Posted on 09/22/2022 12:07:38 PM PDT by Red Badger
If the common charging of electric vehicles at home in the evening or overnight shifts to daytime at work as more cars go electric, then that would restrain extra costs for electricity systems, according to a new Stanford University study. Credit: Amy Adams/Stanford University
The vast majority of electric vehicle owners charge their cars at home in the evening or overnight. We're doing it wrong, according to a new Stanford study.
In March, the research team published a paper on a model they created for charging demand that can be applied to an array of populations and other factors. In the new study, published Sept. 22 in Nature Energy, they applied their model to the whole of the western United States and examined the stress the region's electric grid will come under by 2035 from growing EV ownership. In a little over a decade, they found, rapid EV growth alone could increase peak electricity demand by up to 25 percent, assuming a continued dominance of residential, nighttime charging.
To limit the high costs of all that new capacity for generating and storing electricity, the researchers say, drivers should move to daytime charging at work or public charging stations, which would also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This finding has policy and investment implications for the region and its utilities, especially since California moved in late August to ban sales of gasoline powered cars and light trucks starting in 2035.
"We encourage policymakers to consider utility rates that encourage day charging and incentivize investment in charging infrastructure to shift drivers from home to work for charging," said the study's co-senior author, Ram Rajagopal, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford.
In February, cumulative sales of EVs in California reached 1 million, accounting for about six percent of cars and light trucks. The state has targeted 5 million EVs on the road by 2030. When the penetration hits 30 percent to 40 percent of cars on the road, the grid will experience significant stress without major investments and changes in charging habits, said Rajagopal. Building that infrastructure requires significant lead time and cannot be done overnight.
"We considered the entire western U.S. region, because California depends heavily on electricity imports from the other western states. EV charging plus all other electricity uses have consequences for the whole western region given the interconnected nature of our electric grid," said Siobhan Powell, lead author of the March study and the new one.
"We were able to show that with less home charging and more daytime charging, the Western U.S. would need less generating capacity and storage, and it would not waste as much solar and wind power," said Powell, mechanical engineering Ph.D. '22.
"And, it's not just California and western states. All states may need to rethink electricity pricing structures as their EV charging needs increase and their grid changes," added Powell, who recently took a postdoctoral research position at ETH Zurich.
Once 50 percent of cars on the road are powered by electricity in the western U.S.—of which about half the population lives in California—more than 5.4 gigawatts of energy storage would be needed if charging habits follow their current course. That's the capacity equivalent of 5 large nuclear power reactors. A big shift to charging at work instead of home would reduce the storage needed for EVs to 4.2 gigawatts.
Changing incentives
Current time-of-use rates encourage consumers to switch electricity use to nighttime whenever possible, like running the dishwasher and charging EVs. This rate structure reflects the time before significant solar and wind power supplies, when demand threatened to exceed supply during the day, especially late afternoons in the summer.
Today, California has excess electricity during late mornings and early afternoons, thanks mainly to its solar capacity. If most EVs were to charge during these times, then the cheap power would be used instead of wasted. Alternatively, if most EVs continue to charge at night, then the state will need to build more generators—likely powered by natural gas—or expensive energy storage on a large scale. Electricity going first to a huge battery and then to an EV battery loses power from the extra stop.
At the local level, if a third of homes in a neighborhood have EVs and most of the owners continue to set charging to start at 11 p.m. or whenever electricity rates drop, the local grid could become unstable.
"The findings from this paper have two profound implications: the first is that the price signals are not aligned with what would be best for the grid—and for ratepayers. The second is that it calls for considering investments in a charging infrastructure for where people work," said Ines Azevedo, the new paper's other co-senior author and associate professor of energy science and engineering in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, which opened on Sept. 1.
"We need to move quickly toward decarbonizing the transportation sector, which accounts for the bulk of emissions in California," Azevedo continued. "This work provides insight on how to get there. Let's ensure that we pursue policies and investment strategies that allow us to do so in a way that is sustainable."
Another issue with electricity pricing design is charging commercial and industrial customers big fees based on their peak electricity use. This can disincentivize employers from installing chargers, especially once half or more of their employees have EVs. The research team compared several scenarios of charging infrastructure availability, along with several different residential time-of-use rates and commercial demand charges. Some rate changes made the situation at the grid level worse, while others improved it. Nevertheless, a scenario of having charging infrastructure that encourages more daytime charging and less home charging provided the biggest benefits, the study found.
Explore further
Integrating electric vehicles into the grid could prevent blackouts
More information:
Siobhan Powell, Charging infrastructure access and operation to reduce the grid impacts of deep electric vehicle adoption, Nature Energy (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-022-01105-7. www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01105-7
Journal information: Nature Energy
At some point, we’re going to have to develop a reasonably safe method of extracting the lithium from lithium batteries.
>>”Over a hundred years ago the ultra superior ICE powered car crushed the steam and EV competition and both of those exotics were dead by the time WWI started.”<<
And they didn’t need the govt to ban steam or EV to win the competition.
[Not to mention the utter impossibility of viable steam or EV airplanes, which were in common use in ICE form by WW1 / 1914. And EV airplanes are STILL not viable today, due to weight/energy density.]
Not to mention the “minor” problem of mass evacuation from a hurricane, chemical disaster, war, etc.
What happens when thousands of EVs run out of juice miles between charging stations?
ICE vehicles get a gallon or 2 of gas from a “road ranger” riding the shoulder, and they are on their way.
EVs are SCREWED when 100s go flat away from charging stations. Mega highway gridlock that can’t be unblocked for days to weeks, without entire fleets ICE tow trucks.
“Maybe we can drop them in used-up lithium mines.”
CodeToad’s Lithium-Mine Flight Services, Inc!
>>”Not even a golf cart?”<<
A road and highway VEHICLE, not a neighborhood toy.
Roof-mounted solar panels, in terms of square feet and energy output, will take days to weeks to charge an EV.
Marginally supplemental at best.
Pretty interesting.....
I lived in SoCal for a time...I saw wind power get screwed up. I saw solar power get screwed up.....IMO they are ways for some people to make lots of money...but do NOT help the energy problem.
NAT GAS..and OIL...and NUKE are the answers.
>>”At some point, we’re going to have to develop a reasonably safe method of extracting the lithium from lithium batteries.”<<
Put that “at some point” wish on the list right behind maintaining and monitoring spent nuclear fuel, and cleaning up leaky EPA “Superfund” sites (Camp Lejeune comes to mind, heard of it recently?)
[Just what we need, another energy source that creates more problems than it solves.]
Unless you think open-pit lithium mines visible from space are cool. And their toxic-to-infinity poisonous tailing ponds. I’m sure all that glowing goo will just stay in those ponds forever, nice and safe. No farms or cities need fear them getting into the ground water, I’m certain.
Even safer than the old “EPA Superfund” water at Camp Lejeune. And a thousand other Camp Lejeunes that don’t have the lawyer-power, that are slowly killing people by cancer across the world today.
[By comparison, managing spent nuclear fuel rods is a piece of cake.]
Just mark them on Google Sat View as “Technology Volcanoes.”
And will continue to be....along with “clean coal,” for the foreseeable future.
Yes, “clean coal.” Any source of powerful hydrocarbon energy can be scrubbed clean, given its intended uses.
Spent nuclear fuel rods can be and should be reprocessed and fissionable materials extracted for re-use. That’s what the Savannah River site was originally set up for. JIMMY CARTER (piss be upon him) put an end to that before it even got started. I hope you’re not casting your lot with the likes of that ‘rat.
Years ago in Dubai a zillionair Arab built a snow ski slope in a desert Hotel. It costs him something like $10,000 an hour to operate - and tickets were around $12 a person. Fewer than 20 people could ski at a time. He thought it was a wonderful idea and that indoor skiing would take off.
Reminds me of this battery car thing...
So they found it would be better to consume ALL the spare generating capacity by daytime charging.
Question: What on earth are they going to power the grid with between sunset & sunrise? No worries.
Why not, they already can borrow ¼ million+ to study Madonna @ university AND keep all their GOVCO $$$ by never paying the lenders back! (Pure Fantasy, I say!)
All that cooper wire laying around to be stolen.
Constant worry about getting your electric car charged.
Running in and out of the building at break times in all sorts of weather to make sure you have enough electric power to get home on then enough to get back to work as you have to run errands after work and the electric car will need to be charged up at home of course all by coal and gas and nuclear power plants.
You cannot charge inside due to apartment and office building owners and insurance companies saying the electric vehicles are a extreme fire hazard. The electric bills will be enormous each month!!
I will keep my gas car where 4 gallons of gas has the same energy equivalent of the entire battery pack of the F-150 electric truck...!
The democrats do not think of the consequences at all.
Just how they will make money for themselves.
Agreed, my friend.
Unlike lithium mine tailing ponds.
"Congo says 12 dead, 4,400 sick following Angola mine tailings leak"
Link to Angola story above:
“Congo says 12 dead, 4,400 sick following Angola mine tailings leak”
[Personally, I think that Greta Thunberg should be “renditioned” to Angola and forced to work with the other child laborers in a lithium mine.]
https://www.mining.com/web/congo-says-12-dead-following-angola-mine-tailings-leak/
That is a fair comparison, viability-wise.
“Which for the average driver is topping off every night while sleeping and not having to mess with gas stations.”....Texasgator
Amen.
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