With proper incentives a lot. The grid has more than enough capacity for the needed watt hours needed in any given day, so if we can get people to cool their homes down more during lulls in usage, and charge their cars during those periods too it would take a lot of slack, ACs are likely a much bigger hit to most grids in the southwest over the next several decades than EVs will be. With well regulated (see not Texas) demand pricing it shouldn't be hard to convince people to do a couple times a year changes to their thermostats & enable settings on their EVSEs or EV to lower usage during peak.
Your argument mostly boils down to "what if everyone stopped to fill up gas at the same time, there's not enough pumps, we can't support ICE vehicles".
Also sorry if I came off as dick-ish, I don't disagree that we should be expanding energy production as fast & cleanly as we can, but I think we as a society are much to unwilling to take the slightest inconvenience, and it feels like with scheduling too many people are at the position of "we've tried the absolute minimum and it didn't solve it, it's doing more isn't going to work."
Just want to make sure I am clear on what you are saying:
Are you saying that's the case for the cars and loads we have today? Or, are you saying we have enough for a full transition to EV's?
> Also sorry if I came off as dick-ish, I don't disagree that we should be expanding energy production
No worries. Thanks for the gesture. It indicates a desire to have a conversation, rather than wanting to throw fecal matter at each other, which, sadly, can happen even on HN with some people.
I am simply trying to understand the reality of this energy transition, rather than the many fantasies out there. When politicians make claims nobody asks the hard questions. Well, OK, I understand that most reporters don't have a clue. Most politicians don't have a clue. Which means we end-up with uncontested statements that, if repeated enough time, tend to become reality in the minds of people who will ultimately vote for this stuff in one way or another. We have to be careful that we don't make massive bets on flawed "religious" assumptions.
Pretty much yes to the second, or at least from reading several interviews with heads of utilities it's not EVs that they're worried about, it's the massively exploding amount of energy being used for AC as things have heated up and are expected to continue to as that can eat away at the capacity during otherwise lulls.
I think scheduling should also have a massive disclaimer on it that it's not about static schedules, it's about the grid being able to dynamically tell the chargers when to charge or not, and with enough of those EVs can actually help the grid because instead of spinning up powerplants and burning fuel (and money) in anticipation of peaks they can ramp them up and actually use the electricity and easily & safely shed load as peak picks up.
If utilities don't act on getting the ability to dynamically tell chargers when to charge and expand their programs to help get people to think of houses as thermal batteries to manage peak then no there isn't enough, but those are things that utilities have been pretty actively working on, it's just not as visible as new powerplants. It'd also help if dealer salespeople were more familiar with some of this stuff as mine didn't really know much and I ended up sending him a bunch of stuff about the local utilities programs so he can hopefully tell future buyers (it's mostly stuff like setting up charging schedules (they've only rolled out the dynamic charge scheduling for a small test group so far so currently only static) that they then give discounts for a few months)
Other random notes that came into my head as I was writing: * Most smart chargers already support a standard that allows utilities to do this, so it isn't a case of once utilities get around to it everyone needs to upgrade their chargers, they should just be able to just authenticate.
* to make sure it's clear I'm not suggesting they should say "You can't charge during these periods", but should be offering discounts for not doing so and allowing simple overrides at the charger.
* I'm also super excited to see what happens with vehicle to load in the coming years as I think that could be a massive boon to grid stability (similar to tesla's virtual power plant program but I expect magnitude more EVs than home battery systems)
>> Are you saying that's the case for the cars and loads we have today? >> Or, are you saying we have enough for a full transition to EV's?
> Pretty much yes to the second
We all wish that were true, sadly, it isn't the case at all. Our total power production capacity today is about 1,200 GW. A full transition to EV's requires (using clean energy) approximately three times that much power being built, and that's just for cars. You simply cannot schedule your way around that problem.
Here's a super-simple analogy to illustrate the problem:
You are the only waiter at a busy restaurant. It has only one cook. It has enough tables for both of you to be extremely busy pretty much all day. Sure, there are some periods of lower activity, yet, you never find yourselves sitting around doing nothing. you are busy.
The owner buys the building next door and expands the restaurant to now have 7 times more tables. He doesn't hire additional cooks, he doesn't install new order-taking stations or technology and you are still the only waiter.
The cook can't keep up. You can't keep up. The one-and-only cash register in the place can't keep up. The system worked well with 1/7th the patrons. It is now completely broken with seven times more. You need a lot more cooks (power generation) and a lot more waiters (grid, distribution) as well as all of the tools and technologies to support you (software, sensors, telemetry, maintenance, etc.)
You just can't schedule your way around a problem like that.
BTW, this is a super-simplified analogy to attempt to explain the most fundamental underlying problem. Don't try to slice and dice it, it isn't designed to be an accurate portrayal of all factors that go into the issue at hand.
In most areas of the US electrical systems were designed with assumptions made back in the 1950's. On average, it was thought, approximately 2 kW per home was needed. The wires, transformers, distribution, substations, etc. feeding neighborhoods, towns and cities evolved from these assumptions.
An electric car charging at home will demand six to seven times that much power. Which means that everything, from the home's electrical panel all the way to the electrical substation is now in peril.
If you want a really good explanation of this, I'd suggest you read chapter 3 of this book that was just released by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/files/52329/The%20EV%20Transition....
If you go to page 14, you can get the real-life story that I used to attempt to create an analogy. The author describes precisely this issue in the city of Palo Alto, CA. Conclusion: Palo Alto needs to almost rip-up and upgrade its entire infrastructure to be able to service full electrification.
Electric stoves and other electrification only make this more difficult.
> should be offering discounts for not doing so and allowing simple overrides at the charger
My take on this is that people will do what they have to do given their circumstances. People have very random daily schedules. Some work at night, some have work and college, others might have a couple of jobs, after school activities, etc. There's a lot of variability built into behavior. It's like herding cats. In the end, I don't think behavior will make a significant impact.
> I'm also super excited to see what happens with vehicle to load in the coming years
While I understand the idea Vehicle to Grid (V2G) from an engineering perspective. I can't understand why anyone would ever do that.
First, the most fundamental problem: Home electrical systems and the distribution grid are not ready for this. You would have to replace millions of home electrical panels and power meters just to get started. I did just that when I built my solar array, it was not cheap. Imagine buying an electric car and having to spend $10K to $20K to redo your home system to support it. In addition to this, the transformers and other components are not ready to deal with V2G. The control systems, data and telemetry at most US power systems is in the stone age.
Even if all of this was magically resolved at zero cost, there are fundamental questions about V2G that, I propose, will lead people to say "no, thanks".
First: Battery packs have limited charge/discharge cycles. If you use your car for V2G, your battery will fail much earlier than if you just use it to drive. Why pays for that? The warranty will not cover it, I can assure you of that. Also, think of the waste and recycling load that would impose.
Second: I just spent money to fill-up my battery. And now I am going to let the grid drain it? Are they going to pay me? OK. They have to pay me enough for me to recoup my investment and more than justify having to spend tens of thousands of dollars when the battery fails. That power will be insanely expensive. Who is going to buy it? Energy rates are already ridiculously high. This makes no sense to me.
Third: Range anxiety with electrics is a thing today and will be a thing in the future. Why drain your battery to the grid? This makes no sense from that perspective. It's like saying to your neighbors "Hey, I just filled-up my gasoline tank. While my car is parked, feel free to siphon off up to 50% of my tank.". Nobody is going to do that.
Experts who have looked at this in great detail seem to agree with the idea that this isn't going to happen for a very long time, if ever. There are too many problems with the practical realization of the concept. This is common in engineering, an idea might sound great, until you actually go face the realities of having to build it.
Again, if you are interested in this, I urge you to have a look at that book from the IEEE. It's only 49 pages long. If you are reasonably technical it will be easy to understand. Lots of good references tood.
Grid issues abound. On page 33 of that book there's a map showing the status of the grid in CA. The legend below it reads:
Red lines indicate areas where the grid cannot
accommodate additional load without any thermal or
voltage violations. Grey hatched areas indicate regions
where gaps in utility grid data exist. Colored lines,
keyed in the legend, indicate the available circuit
capacity in megawatts