You are correct in that Peak Demand is what utilities are designed and built for. That's usually afternoon air conditioning use.
Peak Demand is what costs the most, since everything will be running at peak capacity. Other times, there is (was) excess capacity, and that's the rationalization for subsidizing overnight EV charging. That makes sense, too, especially if it de-incentives EV charging at peak demand times.

However the reason I added "(was)" to the previous sentence, is that as Utilities are forced to go to renewables, their Peak Supply decreases overnight, so the former surplus of power at night is decreased. How much this decrease affects the increase in EV's is uncertain right now.

There are a couple of strategies that can be considered "renewable," that will supply Baseline Power overnight. One is Hydroelectric and another is Pump-back water storage. Hydro is decreasing, dams being breached and it's likely that few will be built in the future. Pump-back also requires dams and conduits, which are opposed by the Environmental groups - I know because I tried to get a pump-back system adjacent to the Arkansas River, and it was WIDELY opposed.

Another possibility is Nuclear, but it's certainly not clean, not renewable, and there is no nuclear power plant in the US that has ever paid back it's cost of construction and operation. The Feds are required by the 1982 Law to build a repository for spent fuel and begin receiving waste No Later Than 2010! Notice that they are late, but seem to be behaving as if that mandate has been accomplished.
Yes, we often hear of promised breakthroughs in nuclear power that will solve all our ills, but none are scalable to utility sized operation, or even been successfully demonstrated on a small scale. Despite what Elon Musk is saying just this week.
As we speak, there is a USGS helicopter flying the Rockies, sniffing for Thorium, but if any is found, what's the chance that mining will be allowed?

So, everything is fine right now, but if the population grows at 2% (DOUBLE in 35 years!) and EV's become the method of transport in that same time frame, we'll need "All of the Above" to supply energy needs. (Meaning petro, nuke, renewables etc.)

Abandoning the ICE is folly.

 

One common selling point I keep hearing about the electric vehicles is that the infrastructure will get much better in the upcoming years, i.e. 10x-20x as many charging stations to eliminate the bottlenecks. But nobody likes to mention how would those 10x-20x charging stations would handle 100x+ as many cars. I look at the normal gas stations in my metro area (Seattle) on the weekends, and many gas stations with 8-16 pumps are at least 50% full all the time, sometimes more, with cars sitting at the pump for 5 minutes or so (guesstimating). I can't imagine the same exact scenario with 20x more pumps, but all cars are now electric and having to sit there for 30-60+ minutes. The obvious solution is to have a charging station at your own house, but for those folks who are renting, it's a ridiculous inconvenience. Same applies to the people who take trips out of town. I don't think the ICE is going anywhere soon; especially after a novelty of getting a 'cheap' electric car with a quick 0-60 wears off.

 

Base load power plants will run 24/7 for months, and even years, without shutting down. The longest continuous run for a nuclear plant is over 2 years. I spent time working at Three Mile Island. While I was there, Unit 1 had a run of well over a year before it had to shut down to refuel.

 

They have to, because it takes forever to bring them online (except for natural gas). Plus it reduces the heat stress from cycling.
And that maintenance is considered when evaluating base load requirements.

The point is that we're going to have to double our energy supply in a few decades, and that'll take a lot of steel and concrete. And some sort of fuel.

I don't think EVs are the answer. I will probably get one, though.

 

LOL -- yikes...didn't know I'd need to post my CV. How about I support my statement with data and facts instead? Let’s keep things simple, and look at current US consumer demand data for gasoline and do some simplified back of the envelope analysis. I’ll let that be my "professional credentials".

According to EIA data, between 2017-2019 (pre-COVID) US demand for motor vehicle gasoline was ~24.3 million gallons per day (Note the data in the EIA chart is in 1000s of gallons/day).

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/Le...A103600001&f=M

The average fuel economy in the US in 2019 was ~24.9 MPG , so that equates to an average demand of ~605 million motor vehicle miles per day in the US.

(https://www.motor1.com/news/464672/u...-economy-2019/)

So if everyone in the US had to drive an EV, lets assume a model Y type vehicle would represent the average electric vehicle. After all, it’s a “SUV” and Americans love SUVs. The Model Y is rated at 28 kWh/100 miles (0.28 kWh/mile) https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find...n=sbs&id=42916

Thus, traveling those 605 million miles/day using EVs as efficient as the model Y would consume about 170,000 mWh or 170 gigawatt hours of electricity per day on average. However that doesn’t take into account electric generation transfer loss.

EIA estimates that electricity transmission and distribution (T&D) losses are about 5% of the electricity transmitted and distributed in the United States (i.e., the grid is ~95% efficient).

According to Car and Driver, Tesla's data shows it takes 87.868 kWh to add 77.702 kWh to the battery of the Long Range version of the Model Y -- (i.e., 88% charging efficiency). https://www.caranddriver.com/feature...arging-losses/

So taking grid T&D and charging efficiency losses into account, those 170 gigawatt hours of EV power consumed in the US per day will require ~203 gigawatt hours of additional generating power per day on average…over and above what is currently being consumed.

Do you think the grid has an excess capacity of 203 GWh/day, or do you think we might need to invest in additional generating power that would require significant capital investment?

 

Before I responded to this, I looked at the regional grid operator's web page. The difference between last night's minimum load and today's forecast peak load is over 50GW. Today is Saturday, so I would expect that difference to be even greater during the week. Given that there are numerous grid operators across the US, if the bulk of charging can be done during off peak hours, things will not be that bad. Seeing this, I believe that when the operators open up their future capacity auctions, the markets will be able to respond adequately to any long tern capacity requirements. I do however, foresee issues for the local delivery companies if everyone decides to put a 240 volt charging station in their garage and run that at night. There could be a lot of padmount and pole top transformers needing to be replaced.

 

Easier on the suburbs to plan but I would like to know how cities with tens or hundreds of thousand of cars that park on-street plan to make this all work. Essentially will need to turn parking meters into charging stations. Underground garages with 300 plus spaces will all need to retro fitted. Five or ten chargers won't do the trick.

 

According to EIA data, between 2017-2019 (pre-COVID) US demand for motor vehicle gasoline was ~24.3 million gallons per day (Note the data in the EIA chart is in 1000s of gallons/day).

Does that include trucking and the polluting diesel trucks? They are going electric also and many will require longer high capacity daytime charging stations.

Adding reliable capacity isn’t cheap and takes years. The last two nuclear plants built were reportedly about $25 Billion and take 7-10 years to build.
Gates/Buffet have proposed an experimental Nuclear plant in Wyoming. They hope to build a smaller 345 MW, “safer” Natrium Reactor plant at the site of a Coal Fired plant for only about 1 Billion.

The Government should have a business plan to include all pieces of the puzzle. We can quantify the amount of power needed and even how and when it will be needed. Power Companies could have huge CapEx in many older parts of cities and rural communities. Someone has to pay for it. Someone will soon need to figure out how to tax EV’s to pay for Roads & Bridges.

Here’s where we are today, IMO.

John Kerry staff meeting:
Let’s go all electric! Great let’s do it.
Hows it going to work?
We can figure that part out later….
Besides if the Public sees the cost…..

 

.

 

Flying cars are really planes that just happen to be drivable once you land, so we'll all have to get our private pilot's license first.

 

Right, hell be damned "we're doing this". Let's mandate EV's, make everyone drive one. Then tax the hell out of it to pay for the infrastructure while we tax payers all scramble and absorb the open ended and escalating costs.

 

Which brings me back to my original comment. Public utilities will have difficulty raising the necessary capital -- taxes or rates will have to be increased significantly to fund the necessary infrastructure investments. The answer, in my opinion, is distributed power generation funded by market capital. If there is money to be made, the capital will come and will be unlimited. However, it will require truly disruptive energy technology that will make possible distributed power generation at a competitive price.

 

Great and interesting discussion from our intelligent friends!! Sadly, or not, this will be the reality in the future.

 

I agree, but I am concerned about the control the grid operators will have over my EV or home battery pack.
Some models I have seen are based on all the EV's and battery backups being plugged in, all the time, to supply power to the grid during high demand scenarios. It would be a requirement, to receive grid access, EV incentives, or preferential off-peak kWh rates.

Call me cautious - in a brown-out condition, that might mean the grid drained my SOC just when I need to drive somewhere, such as in that emergency that caused the brown-out. Think California fires.
So I don't quite trust the distributed power model until it's shared more widely. Again, that's the chicken / egg problem.

Rocky Mountain Institute https://rmi.org/report-release-the-e...gy-portfolios/ is a proponent of Distributed Power, and they make a good case. However their models seem to assume more wealth from grid participants than is possible (costs too much for the 90%-ers).
I've followed the RMI founder Amory Lovins since the 60's, but we diverged when he moved from opposing Nuclear to supporting it. It looks like he made the pro-nuke change when Richard Branson dangled huge bucks before RMI, and they joined forces.
I still watch them but there's too much pie in their sky for me.

 

That's just old tech with a phase-change salt thermal storage (battery). I used phase-change salt in my 1980 passive solar home.
The reason they chose Wyoming is likely because WY is not very good at requiring adequate Surety for future cleanups. https://www.theguardian.com/environm...climate-crisis
The licensing fees they will pay will help WY reclaim all those abandoned oil wells, that operators left behind, since their Surety was inadequate. IMO the Natrium project is a Wyoming citizen-funded junket, because I'll bet that the cleanup surety is VERY inadequate. And affordable to those guys, but should the "experiment" fail, it will be very expensive.

 

Gates is also on the board of Terra Power which is pursuing several interesting reactor designs. The one that intrigues me the most is the Traveling Wave Reactor, which does not require enriched uranium, can be loaded with spent fuel from today's stockpiles, and does not use water for cooling.

I can't imagine any form of charging station at every house on the street that I grew up on in Harrisburg, PA. Row houses, with very little front yard, and parked solid with cars on both sides. Charging stations will evolve into an equity issue where those in the lower income levels will not be able to afford them or will live in residences that physically cannot accommodate them. If you have travelled, can you imagine the narrow streets in Rome, Prague, etc. I guess they plan on using sky hooks!!!

Also, let's not forget, there are still quite a few companies out there working on hydrogen fuel cell powered transportation. Ballard Power is one that comes to mind. Unfortunately, it may be a rerun of the BETA vs VHS battle in the 70's.

 

Here’s the mix of power sources for our local power company. This isn’t a typical mix except that a lot of Power still comes from coal and hydro in other locals. Idaho has a conservative Congressman that is now recommending Dam breaching. His change in position is based partly on the ever escalating cost of Hydro, once one of the cheapest forms of power. It just seems like we are still trying to transition our electrical mix over the next 10-20 years and now stack the EV transition without known alternatives. This just has to hit those that can least afford it with big increases in everyday energy costs. I think the 7.4% Market purchases are mostly Hydro from the BPA.
Edit-California imports almost a third of its power…is it because they are unable to build more capacity? Is it one reason they have the highest rates in the Country-70% higher than average? Rolling Blackouts? Bet it is….

 

On a lighter note…Cow flatulence…now pigs too? “Feral Pigs Release 1.1 Million Cars-Worth of Planet-Warming Carbon Dioxide Every Year

The study's results add exacerbating climate change to the list of environmental impacts ascribed to this invasive species.”

 

It's not clear to me if this represents contract capacity or if this is a snapshot of operating capacity at a point in time. If it is a snapshot, it is fun to watch the Solar and Wind values change in real time (15-minute intervals) as weather systems cross the system. The vulnerability of wind and solar becomes very obvious. I watched similar charts on the ERCOT website during the big freeze in Texas this Winter. Very scary!!!!!