Featured Go Electric Meets the Three Stooges.

california PUC has mismanaged its grid for a long time. The reliance on such a large proportion of hydro without back up in the face of climate change is not sustainable. This is true with or without plug-in vehicles.

The good news is over the next decade they can build the infrastructure to support so many plug-ins. The bad news are poorly run utilities with bad regulation makes that unlikely to happen. I can easily set my car to charge when there Is plenty of power even when its hot, but large populations are unlikely to do that.

I am against such a big mandate, I don't think it is workable, and will keep a lot of older ice cars on the road.

 

For those charging at home it is really a non issue.
For those charging while at work, it is mainly a non issue.

The mismanagement of the grid is an issue, but has little to do with EVs.

 

Of course you are saying things they didn't say. You can charge your EV, they are just suggesting that you not do it during the peak time as well as setting your A/C to 78, etc. You can still set your thermostat to 70 if you want.
It should also be noted that these flex alerts usually happen only about 1-4 times a summer for 1-3 days each.

So, if you can, be a team player and charge your car at night. Even better, get solar on your roof and be part of the solution not the problem. Or get a powerwall and be a bigger part of the solution.
The alternative to "cutting back" a few hours a few times a year is to build more expensive capacity that is rarely needed and thus higher rates all year...that is what Larry Moe and Curley would do

Mike

 

Everyone wants things to be perfect. Sometimes I do too. But the thing is, nothing is perfect.

In most places the high demand for electricity is in the day and most people are going to charge at night.

I'd love to have solar panels on my house and charge my own EV! That would be the best thing since sliced bacon for me. I need to get an EV first though...

 

FWIW:

Code:

https://insideevs.com/news/606248/china-drought-heatwave-limited-charging/

China: Drought And Heatwave Lead To Limited EV Charging Services
================
China: Drought And Heatwave Lead To Limited EV Charging Services
In some cities, Tesla and NIO, among others, had to limit or suspend charging.
Aug 24, 2022

Disrupted power supplies, related to drought and heatwave in China,
affected EV charging infrastructure in some areas.

According to Bloomberg, the Sichuan province experiences the nation’s
worst drought since the 1960s, which forced it to slash
hydropower generation. On the other hand, a heatwave
significantly increased the demand for electricity (most likely air conditioning).

Now, there are multiple reports about halted manufacturing plants
(including Toyota's car plant and CATL's battery plant). On top of that,
some EV charging stations
have been taken offline or limited in power/off-peak use only.

The report indicates that Tesla Superchargers and NIO battery swap stations
were affected in Chengdu and Chongqing cities,
which definitely is not good news for EV drivers.

NIO posted temporary notices for its customers that some battery swap stations
are out of use because of the "severe overload on the grid under the
persisting high temperatures." Let's recall that a single battery swap station
might contain more than 10 battery packs, which are charged simultaneously
(the total power usage might easily be above 100 kW).

Tesla reportedly turned off or limited the output at more than
a dozen Supercharging stations in Chengdu and Chongqing,
leaving just two stations for use and only at night. Fast chargers
require even more power than battery swap stations. In the case
of the V3 Supercharging stall, it's 250 kW, while the largest stations
with dozens of stalls use up to several megawatts. Those are
serious loads for the grid, comparable to a large factory or a train.

General charging service providers are also experiencing issues, which
reminds us that countries around the world must increase spending
not only on the charging infrastructure, but also on
power plants, power lines, and energy storage systems.

Otherwise, in periods of peak demand and limited supply,
EV drivers might be heavily affected. It's high time to start preparing,
before the EV share in the overall vehicle fleet increases
from a percent or two to 20%, 50%, or 100%.
================


.

 

Before there were plug ins on the road, the utility would be asking people to turn their AC temps up during these conditions. These issues predate EVs, and limiting EV numbers won't fix them.

If electric supplies are strained enough that entire factories shutdown, it won't just be EVs facing issues.

 

I agree with the first part, but not the second.

A major problem with the California grid with drought is the lack of spinning capacity. They instead must buy expensive power from other states. Building new ccgt plants and retiring some old natural gas steam plants would greatly increase this and may reduce utility bills. The PUC would need to allow these plants to charge a little to be on standby, but that is cheap compared to black outs and fires and importing vast amounts from other states. Droughts are going to continue to happen. California needs to plan for them with or without EVs.

 

suddenly - facing 95° indoor temps due to no electricity - those nuclear reactors that are getting - or already got shut down don't seem so menacing after all.

 

Nucular is a good option, if you 'do it right.'
Putting a plant near the ocean in a geologically interesting location isn't what I would call "doing it right."
One of Japan's 47 Prefectures comes to mind here.
(look in the F's)

I'd put reactors in a desert and accept the transmission loss, personally.
It DRASTICALLY reduces your security problems, takes tide and tremor...ah..."interruptions" off the board, and you get a chance to put them in a state where there are for-real regulations on their utilities.

One thing most people do not get about nuclear reactors is that they need a reliable power source to be a reliable power source and not a chance to study long term radiological impacts on the local environment.
If your state's electric grid is reminiscent of Baghdad in 2004, or Soviet Russia in 1984 then you may not want to put a reactor in that particular state.
ESPECIALLY if your reactor security team is outnumbered and outgunned by the local criminals.

 

Your logic does not track. Yes, the flex alerts predated the EV boom. But adding more unpredictable load without adding more generating capacity is a recipe for disaster. Due to the mega-drought (yes, that's a real phrase) we are starting to lose hydro generating power. Due to climate change, we are experiencing higher demand for AC.

Some cities (San Francisco, Berkley to name a few) have even banned using natural gas in new building construction. That's a nice gesture, as long as there is a power plant somewhere that can fill the need for a whole city of nearly 1 million people transitioning away from gas.

One solution that will need to be implemented is a requirement that people charge their devices daily, and not just on the weekends. It's a bigger demand on the grid if you wait a week or two to charge a 70 kWh battery (when it's almost completely discharged) instead of charging just what you use each day.

 

My logic was that the Ca grid has faced these issues before, and people had to make cut backs then. Today's announcements include doing all those measures. The one about EV charging is just a new one added. Only mentioning the EV one is just for more views, and leads to the cars being scapegoated when the issues to electric supply would still exist without them.

Yes, EVs will require expansion of the grid, but California's problem with the grid is because of policies predating them. Might as well blame EVs for Texas' grid problems, if you are going that route.

 

There is no reason to believe that the mention of EV is just for views. It can be a real problem if a swarm of EVs come home from work at 7 PM and connect to a 10 kW L2 Wall Connector (48 amp, 220V charger) while a city full of houses are trying to cool down following a 106 degree day.

By "swarm" I envision hundreds or even thousands of commuters within a short period of time.

The 7 PM time is important since that's when we start to lose solar power.

That's the very real scenario that we face here in the SF bay area suburbs. Today, Sept 1, 2022.

 

Some are fine, but those in California were dangerous. Building new ones will cost much more than natural gas, and nuclear needs natural gas back up which means its even more expensive. I can see delaying the closures until natural gas plants are built, but diablo canyon is running on borrowed time and PG&E fudged the information to get it approved in the first place.

Most of the country can build ccgt at less than $1/watt. California because of their ghg mandate may be a little more, but the likely shortfall of 5GW of generation capacity by 2030 means the cheapest thing to do is build these plants. The smallest economical size is 500 MW which means at most 10 need to be built. This would immediately add to grid stability and reduce natural gas use, as these would be 60% efficient and fast cycling replacing old coal or natural gas steam plants that are at most 40% efficient and can not be turned on quickly. The big utilities that own these old plants and the environmentalists that want to go to 0 don't want them, but do people really want to have a repeat of the 2000 black outs?

 

Mentioning just the EV charging step without the others is about getting views or spreading FUD, and sources in the past have done so.

On this day of Sept 1, 2022, would the SF bay grid not be at risk if there were no EVs to charge?

 

Doing some loose math
122,000 EVs in San Francisco (that is a year old)
Report: San Jose, San Francisco tops for electric car drivers | The Bay Link Blog (bayareametro.gov)
Average EV consumes around 13kWh per day average (15,000 miles at 30 kWh per 100 miles is 12.329 kWh per day)
13 x 122,000 = 1,586,000kWh

San Francisco was using 18,000,000kWh of electricity per day back in 2011.
Good Question: How Much Electricity Does San Francisco Use Daily? - CBS San Francisco (cbsnews.com)
1,586MWh / 18,000MWh = 8.8%

So EV's are less than 9% of the draw on the electric grid, and probably less than that if I had modern numbers to go by.

Of course most of that total electric use is on-peak so adding 9% to off-peak shouldn't be a problem.

 

The Army once had such a ship supplying power to the Panama Canal during the dry season.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-1A

Russia has at least one such ship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power_station

 

He was wrong about that.
In warships they build reactor systems that simply would not scale up to meet the needs of even one middling city without compromising safety of building what would effectively be a small island.
That would be WORSE than Fukushima from a risk assessment standpoint.
Remember.....we're on hull #826 right now (D.C.)but we've only built a grand total of about 200 nuke boats. Probably less than that.
Two reactors are on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
Those are not great odds if you scale them up to a Diablo Canyon sized plant.

Put them in a desert.
No waves.
Predictable weather.
Accept the inconvenient transmission and cooling costs.

U.S. Army - keywords: "once had"
Russia - The "Don't Do This!" chapters in "Nuclear Power for Dummies."

 

Your post EXACTLY explains why the flex alert was sent out. Most (not all) of that swarm that comes home and plugs in could easily set their car to not charge until 9pm...or 10pm or whenever. Because, on average, they only need an hour or two of charging time. Even 4 hours of charging probably covers 98% of a typical EV owners daily charge time.

Mike