Major automakers are increasingly betting that millions of new cars and trucks will be plugged into sockets rather than refueled at gas stations over the next decade. That begs the question: is the country’s power grid ready to handle this surge in new electric vehicles?
Today, less than 1 percent of the cars on America’s roads are electric. But a seismic shift is underway.
General Motors announced Thursday that it will cease sales of new gasoline-powered cars and light trucks by 2035 and switch to battery-powered vehicles. The governor of California has set a goal of ending sales of new internal combustion engines nationwide in just 15 years. Automakers like Tesla, Ford, and Volkswagen plan to introduce dozens of new electric models in the coming years, fueled by falling battery prices and concerns about climate change.
This shift will have far-reaching implications for the companies that produce and sell electricity and manage the grid. Analysts generally agree that powering many millions of new cars is perfectly feasible, but it takes careful planning.
Here are four big things that experts say need to happen.
Build more places to plug in
For electric vehicles to become mainstream, charging needs to be widely accessible and convenient.
Currently, most electric car owners plug their vehicles in at home and charge them overnight. However, this may require the installation of equipment that can cost up to $ 2,000. Many states and electricity companies are already offering incentives to cover the cost. And some groups have tried to update building codes to make new homes “charger ready,” even though builders have pushed back.
But there are also great challenges ahead of us.
While installing a charger is pretty easy for anyone with a family home and garage, finding a suitable power outlet can be far more difficult for people who live in large apartments or rely on street parking.
Some utility companies looking to sell more electricity are trying to expand public charging options, and President Biden has set a goal of building 500,000 new public chargers by 2030. However, funding this infrastructure is complex and likely requires public spending and government coordination.
A recent study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used detailed models to determine where this entire infrastructure would make the most sense. New chargers in residential streets as well as high-speed charging stations along highways would significantly support a boom in electric vehicles.
Produce more juice
If analysts estimate that every American switched to an electric passenger car, the United States could end up using around 25 percent more electricity than it does today. To cope with this, utility companies will likely need to build many new power plants and upgrade their transmission grids.
“There’s no question utilities can do this, but it won’t be trivial,” said Chris Nelder, who leads the vehicle network integration team at the Rocky Mountain Institute. “It takes time and money.” In a recent study, his team found that many utilities and fleet managers planning to go electric have not yet fully addressed all of the challenges involved.
For example, Mr Nelder said if a transit agency wants to buy 100 new electric buses and charge them overnight, they will suddenly have to feed large amounts of electricity into the bus depot, potentially requiring new substations and other equipment that could cost millions. Dollar investments.
“Utilities can’t do that until next week,” he said. “It takes a lot of careful planning ahead.”
There is good news too. In 2018, researchers from the University of Texas at the Austin Energy Institute looked at what switching to electric vehicles would mean for the power grid in each state. While Americans would likely pay more for electricity if utility companies made the necessary improvements, that would be offset by fuel savings from not having to buy gasoline.
“While it is difficult to predict future prices for gasoline, electricity, and vehicles,” the researchers wrote, “we think it likely that the widespread use of electric vehicles would reduce the overall cost of transportation in California and elsewhere.” These savings are even greater when the environmental benefits, especially lower CO2 emissions, are taken into account. “
Juggle the loading times
For many utility companies, the biggest challenge is not only studying how much power new vehicles are using, but also when they are actually using it.
Take California. The state has a surplus of solar energy during the day, but it decreases in the evening at sunset. If millions of Californians came home in electric cars in the evening and charged instantly at once, it would put a heavy load on the power grid – in a state that has recently suffered from power outages.
One solution, experts say, is for utilities to be more creative when electric vehicles are charging their batteries so they don’t all turn on at exactly the same time, overloading electrical devices or requiring expensive new power plants to be built.
Some electricity suppliers are already moving in that direction.
Southern California Edison, which operates outside of Los Angeles, offers electric vehicle owners drastically lower rates for charging during the day when solar power is plentiful. Dozens of utility companies have investigated the possibility of taking control of chargers yourself. In some programs, vehicle owners can plug their car in and indicate when they next need it, and the utility company charges the battery when electricity is cheapest and most plentiful.
These programs are difficult to find and often require significant regulatory changes, but they can make a huge difference. A 2019 study by the Boston Consulting Group concluded that utility companies could cut network upgrade costs by 70 percent over the next decade by moving to “optimized” rates.
Design a cleaner grid
Transportation is now responsible for a third of America’s greenhouse gas emissions every year, and electric cars and trucks are widely recognized as a critical part of solving climate change. But it would help if the power grid that powers these vehicles got a lot cleaner.
Today, electric vehicles in the US typically have fewer overall emissions than their gasoline or diesel powered counterparts, even when plugged into an electrical grid based on power plants that burn coal or natural gas and emit carbon dioxide. This is mainly because electric motors are so much more efficient than internal combustion engines.
But there is room for improvement. Electric vehicles would be even cleaner if energy providers moved away from coal and natural gas and relied more on low-emission sources such as solar, wind or nuclear power.
This combination could have a strong impact: A recent study by Carnegie Mellon University found that transport emissions from light commercial vehicles would decrease by 90 percent if the American power grid were virtually emission-free and around 84 percent of all vehicle journeys were electrified. (The decline in emissions could be even faster and bigger, the study says, if policymakers took steps to reduce dependency on driving, such as increasing public transport or encouraging cycling and walking.)
“The grid is getting cleaner over time, but it’s still not emission-free,” said Constantine Samaras, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and co-author of the paper. “If we want to completely decarbonize the transport, we have to do everything and do it at full speed: fewer vehicle miles traveled, electrify almost the entire passenger fleet and clean up power plants.”
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