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Sceptics say EVs will overwhelm the grid. In fact, they could be part of the solution
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024
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Electric Vehicles
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It’s a lot of poor assumptions. Yes the power grid can’t currently support the entire vehicle fleet being EV and charging at once. Duh.
However we’re assuming the grid will never change when in reality most of the changes are local and small, and made constantly as needed. It may be slower than ideal, but power companies are making these decisions every day. Does my home need upgraded service for electrification and home charging? Does my local transformer need to be upgraded now that my usage is higher? Does my neighborhood have enough juice to support multiple houses with higher usage? Multiply those everyday decisions by millions, but they happen all the time anyway
We’re assuming EVs will just happen, but the reality is even in optimistic scenarios the technology change will take a couple decades to scale out, especially in the US where it somehow became political. That’s a lot of time for power companies to get their shit together. It’s also lots of time for supply and demand to do their thing. Yes, they’re behind the curve and will continue to be so, but let’s not get overly dramatic about it.
Most importantly, not everyone charges at once, nor do they fully charge every time. For me personally, with work from home, I’ve been charging maybe 2hrs/wk. Do you really think all my neighbors are choosing the same 2 hours every week? I wish someone would figure out a smart solution to coordinate these for even lower impact, and I’m sure that will eventually come