EV sales have doubled. Is a ‘tidal wave’ coming?

[JBee]

I'm well-versed in the energy consumption of homes, cars, grid capacity, etc. Yes, EV's will push up fossil fuels used on the grid. But nothing it can't handle. Even if all EV's ran on electricity sourced 100% from fossil fuels they would still have a lower carbon footprint than if all of them ran on gasoline. But that will never be the case because we have nuclear, hydro, wind and solar and the mix of sustainable sources increases each and every year.

Electric utilities around the globe are at the beginning of an EV boom that will more fully utilize their grid assets as more and more EV's come on line and profits will increase more quickly than they have since the air conditioning boom of the 1960's. And that's after subtracting capital expenses and interest for capacity upgrades.

This is not a disaster in the making, it's a transfer of profits to the electrical utilities right out of the pockets of big oil and coal. But there will always be a Chicken Little claiming the sky is falling and the utilities are not up to doing what they do best - providing an ever-increasing amount of electricity to power American industry and homes.

Grids are on the decline in our neck of the woods. Don't make financial or engineering sense so they are being actively dismantled by our state run utility.

People will opt to charge EVs at home or work direct from solar without a grid being required simply because its cheaper with solar being under parity. In latitudes were the sun doesn't shine you still have to add a reliable energy from somewhere, so a energy mix that has embedded storage is required (aka fossils) as you say.

But this is where the grid problem comes in for regions with low embedded RE generation capacity.

 

[JBee]

No.

Planned renewable/industrial generation is far more efficient than shipping gasoline to each and every vehicle.

And no, there are totally Superchargers in Australia. It doesn't depend upon your grid, as they can (and are) installed with their own batteries to smooth out their draw at peak use.

-Crissa

Don't let your bias fool you.

Learn to understand what I am writing, not what you "think" I'm trying to say.

 

[Crissa]

Grids are on the decline in our neck of the woods. Don't make financial or engineering sense so they are being actively dismantled by our state utility.

That's FUD. I'm sorry.

Shoving liability and cost onto individuals and smaller neighbor groups is wasteful but it does net them more money.

-Crissa

 

[JBee]

That's FUD. I'm sorry.

Shoving liability and cost onto individuals and smaller neighbor groups is wasteful but it does net them more money.

-Crissa

As above...

Not interested in your argument because its not the same as mine, so I'll be politely not reading your comments. Already shut 3 threads because of this problem.

 

[HaulingAss]

Don't let your bias fool you.

Learn to understand what I am writing, not what you "think" I'm trying to say.

We can only judge what you mean via the words you write. Are you saying you are using words in a non-conforming manner?

 

[JBee]

We can only judge what you mean via the words you write. Are you saying you are using words in a non-conforming manner?

No because I have wasted hours of thread writing on people who have no engineering competence, nor can argue technical issues without making political statements and FUD.

I do not wish to be sucked into an political argument that has nothing to do with how physics works.

Politics is a bias, not a fact. It would be nice if people could see the difference.

(BTW these comments were not directed at you)

 

[Delusional]

Here's the source. https://ourworldindata.org/technology-adoption
It's nice, you can click on each technology and see it's graph by itself.

Electric Vehicle adoption will be fast, but it won't be a tsunami, because people need to install chargers, and the car makers are somewhat inflexible.

 

[JBee]

For clarity regarding my comments on "EV tidal wave coming".

This will ultimately be limited by grid capacity in the first instance.

As is availability of fuel for ICE cars that is limited by fuel distribution by trucks, and the lack of drivers in the UK.

Something will need to change to increase EV use, I'm betting on V2X and NOT "the grid" to take up the required capacity.

(V2X = V2G/V2G/V2V)

There are too many parked EV vehicle resources not helping in the transition. EV's with V2X are a self help group that can internally supply demand from EV storage of their own generation resources. Battery cycling is becoming more and more irrelevant, as the cost of batteries reduces, making cycling for grid buffering profitable even from a V2G connected EV.

Distributed embedded generation AND storage is the solution of least resistance on numerous constraints, especially for household consumption. Instead of centralizing generation and storage you distribute it first, meaning "the grid" does not have to provide these ridiculous capacities in the first place.

Because demand can be met at the source without grid upgrades using V2X the grid does NOT need to be upgraded. In fact it could become a collection of smaller independent grids that reduce the grid infrastructure overall for many regions, with sporadic transmission lines to attach renewable generation sources that are better located somewhere else. The storage would remain local at the point of consumption in a EV, however.

Those places poor in wind and solar or where longer periods of the year can't be sourced from wind or solar can do so using local biofuels instead, which in turn they typically have more of because of their climate, except at high latitudes. These biofuels can be in the form of biogas that can be supplied by reversing the flow of methane in natural gas distribution grids, and require no conversion of natural gas generation equipment at all. In Germany there is more Biogas than wind energy and it flows through the natural gas network already. Besides you can propel Starship with it too, sustainably. ;-P

BTW Natural gas pipelines are x times the capacity of electrical networks already and have biogas (methane) compatible generation already attached. Biogas also allows for 95% energy efficiency in colder regions by using CHP (Combined Heat Power) generation units where the waste heat is used directly for home heating, either individually or through local heat reticulation.

The primary consumed type of energy in any household is heat. Not electricity.

Industry is of course another matter, but likewise here, manufacturing systems and energy use is shrinking in size as efficiencies increase. At some point manufacturing can also be embedded for the same benefits as embedded energy storage and generation, at a minimum for the most common products being used. EV's also allow you to "drive" storage capacity to work for use there, further reducing grid dependencies and inefficiencies for industry.

Simply, decentralization, diversity and distribution is better for sustainability than centralization and inter-dependence. That's how nature does it too.

 

[ajdelange]

You just need to do some energy numbers to see how much energy cars use in comparison to at home energy use. You will need more fossils if you use the grid and you will have to seriously upgrade the grid too. Our grid is at least 70% renewable energy already but it can't handle a single super charger. No fear just real engineering problems.

Just did. For the summer BEV use accounted for 15.7% of our electric demand. This is summertime so no electric use for heating (or A/C - don't need it which is why we come here for the summer). It's equivalent to a continuously on 361 W load.

In the winter we tend not to drive so much so average load is only 150 W and it has to be compared to a much larger household load which includes most of the heat so BEV takes adds only 2.7% to the total consumption.

In the summer we are in a rural area but one with a very elaborate grid backed by vast hydro resources. In winter we are in a suburban setting tied into huge grid and the power companies are adding wind and solar at a pretty good clip. Were the total demand in our region to go up by 2.7% in a year I'm confident the local grid would withstand that but of course it won't jump by 2.7% in a year - it will be stretched out over several years as BEV acceptance here is only about 3% at this point.

 

[ajdelange]

No because I have wasted hours of thread writing on people who have no engineering competence, nor can argue technical issues without making political statements and FUD.

This is what the "Ignore" feature is for.

 

[Crissa]

Nothing but supply needs to change.

-Crissa

 

[JBee]

Just did. For the summer BEV use accounted for 15.7% of our electric demand. This is summertime so no electric use for heating (or A/C - don't need it which is why we come here for the summer). It's equivalent to a continuously on 361 W load.

In the winter we tend not to drive so much so average load is only 150 W and it has to be compared to a much larger household load which includes most of the heat so BEV takes adds only 2.7% to the total consumption.

In the summer we are in a rural area but one with a very elaborate grid backed by vast hydro resources. In winter we are in a suburban setting tied into huge grid and the power companies are adding wind and solar at a pretty good clip. Were the total demand in our region to go up by 2.7% in a year I'm confident the local grid would withstand that but of course it won't jump by 2.7% in a year - it will be stretched out over several years as BEV acceptance here is only about 3% at this point.

That's good for your own independent use. And as we know your household consumption is above the norm, and nearly some 4x as much as mine (for some reason ). ?

Accordingly, the comparison would only make sense if compared to a "normal" US household consumption. For example your 361W equals 8.6kWh for EV use per day compared to 30kWh of consumption in a average US house.

But of course you should really use comparable per household car usage as well to make a "average" comparison between the two. So we need to add US average vehicle miles as well.

So lets do 13500miles average per year in the USA times 280Wh/mile for a M3 = 3780kWh /365 = 10.34kWh day

Average USA electricity consumption 11000kWh/365 = 30kWh

That's a 30% grid capacity increase just to cover household average vehicle energy consumed for an EV. More if you drive anything bigger than a M3. Then add product transportation etc.

This "network upgrade" can mostly be avoided with V2X as described above, by using EV's themselves to buffer load to maximize existing network capacity regardless of the time of use. That also gets rid of the peak problem and plants and allows embedded generation capacity for intermittents like local RE solar and wind.

 

[Crissa]

That's not how grid capacity works, Jbee.

You insult us, and yet you make that basic error mixing watt-hours with watts?

-Crissa

 

[JBee]

That's not how grid capacity works, Jbee.

Not sure what you mean. What exactly doesn't work like that?
Tell me how it works then.

You insult us, and yet you make that basic error mixing watt-hours with watts?

-Crissa

Where did I mix it up?

And even if I did that doesn't negate the rest of my argument.

I am not trying to insult anyone here, just setting the record straight as to how to apply a little bit of logic and engineering to a conversation so that it can remain meaningful and not fraught with biased opinions.

I even made the effort to clarify my statement on how I see the solution should be for lack of any other technical, let alone sustainable solution being presented or proposed here.

I also don't know who the "us" is you mention. What did I say to someone else, as you put it, to "insult"? Is this a remnant of political bias that speaks on behalf of the group faith? ? As before no politics please.

Regardless, it takes about two minutes to find and run some numbers as above to get a idea of the proportions of the subject matter, and how that relates to EV uptake.

Please provide numbers to state your side of the argument.

 

[ajdelange]

But of course you should really use comparable per household car usage as well to make a "average" comparison between the two. So we need to add US average vehicle miles as well.

True

So lets do 13500miles average per year in the USA times 280Wh/mile for a M3 = 3780kWh /365 = 10.34kWh day

Average USA electricity consumption 11000kWh/365 = 30kWh

That's a 30% grid capacity increase just to cover household average vehicle energy consumed for an EV. More if you drive anything bigger than a M3. Then add product transportation etc.

Let's go with that. Now how much does the grid have to grow to accomodate that.? 30% over the next 10 - 30 years if every household adds a BEV. That's 1 - 3% growth. I'm really not too concerned about this for the US. There is certainly no question that the metropolitan areas can easily handle that sort of growth. And in the US "Rural Electrification" has been a big deal since the '40s. There may be still be places so remote that grid power is not available but they have to be few and far between. That is the case in the northern reaches of Canada where fuel for the local power plant must come in trucks over the ice but I wouldn't expect to see a tsunami of EV adoption up there in any case.