I'm a little bit stunned about the ignorant (I mean that in the nicest way) math in this thread. No, EVs are not adding that much generation load to the grid. And you're making some kind of massive instantaneous change fallacy. EV penetration is not going to increase massively in a short amount of time.
First of all; the original post was about distribution network load. Not generation capacity. There's plenty of energy storage and generation capacity in Norway to handle much, MUCH higher EV penetration. It's all about the wires actually delivering the energy, and then only to relative fast-chargers. And then only to locations previously not outfitted with heater outlets.
Secondly; we already have 100% functional, 40-year tested overnight EV charging infrastructure in Scandinavia. It's called mantle heaters. These suck about 10-15kWh per day just to keep the fuel and coolant from freezing. That's well in excess of average energy need for cars. In winter, they service about 30-35% of all the cars at once. This is a solved energy distribution problem. You do that with thicker cables (typ. 250/300A), which cost very little extra on top of regular 100/133A LV three-phase distribution cable.
Thirdly; no, total energy demand will not go up appreciably. Say we invent a country with only passenger cars that has an average 100M vehicle kilometers per year demand at 15km/L, so 6.7M litres of gasoline per year. At 150Wh/km, that's going to be replaced by 15GWh of electricity. Say we lose 20% in transmission, distribution and charging (substitute whatever you think is right, I'll stick by TenneT's numbers + tesla chargers), that gives us 19GWh primary electricity remand.
A US gallon of gasoline requires about 6kWh to be produced (https://greentransportation.info/energy-transportation/gasoline-costs-6kwh.html <--read for more context). We are displacing 6.7M L = 1.8M gal = 10.8GWh of refining/mining/distribution electricity cost. Total energy increase is thus only about a third.
But wait, there's more! The vast majority of charging does not happen at peak times, and electric grids (as well as generation) does not care about anything but peak demand as far as limits on the infrastructure go. Smart charging will further perform demand response on actual generation capacity to smooth out capacity. This leads to the assertion by most grid infra experts that most likely, no generation additions are required at all even for a 100% transition to electric road vehicles. At most, average energy increase numbers around 10% is what I see in literature. Not even the 50% you'd expect.
So, now you say: but what about the distribution network? Didn't we just discuss that being overloaded by Teslas in Norway?
Generation, transmission and distribution are sized to peak loads, not average loads. Because there is practically no demand response and no energy storage on the grid, generators have to modulate their electric output to instantaneous demand, which fluctuates quite widely. Here's a very typical dispatch curve for instance:
The first dotted line is average minimum load, the second is average and the third is peak. The very rightmost part of the graph, near 80GW, is still 25% over the typical peak and in most systems you can go over that a decent bit more before tripping anything if the load is sufficiently distributed. This means at any time of the day, only about 40-50% of dispatchable generation is actually online and most of the reserve just sits there for a few days of the year (or in case of the top 10% of generation: a few *hours* per year) when for some reason demand peaks that high.
So if you look at the integral demand on the grid, and this goes for both generation and distribution, it is at most maybe 20-25% of actual peak, we-run-this-baby-all-the-time capacity. There is plenty more juice to be strangled from the grid with literally zero upgrades, just by distributing demand into less problematic parts of the day.
This is the *big* opportunity for battery storage. Batteries have way too low energy density to do seasonal storage, but they are awesome for load-shifting a couple of hours. Then, instead of overloading the grid during peak hours and paying a higher price for electricity as a result (and possibly requiring massive upgrades), you actually consume that energy from the grid at low-demand times. This increases generator value as well over the entire day, alleviating some other intermittency issues with especially renewables and nuclear as well.
Thirdly; no, total energy demand will not go up appreciably. Say we invent a country with only passenger cars that has an average 100M vehicle kilometers per year demand at 15km/L, so 6.7M litres of gasoline per year. At 150Wh/km, that's going to be replaced by 15GWh of electricity. Say we lose 20% in transmission, distribution and charging (substitute whatever you think is right, I'll stick by TenneT's numbers + tesla chargers), that gives us 19GWh primary electricity remand.
That's just not a very realistic view on matters. You don't need a perfectly filled tank of gas every time you leave for work. Likewise, you don't nearly need a fully charged EV every morning.
Nope, that's not the case at all, it's not a 'weird view of the world' to imagine people wanting to be able to jump into a car and to be able to go where they want when they want because that's exactly what people do already without having to wait hours for a battery to charge or hope that the grid had capacity to fully refill their electron bucket the night before.
Nope, that's not the case at all, it's not a 'weird view of the world' to imagine people wanting to be able to jump into a car and to be able to go where they want when they want because that's exactly what people do already without having to wait hours for a battery to charge or hope that the grid had capacity to fully refill their electron bucket the night before.Or even just want to undertake a longer journey than usual.
Most of my current commute is easily within range of an EV, I might need a full charge only once per week, but there was a time I was doing 650 miles per week to and from work.
However not infrequently I travel 300 miles+ in a single journey which is out of the range of EV's at present. Since we tend to drive into France for holidays occasional journeys of 600+ miles would not be out of the ordinary.
Now, it is a mistake to say that because today's ranges are (at best) in the 250 mile region that EV's will never have ranges of >300 miles but it is less likely that "fuel" efficiencies will improve radically which still leave us with 250-350Wh per mile, so you will need 100kWh+ batteries to extend ranges to compete with fossil fuel powered cars - my 2003 Mondeo will do that 650 miles I mentioned on one tank.
To charge a 100kWh battery in 15 mins (which I think is about as long as is reasonable in the middle of a journey) needs 400kW to be pumped in - not impossible but quite challenging and very tricky in a domestic environment where supplies tend to be limited to a few 10's of kW (though I guess most people would be happy with overnight charging domestically).
Somebody, please loan them a nixie-tube calculator.
Nope, that's not the case at all, it's not a 'weird view of the world' to imagine people wanting to be able to jump into a car and to be able to go where they want when they want because that's exactly what people do already without having to wait hours for a battery to charge or hope that the grid had capacity to fully refill their electron bucket the night before.
What happens when you wake up on a day off, look outside and see it's a beautiful day so you decide to go for a drive in the countryside or to the sea but find your EV hasn't charged past 25% because the charger decided the grid didn't have the capacity?
It is a nonsense to take the freedom a tank of diesel, gas, LPG, hydrogen, alcohol etc. etc. gives away from people, regardless of how that fuel is used, IC engine or Fuel cell, as yet there simply is no EV technology that can put that much energy into a vehicle in a comparable time (hint, even 15 minutes is too long for many people).
I agree, EVs should/probably/will work just fine for the daily commute and local shopping, far better than an IC engined (or even fuel cell) vehicle, but they are a very poor alternative if you want a life outside of that commute *UNTIL* such time as they can be 'refuelled' in a comparable time to a vehicle that carries a tank of fuel.
Some sort of battery swap technology might make it palatable but even that seems fraught with problems...
That's just not a very realistic view on matters. You don't need a perfectly filled tank of gas every time you leave for work. Likewise, you don't nearly need a fully charged EV every morning.
I might not need a full tank of fuel every morning but at the moment, I have the ability to top up my tank of fuel in a couple of minutes should I discover that it's empty or that I need to travel further than the available fuel will allow.
As with every proponent of pure EVs you don't have a very realistic view on life, you all very conveniently neglect the length of time it takes to charge an EV compared to the length of time it takes to 'charge' an IC car fuel tank, that length of time, lengthened by the charging schemes which 'ration' charge make an EV a liability.
EVs in one form or another are the future but until problems like that are solved then they're a pain in the arse.
CJay, I'd love to know if you've ever driven an electric vehicle. I hope I'm not offending anyone here, but this entire thread reminds me of the conversations horse owners in the 1910s had about "those newfangled horseless carriages." People unload a lot of hate on a new technology simply because it's not instantly perfect, even if it's a pretty good improvement.
That's just not a very realistic view on matters. You don't need a perfectly filled tank of gas every time you leave for work. Likewise, you don't nearly need a fully charged EV every morning.
I might not need a full tank of fuel every morning but at the moment, I have the ability to top up my tank of fuel in a couple of minutes should I discover that it's empty or that I need to travel further than the available fuel will allow.
As with every proponent of pure EVs you don't have a very realistic view on life, you all very conveniently neglect the length of time it takes to charge an EV compared to the length of time it takes to 'charge' an IC car fuel tank, that length of time, lengthened by the charging schemes which 'ration' charge make an EV a liability.
EVs in one form or another are the future but until problems like that are solved then they're a pain in the arse.
CJay, I'd love to know if you've ever driven an electric vehicle. I hope I'm not offending anyone here, but this entire thread reminds me of the conversations horse owners in the 1910s had about "those newfangled horseless carriages." People unload a lot of hate on a new technology simply because it's not instantly perfect, even if it's a pretty good improvement.
It's just taste... I like how it looks.
I mention the Auris, because that is a car which comes in Hybrid and regular version, with similar engines. The CHR doesn't. It comes with a tiny 1.2 turbo, manual transmission. The RAV4 is another example. The 4x2 2,0 D?4D (143 LE) is 28800EUR, the 2,5 Hybrid (197 LE) is 29900EUR. 1100 EUR difference for a bigger engine, which is greener. And then there are Priuses from around 2005, converted to CNG with homemade plug-in extended battery, which is probably the cheapest way to travel.
I think hybrids are relevant to the discussion. The plug in market is going to extend a lot in the next few years. Though they usually have "slow chargers" and wont bring the network down.
I just read somewhere else that a bubble is occurring with car loans. Similar to that which happened with real estate in 2008.
At the same time, society's love affair with the automobile is closely associated with the world of work, especially commuting, and as we move into the 21st century, numbers of commuters is expected to fall tremendously as more and more work is automated, goes to telecommuting or is off-shored.
I still think hybrids make sense, but fully EV - for a small vehicle for doing errands, shopping, yes, but I wouldn't want to be tied to a charger for a family's main form of transportation.