most UK chargers are 32A) you'd be able to pump 288 miles of range overnight - but the reality is you might only need 40 miles, so you can charge at a couple of KW easily.

Local storage is becoming a thing. This is taking off surprisingly quickly, the uptake could be higher than solar panels and there are some inventive tariff's and financing options in the works, this could pretty much turn the entire grid into 'base load'.  V2G might have well have the same effect and may well be mandatory in the next few years.  Car manufacturers WILL become energy companies.

Apart from Norway (with it's super high tax on ICE) I have seen no evidence of a problem now or any panic/concern from the network operators.

[Avacee]

I posted this link from the UK's National Grid in another thread but seems relevant here:
http://fes.nationalgrid.com/media/1253/final-fes-2017-updated-interactive-pdf-44-amended.pdf

It's the National Grid's long-term projections of energy demand.
Section 5.3 specifically mentions the increase in Peak Demand from the charging of electric vehicles.

In essence the UK needs 5 more Nuclear Power Stations the size of Hinckley (which took years to agree, will take years to bring online and thanks to our incompetent government signing one of the stupidest and most financially crippling agreements in history will be financial millstone around the neck of consumers for 50+ years). The UK can't expect many more Nuclear Plants in the short-term.

Unsurprisingly the report also states that the National Grid needs to spend a considerable amount of money upgrading current infrastructure to cope with the increase in electricity usage (and doubt bigger director's bonuses, etc)

[tszaboo]

Norway is a beautiful country but from what I remember there isn't a whole lot of sun in winter.

"Over 99% of the electricity production in mainland Norway is from hydropower plants." Well my solution still stands. And it is applicable to the other countries with the electric car "problem".

My solution made your solution completely unnecessary several posts back

Solar power has an exponential growth, and it will replace the mayority of power generation. Simply because the economics, and it is not an IF, it is a WHEN question. And sun is only up during the day. So you need to charge your car during the day. And current society is still based around the ancient and stupid 1930 ways, when we are at work during the day.

[grumpydoc]

I think you're all being a little negative about the situation and the future.  I've lived with an EV for over two years now, and I've had a hand in designing some of the chargers for them, so have been pretty immersed in the field.

....

I appreciate that you have much more expertise in this field than I do but, however intelligent the charger, the overall increase in demand needs to be met - It can be managed to reduce the impact but it still needs to be met.

Don't forget that people do not just commute, longer journeys are undertaken and with 100% penetration into car use then there will be a lot of light commercial use as well so my back of envelope calculations are probably under the mark by 25-30%. Also your pattern of EV use does not necessarily map to the general case.

All of this against a background of reducing generating capacity.

I think it will be quite a challenge to manage.

[CJay]

I think you're all being a little negative about the situation and the future.  I've lived with an EV for over two years now, and I've had a hand in designing some of the chargers for them, so have been pretty immersed in the field.

Outside of Norway, the uptake as a % of total is small (although China is the one to watch), it's growing for sure, but it looks like the car manufacturers will win in delaying the switch to 100% EV with mild hybridisation for sometime to come.  Will we all be buying EV in the future - yes, in the next 5 years no.  Mild plug in's aren't a big threat to the grid.

Chargers are getting more intelligent. The vast majority of KWh's delivered to EV's are from home, in the evening - I have the data to back this up.  Next is workplace charging and that is intelligent (we can do active load management, load-balancing, remote grid control etc..), all this goes to protect the local grid and works now.  Home chargers will have this capability next year, and you can throttle the car charger comfortably from 1.5KW to 7.2KW (& off) in around a second, and this functionality will probably be mandated in the next couple of years.

In my experience (40,000 miles +) you use something like 0.250KWh per mile travelled, so a 10 hour charge (most UK chargers are 32A) you'd be able to pump 288 miles of range overnight - but the reality is you might only need 40 miles, so you can charge at a couple of KW easily.

Local storage is becoming a thing. This is taking off surprisingly quickly, the uptake could be higher than solar panels and there are some inventive tariff's and financing options in the works, this could pretty much turn the entire grid into 'base load'.  V2G might have well have the same effect and may well be mandatory in the next few years.  Car manufacturers WILL become energy companies.

Apart from Norway (with it's super high tax on ICE) I have seen no evidence of a problem now or any panic/concern from the network operators.

And when every house has an EV or two, some of them three?

When somebody needs to do 300 miles in a day and you don't know if the car is going to charge up enough overnight because the charger might have throttled back the charge rate?

I know that's an extreme case but it's not that out there, fact of the matter is that EV is still not a great solution for a tank of fuel that can be replaced in a couple of minutes.

Until we can work out a way of dumping the huge amounts of energy required into a car in minutes, EV will remain a poor alternative.

I do not know what the answer is and know that a hydrocarbon transport solution isn't sustainable but can't for the life of me think of a viable alternative that won't cause massive social upheaval (people being effectively forced to give up personal transportation).

[ludzinc]

Quick Question:

Lets assume each car needs a 10kWh charge while parked at work.  (1/3rd a Tesla battery?).

At my work there's 500 people across various buildings, so that's 5000kWh that the chargers need to deliver.

Over a typical 8 hour day that 5000kWh can be spread to 625kW/hr.

That's a very, very big on site solar installation - and who's going to pay for it?

Not a very practical idea at all....

[fcb]

And when every house has an EV or two, some of them three?

When somebody needs to do 300 miles in a day and you don't know if the car is going to charge up enough overnight because the charger might have throttled back the charge rate?

I know that's an extreme case but it's not that out there, fact of the matter is that EV is still not a great solution for a tank of fuel that can be replaced in a couple of minutes.

Until we can work out a way of dumping the huge amounts of energy required into a car in minutes, EV will remain a poor alternative.

I do not know what the answer is and know that a hydrocarbon transport solution isn't sustainable but can't for the life of me think of a viable alternative that won't cause massive social upheaval (people being effectively forced to give up personal transportation).

So a couple of weekends ago (with no planning whatsoever), my wife and I took off in a 2017 i3REX (range extender) to the Sussex/Kent coast.  The i3 has 130 miles on battery and around 90 miles on petrol. We did ~320 miles and alot of it at speed (so the range is reduced), we filled up once with petrol (£10.47) and once with electric (45mins 30.9KWh, ECOTRICITY £8.25), got back with about a half tank of petrol.  So cheaper than taking our frugal diesel Audi estate and if had known where we were going in-advance I could have planned a charge on before the range extender kicked in and used pure electricity.

Charging infrastructure for long distances has improved in the UK, still away to go, but it's happening.  The car ranges have nearly doubled in the last two years. The first non-subsidised solar farm (Flitwick, UK, 10MW) opened last month. New wind turbines generate 50x more power per device than in the 90's.

I don't doubt that there are some major challenges to deal with, but the rate of increase in renewable generation and storage is going to solve alot of these problems before they bite.

[tszaboo]

Quick Question:

Lets assume each car needs a 10kWh charge while parked at work.  (1/3rd a Tesla battery?).

At my work there's 500 people across various buildings, so that's 5000kWh that the chargers need to deliver.

Over a typical 8 hour day that 5000kWh can be spread to 625kW/hr.

That's a very, very big on site solar installation - and who's going to pay for it?

Not a very practical idea at all....

Just using the parking lot, you can install half a megawatt capacity. Standard parking space is about 2.5mx5m plus road, total area is around 10.000 sqm. For a 1MW plant you need around 20.000 sqm. It is not the required capacity, but a good start. It would cost around half a million to make it, plus chargers. That is 1000 EUR/USD/AUD/Deutsche mark per employee, AKA almost nothing for the company. Say one week salary. Chargers are also cheap, they start from 500.

And solar panels are worth it alone.

[fcb]

Quick Question:

Lets assume each car needs a 10kWh charge while parked at work.  (1/3rd a Tesla battery?).

At my work there's 500 people across various buildings, so that's 5000kWh that the chargers need to deliver.

Over a typical 8 hour day that 5000kWh can be spread to 625kW/hr.

That's a very, very big on site solar installation - and who's going to pay for it?

Not a very practical idea at all....

So you are saying that the average for your site is an 40 mile each-way commute??? Seems high as an average.

Most drivers will charge at home before they leave for work (it will likely be cheaper for them to do so), those that live in flats without easy to access to charging can charge at work (and will pay for this).  Also, the site would likely have battery storage (it would pay to do so, so there would be a way to finance it) to even out the load on the site transformer. If they could fit solar, great, the price is dropping very quickly - and the offset from getting rid of the CO2 of 500 workers driving 80 miles a day would be substantial.

[CJay]

So a couple of weekends ago (with no planning whatsoever), my wife and I took off in a 2017 i3REX (range extender) to the Sussex/Kent coast.  The i3 has 130 miles on battery and around 90 miles on petrol. We did ~320 miles and alot of it at speed (so the range is reduced), we filled up once with petrol (£10.47) and once with electric (45mins 30.9KWh, ECOTRICITY £8.25), got back with about a half tank of petrol.  So cheaper than taking our frugal diesel Audi estate and if had known where we were going in-advance I could have planned a charge on before the range extender kicked in and used pure electricity.

Your petrol powered hybrid is a good example of why a pure EV is a viable substitute for a petrol/diesel powered car?

I may be being somewhat picky here but I have a nagging feeling that there's a teeny logical flaw in your argument.

[kaz911]

Great calculations thanks - but there is a huge difference is what is produced and what is actually delivered to customers - so add about on average 40% in delivery cost/losses.  So when you use 10A they probably have to generate around 14A on average. Then add another 10-20% for energy losses during charging as no charge cycle is 100% efficient.  So I think realistically divide the 1kW/3miles with factor 1.5 or 1.6.

The other issue is the capacity from transformer station to the endpoint. Just because someone have like me a 100A circuit - does not mean I and all my neighbours can pull 100A continuously (or even 1/2 or 1/3 - or even 1/5)

I think the "close to consumer" distribution points are the main bottlenecks. And worst places are old cities with very old infrastructure or "remote" villages where infrastructure is expensive to get all the way. New'ish city suburbs is probably the best areas.

While you are completely correct in that I didn't really account for losses they are not, I think, as high as you suggest - OFGEN gives a figure significantly less than 10% for grid losses, for example.

I think you have a very valid point about the "last mile" though which I suspect is not sized for everyone pulling an extra 20-30kWh overnight.

One point in all of this is that it is all very well making 24 hour demand flat - or even pushing the peak demand around midnight unless you are relying on solar for a good proportion of your capacity 

ok lets lower Grid loss to 10-15% - but I read up on Tesla efficiency (so energy used to refill a Tesla after use) - so socket output vs battery consumption is in the 70-80% efficiency. (So use 10kW - refill the lost capacity) - about 10% is lost in charger and another 10% lost in battery technology (roughly). Figures are from Tesla's forums where people have measured with different degree of efficiency. It is probably also the old 18650 batteries and not the new ones. If you do not charge the battery all the way to 100% your charge efficiency will probably be better. But the examples from Tesla's forums was not 100% recharge.

so best case - 10% distribution  + 20% charge loss
worst case 15% distribution + 30% charge loss

You can't directly add the percentages as they are taken from different parts of the calculation:

1000 from plant
10% delivery loss = 100

Net 900 delivered to client
20% charge loss = 180

Net 720 delivered to cars battery

So in total there best case about 28% loss from power plant generated

For worst case :
1000 from plant
150 distribution loss

Net 850 delivered to client

30% charge loss = 255

Net 595 delivered to car.

So roughly anywhere between 28% to 41% loss from production before capacity is in your battery.

---
And regarding Watt/km/mile - The best Tesla drivers seem to get around 250 Wh/mile - most says around 300-330 Wh/km (Tesla S'ssss) - and those with heavy feet or AC/Heater consumption for large parts of the year are closer to 400 Wh/mile. But based on the how to drive

--
I'm not against Tesla's or electric cars - I love them!

But I do not drive enough miles to have one (driven about 90 miles since March). So in my case Petrol is cheaper / mile than a Tesla as I do not have to keep battery charged every day.... (Battery loss/Vampire Drain/24x365 consumption is about 30w on a Tesla S - or battery drain as per Tesla manual is about 1% per day)

[fcb]

Your petrol powered hybrid is a good example of why a pure EV is a viable substitute for a petrol/diesel powered car?

I may be being somewhat picky here but I have a nagging feeling that there's a teeny logical flaw in your argument.

About 33,000 electric miles has been in 22KW Renault Zoe's (around 100 mile range), the remainder in i3REX's and a Tesla SP100DL 

I absolutely never said they are perfect. But they are the future and getting better very rapidly. Had the charging infrastructure been a little better or I had actually planned the Kent coast trip, then the range extender wouldn't have been required.

At somepoint early next year I and my family will be 100% electric, we are largely there now - If not for any other reason than cost saving (I have a charger at work also and the govt. hasn't started billing electricity as a BIK 'benefit-in-kind').

[Someone]

I think you're all being a little negative about the situation and the future.  I've lived with an EV for over two years now, and I've had a hand in designing some of the chargers for them, so have been pretty immersed in the field.

Outside of Norway, the uptake as a % of total is small (although China is the one to watch), it's growing for sure, but it looks like the car manufacturers will win in delaying the switch to 100% EV with mild hybridisation for sometime to come.  Will we all be buying EV in the future - yes, in the next 5 years no.  Mild plug in's aren't a big threat to the grid.

Chargers are getting more intelligent. The vast majority of KWh's delivered to EV's are from home, in the evening - I have the data to back this up.  Next is workplace charging and that is intelligent (we can do active load management, load-balancing, remote grid control etc..), all this goes to protect the local grid and works now.  Home chargers will have this capability next year, and you can throttle the car charger comfortably from 1.5KW to 7.2KW (& off) in around a second, and this functionality will probably be mandated in the next couple of years.

In my experience (40,000 miles +) you use something like 0.250KWh per mile travelled, so a 10 hour charge (most UK chargers are 32A) you'd be able to pump 288 miles of range overnight - but the reality is you might only need 40 miles, so you can charge at a couple of KW easily.

Local storage is becoming a thing. This is taking off surprisingly quickly, the uptake could be higher than solar panels and there are some inventive tariff's and financing options in the works, this could pretty much turn the entire grid into 'base load'.  V2G might have well have the same effect and may well be mandatory in the next few years.  Car manufacturers WILL become energy companies.

Apart from Norway (with it's super high tax on ICE) I have seen no evidence of a problem now or any panic/concern from the network operators.

And when every house has an EV or two, some of them three?

When somebody needs to do 300 miles in a day and you don't know if the car is going to charge up enough overnight because the charger might have throttled back the charge rate?

In a freer market then you would pay more to charge at your convenience and pay less to charge at the convenience of generators, so access to the additional energy you hadn't scheduled/announced in advance would cost more per unit. One of the challenges is that the electricity market in most countries is a crude single price structure or fixed time of day tariffs, neither of which work when you have fluctuating demand and supply. At the moment this is absorbed by expensive peaking plants and then spread across everyones bills, but if you could access the fluctuating wholesale market and use V2G or other storage then you could end up well ahead.

[ludzinc]

Quick Question:

Lets assume each car needs a 10kWh charge while parked at work.  (1/3rd a Tesla battery?).

At my work there's 500 people across various buildings, so that's 5000kWh that the chargers need to deliver.

Over a typical 8 hour day that 5000kWh can be spread to 625kW/hr.

That's a very, very big on site solar installation - and who's going to pay for it?

Not a very practical idea at all....

So you are saying that the average for your site is an 40 mile each-way commute??? Seems high as an average.

Most drivers will charge at home before they leave for work (it will likely be cheaper for them to do so), those that live in flats without easy to access to charging can charge at work (and will pay for this).  Also, the site would likely have battery storage (it would pay to do so, so there would be a way to finance it) to even out the load on the site transformer. If they could fit solar, great, the price is dropping very quickly - and the offset from getting rid of the CO2 of 500 workers driving 80 miles a day would be substantial.

Agree 40 mile (50kM?) is a high average  each way trip.  My total commute for work is 50km, so that halves all my ballpark maths right there - but I've also assumed 100% efficiency too, so, meh.

Still - crazy amounts of power needed.  Just shows how much energy there is in a car's fuel tank....

[ludzinc]

Quick Question:

Lets assume each car needs a 10kWh charge while parked at work.  (1/3rd a Tesla battery?).

At my work there's 500 people across various buildings, so that's 5000kWh that the chargers need to deliver.

Over a typical 8 hour day that 5000kWh can be spread to 625kW/hr.

That's a very, very big on site solar installation - and who's going to pay for it?

Not a very practical idea at all....

Just using the parking lot, you can install half a megawatt capacity. Standard parking space is about 2.5mx5m plus road, total area is around 10.000 sqm. For a 1MW plant you need around 20.000 sqm. It is not the required capacity, but a good start. It would cost around half a million to make it, plus chargers. That is 1000 EUR/USD/AUD/Deutsche mark per employee, AKA almost nothing for the company. Say one week salary. Chargers are also cheap, they start from 500.

And solar panels are worth it alone.

Googling shows solar system here in Oz run about $1 - $2 / Watt.  So lets say it's $1k per kW.  For 500kW that's $500k - $1M - same ballpark as what you're stating.

But

10,000 sqm is a LOT of area - a Large house block is 1000sqm, so you are needing 10 *generous* house block sized areas.  What's the cost of those?  $50k per 1000sqm for industrial areas, $1M for the same in the heart of the city?

And to simple think a company will think that scale of investment is a no-brainer, I'd beg to differ. 

Yes - solar on rooftops help offsets the need for land area, but it's not a simple or cheap solution really. 

Here in South Australia they are *finally* building thermal solar in the desert, so finally there's solar that can support base load. 

But thinking businesses will be able to put this infrastructure in place?  No way!

[tszaboo]

I just converted the entire parking lot into solar roof. It is there anyway, unless you have a multi stock parking garage, which is unlikely, since it is (probably) more expensive than land.

It is not magic. I look out of the window, I see 9*4 solar panels on a tracker, above my car. It is a tracker, an old one, installed probably a decade ago. Already payed back itself. Few meters away, there is another tracker. The top of the building is covered with solar of course. There are 4 parking places with chargers. According to google maps, almost all the buildings in this industrial park has solar panels on it.
Its not the question of how would you. Why the hell wouldn't you?

The thing is. People can say it is impossible, unpractical and all the Luddite negativity. EU nations are already banning petrol and diesel cars. In Germany you can only buy electric in 2030. China wants to ban combustion engine. What will you buy then? A Tuktuk? Rubbish american cars? This is how the car exports look like:

preatty much everything on the left marked blue will became electric in about 10 years. Just because they dont want to miss out from the markets, like germany, where the average car owner replaces the car as soon as the 5 year lease runs out. Or the french market, where after 5 years they fall apart.

[CJay]

I just converted the entire parking lot into solar roof. It is there anyway, unless you have a multi stock parking garage, which is unlikely, since it is (probably) more expensive than land.

Well, I'm looking out of my office window now at the excavations for a new multi storey car park so I'd say, at least here, the land is more expensive than the structure.

I hope we go electric, I really do, but in built up areas I can see so many down sides to the schemes I just don't see how it will work, there needs to be a hybrid alternative, if that's alcohol, CNG, LPG, Hydrogen, potatoes, I don't know.

To make it viable there's a ridiculous amount of investment required in the infrastructure and/or some incredible advance in the technology.