moknine1189
moknine1189 t1_ixxg7xn wrote
Reply to comment by SkySchemer in Electric-vehicle charging stations could use as much power as a small town by 2035 — and the grid isn't ready by Sorin61
The grid may not directly care about efficiency of individual components but to the system as a whole makes a huge difference. A 5kW dryer that's only 80% efficient will actually consume 6.25kW of power (imagine if that was the case for 1000 house holds that would be equivalent to 6.25MW of power, thats something that cant be ignored) the fact that things are more efficient helps a fuckton.
Also I never argued that the grid cannot handle EVs charging at night I'm not even sure how you came to that conclusion, once again the grid cannot withstand the worst case scenario of most consumers charging EVs during peak hours. Once Again if you read my original comment I was referring to the infrastructure upgrades to the substations that feed power to neighborhoods/homes to meet the increased demand. Also as far as need to be able to supply all that power I never said it was actually necessary to do that but the system but rather the grid needs to be either powerful enough to meet the peak demand or have safeguards in place to prevent critical faults/failures that would cause interruption of service to customers.
As far as the "Typo" goes its not just that you put kWh where it should of been kW. You incorrectly stated that your car charged 30kW in 5 hours that sentence does not make sense. I even explained the difference between kWh and kW (you can charge at a rate of 30kW for a period of 5hrs, giving you a total charge of 5 x 30 x 3600 doing this will give you the energy stored in your batteries in kWh (kWh is how batteries are measured or AmpHrs if know the voltage and divide by it).
As far as my hypothetical FUD goes: its not really a hypothesis if its happened. Electric grids have failed before, we have had natural disasters which have caused people to panic, and there's been too many examples of failures of infrastructures that have caused plenty of harm and property damage (I'm only here fighting to prevent it yet its FUD...). Once again if the information that I present to you gives you FUD that's a you problem, where I come from its simply reality.
I also like to point out you have tried multiple times to deflect from arguments by using words like FUD, whataboutism, and twisted my words to the point of calling people stupid. If you truly believe that these scenarios are as improbable as you believe them to be please articulate as to why you believe that to be the case. Saying we have this one fits all solution of just charge vehicles at night is complete BS. you yourself admitted there maybe a situation where youd charge during peak hours I wonder how many people will have the same thought during the same emergency? My point always was that you must have a plan to account for the worst case because thats when shit hits the fan not during "ideal scenarios".
moknine1189 t1_ixwnn6t wrote
Reply to comment by SkySchemer in Electric-vehicle charging stations could use as much power as a small town by 2035 — and the grid isn't ready by Sorin61
As previously stated AC and Dryers are technologies that have been around and have been improved over time to run more efficiently. The grid as it exists today has taken into account running them both simultaneously. Running multiple central ACs and Dryers is not very typical, Running of each is.
Programming vehicles to charge between any times doesn't guarantee that it will always be so, again what you are describing is an ideal situation. Even with programming you cannot guarantee that the day wont ever come that people wont charge their vehicles during peak hours. This is not due to stupidity, maliciousness, arrogance, or anything of the sort. It may come in the form of an emergency where people may have to evacuate, or other unprecedented scenarios. Think about it like this if there is ever a situation where you think you might lose power are you really going to wait to charge your vehicle? or will you charge it while you still can? These are the type of questions that help build reliable systems. Again you don't just plan for the best case scenarios you must account for as many as possible.
When it comes to engineering systems as a whole you MUST account for the worst case scenarios. In this case it would be everyone charging their vehicles during peak hours (here lets assume every household only charges 1 vehicle at a time). The current infrastructure (substations) that supplies power to homes cannot withstand that (if you go back up to my original comment you shall see I mentioned I'm referring to the substations that feed the neighborhoods). Remember when you are talking about breakers, transformers, transmission lines, and fuses they all have a maximum limit they can operate at. Exceeding that limit will cause a failure in the system. Again when they were put in place they weren't accounting for EVs and their additional power draw. As stated before as the system ages performance degrades its simply a matter of fact. The reason you MUST account worst case scenario is to avoid critical failures such as an entire neighborhood losing power. Either the system must be capable enough to account for the WORST or safeguards and procedures must be put in place to avoid faults/failures. Adding the safeguards would be considered an upgrade to the infrastructure.
As far as trusting you goes I'm having a hard time doing so (I'm not sure if you truly meant kW or kWh two different things one is power the other is energy you consume energy and power is the rate in which you consume that energy it seems they may have gotten mixed up) as far as being aware of how much electricity costs I'm all too familiar as an Electrical Engineer (supplied generators to airports, hospitals, fire stations, nursing home, and schools) The iron clad law of power generation is your generation must always be greater than the load, if not you must be able to load shed (Also you must take into account inductive loads for the the inrush current of starting motors and if they have soft starters or not).
Also I never said or assumed all these vehicles where going to be put in peoples homes all at once (hell I even acknowledge that because of increasing efficiencies in technologies we bought ourselves extra leeway). The reality is as we move on to more EVs we must upgrade our infrastructures to keep up with the rising demand.
As far as what I write you considering it FUD is mostly a you problem. The information I've at least taken the time to share with you is factual to the best of my knowledge (I don't know everything nor do I want to pretend to). If any of it gives you FUD that's because life is that way there are many things we don't know such as how the future will play out, there is a lot of uncertainty in reality, and doubt is something we all deal with everyday. Ignoring the facts doesn't make any of that go away.
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Just as an FYI I never joked about calling anyone stupid.
moknine1189 t1_ixw43no wrote
Reply to comment by SkySchemer in Electric-vehicle charging stations could use as much power as a small town by 2035 — and the grid isn't ready by Sorin61
How many people run multiple dryers at home? How many people have multiple cars at home? How you will you guarantee cars will only be charged between 9pm and 6am?
The reasons I think infrastructure is a problem (also in the U.S. infrastructure issues extend well beyond the grid, a lot of our infrastructure is old out date and poorly maintained)
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-renewables-electric-grid/
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/05/31/us/power-outages-electric-grid-climate-change/index.html
https://blog.ucsusa.org/samantha-houston/can-the-electric-grid-handle-ev-charging/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/13/electric-vehicles-grid-upgrade/
Note that my concern is not that we won’t be ready or be able to get ready but rather getting the infrastructure ready for such is a bigger challenge than simply how much energy EV charging stations will require.
I’m hopeful that renewables will take off in the future to help help us meet the demand but the real trick is having the infrastructure in place to be able to take advantage.
Just an FYI electric dryers been around since the 60s the infrastructure we have today has them accounted for and as technology has progress they’ve become somewhat more efficient (nothing too crazy though since they work off heat and law of conservation of energy is real) which has bought us some extra capacity within the grid. But nowhere near enough to support all EVs.
Btw you keep dancing around the issue that you can’t guarantee when people will and will not be charging their EVs you keep mentioning the ideal situation of charging at night but what happens when that isn’t case. To the best of your knowledge what is the worst case scenario for charging EVs?
moknine1189 t1_ixvqfuv wrote
Reply to comment by SkySchemer in Electric-vehicle charging stations could use as much power as a small town by 2035 — and the grid isn't ready by Sorin61
Ok so I think you kinda missed the point or taken the my original comment past its original scope.
In my opinion the real issue regarding charging stations is not how much power charging stations will draw from the grid (although one can argue where will that extra energy come from, but that’s a different topic) but rather in as we move to more EVs at home the current infrastructure of the grid is not equipped to deal with the new demands. Remember electricity goes from the power plant to substations that feed your neighborhood/homes. The cables transformers, breakers, fuses, and panels are not ready for the additional power/current that there will b needed to to support all EVs. Al of those components have a limit to how much power they can provide and like every system on the planet there is a level of degradation in performance of its components as thing wear out.
I understand the whole concept of charging overnight and charging when electricity is the cheapest and by location. That argument doesn’t account for again can you guarantee that will always be the case? If you are thinking yes you are setting yourself up for another winter debacle like they had in Texas when people lost power and some died because they continuously refused to upgrade/winterize their power grid (do you honestly believe that’s the last time something like that will happen?). People will charge their vehicles when ever they need to not strictly when it’s cheapest. (You never bought gas at an expensive station cause you were short on time or just needed it quickly?)
As for me asking the wrong questions I’m afraid you misunderstand. My point was targeted to the home user who hat happens in a commercial building/work is easy. The utility will simply charge the business to upgrade their service before they incorporating any EV charging to ensure they don’t have a disaster on hand. (Plus before doing so at a business it must be signed off multiple folks including fire Marshall, utility, engineering firm, and contractors. Which isn’t always the case for home installations)
To your point about ICE being affected, it is true that they are but the difference is a home user is t affected by long lines at a gas station, overloading the grid and causing power outages affects everyone at home not just those charging their EVs at home. For the people who can’t park at a garage this isn’t new and if they haven’t figured that out by now they have bigger problems than where they park their cars.
moknine1189 t1_ixv8z72 wrote
Reply to comment by SkySchemer in Electric-vehicle charging stations could use as much power as a small town by 2035 — and the grid isn't ready by Sorin61
True but what you aren’t accounting for is the edge case which in engineering is what you need to plan for, favorable cases are ideal and easy to deal with. For example will it always be the case everyone charges at night? What happens during a particularly cold winter, or extremely hot summer, after a natural disaster, and how many concurrent high power devices will be used in the future (multiple vehicles charging in one home, most people only have 1 ac and 1 washer/dryer).
I’m not disagreeing with your assessment. During initial adoption of EVs your logic holds up but what about 10 years from now with climate change? I’m not saying the future is fucked but in regards to the original post how much power new charging stations use is trivial compared to the outdated infrastructure we have in place.
moknine1189 t1_ixtim2g wrote
Reply to Electric-vehicle charging stations could use as much power as a small town by 2035 — and the grid isn't ready by Sorin61
I think the real issue will be chargers at home, new construction and projects are easier to fund and plan. Upgrading old infrastructure and explaining to people they have to pay more for something they already have not so much. (P.S. I’m referring to substations that feed neighborhoods that need to account for increase in power/current demand)
moknine1189 t1_j6jy3sb wrote
Reply to comment by Yelmel in Millions of computer chips from Dutch manufacturers wound up in Russia: Report by the01crow
Glad I read til the last sentence, exactly my sentiment. Thanks for the laugh.