Guest Essay by Kip Hansen — 12 April 2022
Have you ever seen a transformer mounted on a power-pole explode? Marvelous fireworks. Why do they explode? One energy company exec quipped “My experience and understanding of the way utilities do things is they just wait until the neighborhood is overloaded and then the transformer blows up.” [ source ]
And what overloads power-pole transformers? Lots of things: lighting strikes to poles or transmission wires, shorts caused by trees falling on wires, or, more simply, too much electricity being draw through the transformer by homes and businesses.
What would cause a home to draw too much power? Well, on a neighborhood level, summer or winter. When every home in the neighborhood turns their air conditioners up to maximum on a hot muggy summer afternoon or in winter, when too many all-electric homes kick their electric heating up to fight the cold on a freezing winter’s night.
Or when too many neighborhood homes install electric vehicle fast-chargers. What? Say again….
“Currently available DC fast chargers require inputs of 480+ volts and 100+ amps (50-60 kW) and can produce a full charge for an EV with a 100-mile range battery in slightly more than 30 minutes (178 miles of electric drive per hour of charging).” The more usual and affordable overnight chargers need 240v/50amps – times two means you will need 100 amps available for car charging at night.
So, if your family were to have two EVs and wanted two overnight chargers – and who wants to argue with their spouse over who gets first dibs on the charger – your home would probably have to have a new electrical service panel and a new 200 amp service drop installed by your local utility — that is the wires that run from the nearest power pole to your home.
Pictured here is electrical service drop to a typical American home. Suburban homes in the United States usually have 100 amp service. My current home only had 60 amp service when we moved in in the 1980s which meant the lights dimmed whenever the water heater kicked in or the water-well pump motor started up. Newer homes here usually have 200 amp service, though a larger all-electric home – as in electric heating, air conditioning, electric water heater, electric sauna, electric hot tub, electric stove top and two electric ovens, electric clothes dryer plus the entertainment systems – may require 250, 300 even 400 amps service depending on the overall size of the home and number of electricity gobbling appliances.
“If you’re running large appliances frequently (central air, heating) or have items with large electric demands (in-home saunas, hot tubs), you could benefit from installing a 300- or 400- amp service instead.” [source ]
Large appliances include in the modern kitchen two electric ovens and electric stovetop, refrigerator, chest freeze, dishwasher and elsewhere in the home a washing machine, clothes dryer, heat-pump heating, whole-house air conditioning, window air-conditioner, hot tub, sauna, or pool heaters, electric water heaters (many larger homes have more than one). Look around your home, you may be able to add to the list.
And now, EV chargers. Repeating the data from above, almost all EV owners will want one overnight-charger for each vehicle. Each requires a 240v/50amp circuit breaker in the panel box. In a modern home with normal electrical appliances, it is unlikely that local electrical codes will allow you to add two 240v/50amp circuits if you have only 100 amp service.
Note that this is not because 50 + 50 = 100. That’s not how you determine circuits in your panel box, it is more complicated.
In the end, you may be looking at the rather expensive job of replacing your electrical system from the pole to the main panel (see illustration far above) — New service drop, service point, service entrance wires, service meter (usually supplied by your power company), probably a new service disconnect, and a new service panel. Cost? Up to $5,000.
What if you live in suburbia and everyone in your neighborhood wants two overnight chargers?
The items in the red boxes may need to be upgraded or duplicated – base load generating stations, substations, and local distribution lines including pole mounted transformers.
Let’s look at a real example: Palo Alto, California , one of the principal cities of Silicon Valley. In this report:
City of Palo Alto Utilities Advisory Commission Staff Report (ID # 11639) 4 November 2020. [ .pdf ]
“Highlights of Study Results: Impact to the Electric Utility
The study shows that electricity demand for all-electric homes peaks on winter mornings due to heating, and averages around 3.62 kW per home, or 264% of a mixed-fuel home’s peak demand. EV charging can add an additional 1.216 kW to the average peak demand of an all-electric home. Assuming each distribution transformer serves 8 houses, the load on each transformer under the all-electric SFRs scenario is calculated at 2.64 times the current transformer load plus 9.74 kW for EV charging.
As shown in Table 1 below, the additional load will trigger the need to upgrade some of the distribution transformers, secondary distribution lines (which connect the distribution transformer to the homes served by the transformer), and feeder lines (which connects the substation to the distribution points).
The total cost to upgrade the distribution system grid is estimated to range between $30 million and $75 million. Around 40% of this cost is equipment cost, and 60% is labor cost. This covers the cost to upgrade 95% of the distribution transformers, 20% of the secondary distribution lines, and 25% of the feeder lines. The cost estimate does not include additional undergrounding of feeder lines or secondary distribution lines.”
How much is that going to cost?
Between $2,000 and $5,000 per home or in total for Palo Alto, somewhere between 30 and 75 million dollars.
Those costs don’t include the costs to homeowners, who must pay for the service upgrade, service entrance wires, and circuit breaker panel box. And, of course, does not include the purchase new appliances or the installation of EV chargers.
To go all-electric in every single family residence (SFR) in California also means replacing all the natural gas usage with electrical appliances – heating, cooking, domestic water heating, and for many homes, pool heating.
The cost?
The cost of disconnecting the natural gas lines is estimated between $1,114 to $3,578 per home. That does not include the cost to the homeowner of replacing the appliances with electric models. All told, for this piece of going electric will cost from $11 million to $53 million – for Palo Alto’s single family homes alone. This does not include businesses, apartment houses, retail shops and any other type of building.
Palo Alto’s has about 15,000 homes….but there are approximately 7.5 million single family residences in California. That means that the numbers given in the Palo Alto report will have to be multiplied by 500 to get an estimate for the state of California.
For pole mounted transformers, that will require up to 335,000 pole mounted transformers alone. Also, millions of new electric stove tops, millions of electric ovens, millions of electric water heaters. Not all of the 7.5 million homes in California use natural gas, but the California Public Utilities Commission tells us there are 11 million gas meters in California. That’s a lot of natural gas customers.
A gold star for the first reader to give the probable cost to the individual California home owner to upgrade home to all-electric with two EV over-night chargers. Give a list of what you are including.
For other readers, try to give an estimate of the materials needed to accomplish going all-electric just in California. Components needed for the grid upgrade, new appliances in homes, EV charges, 200 amp service entrance wire (currently costs about $20 per foot), new circuit panels, . . . . . [this is a long list]. Give your opinion on whether or not you think that the manufacturing and supply chain is adequate to the task in today’s world.
Please be aware that there are about 140 million homes in the United States. Anyone care to try the estimates for cost and time to convert all those homes all-electric?
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
Personally, I don’t think there is the political will to carry-out the all-electric-cars-and-homes demand, not even in California. I don’t think there is enough electrical generation to supply the U.S. grid with enough electricity to meet average demand for a nation made up of all-electric homes and all electric vehicles. I’m not sure we can even supply the components for the transformation.
And then there is the task of replacing the 276 million cars and light duty trucks that currently exist in US households, even over time. Can we manufacture enough batteries to replace those ICE vehicles?
I hate to be a pessimist, but I don’t think it is doable.
What’s your opinion?
Thanks for reading.
# # # # #
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Very few homes are all electric heating … most homes today use either gas furnaces or heat pumps for space heat. So the overall effect of electric heat isn’t that much.
What IS the single biggest driver of electricity consumption is day time hours when air conditioners/heat pumps are running almost continuously, and when people are at work or shopping or otherwise simply awake and using electricity, and when most indstries and businesses consume most of their power.
That is why most utilities offer or require time-adjusted utility rates, to encourage customers to use more electricity at night, when the loads are at their minimum, rather than during daytime hours when loads are at their peak value (particularly the afternoons on hot days).
Gee, I wonder how that figures into EV usage? Well, here’s a clue: most EV charging takes place at home overnight where the vehicles are garaged. This therefore occurs mostly during minimum load periods. Which is exactly what the utilities love to see. Because a utility with a very large peak to minimum cycle on demand is a very inefficient utility, having to maintain far more generating and transmission capacity than would otherwise be necessary if loads were levelized throughout the 24 hour day. Power plants also operate most efficiently when running continuously at near their peak capacity.
So rather than all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over loads imposed by EVs on the grid, we need to be getting down on our knees and thanking them for levelizing our grid loads.
When you have figured out how to make the wind blow and the sun shine every night, for the whole night so I can charge an EV with them, let me know. I might consider one.
Meanwhile, you might want to consider that electricity suppliers are paid to serve us. It’s not up to us to change our habits to suit their business model.
I find myself in either an awkward position or an advantageous one here. Awkward because I own an EV yet do not believe the AGW hypothesis. Advantageous because I also own a 1-ton diesel pickup and therefore have no ax to grind; also advantageous because I’ve used my EV ownership (which is a function of it having been dirt cheap at the time, and my being a curious cat with a few thousand spare dollars) to learn a lot about EVs and electricity generation.
This article and many comments are full of hyperventilation. Kids, you can charge most of the new EVs on the market in 8 hours on a standard U.S. electric dryer circuit (30A/240v), or about 10 hours if the car is one of those uber-Teslas with a 100 kWh battery.
Really folks, just calm down.
I have nothing against EV’s other than I occasionally do big miles with a family and luggage, frequently in cold weather. I just wouldn’t trust the charging network far less the range of the car under those circumstances. And the UK has about 4 months of ‘decent ‘ weather, assuming it’s not bloody raining!
As I have pointed out elsewhere, I’m one of the unfortunate 40% in the UK with no off road parking. My car sits at the kerbside with no access to a drive or garage with a convenient, personal charger.
Sorry, but if the other reasons weren’t a deal breaker for me, that alone would be.
The reducing cost of new EV’s hasn’t materialised. In the same way ‘cheap’ electricity from wind farms hasn’t done a damn thing to alleviate the dramatic rise in energy pricing.
So, no. I’m not hyperventilating about EV’s, I am just pointing out the impracticalities of ownership for 40% of the UK at least.
I’ll also point out, as I have done elsewhere, that EV’s in the UK are not paying anything towards road maintenance, nor emissions which, according to Volvo, don’t break even with ICE cars until about 90,000 miles. That’s about 9 years ownership @10,000 miles a year average. They also get preferential charging rates which doesn’t reflect the mandated 25% green levy consumers pay on their domestic electricity, which goes in subsidies to renewables. The cost per mile is also artificial as they don’t contribute in any way to the 60% fuel tax we pay as well as Road Tax.
Your dismissal of genuine EV hesitancy might have something to do with you having access to a 1-ton diesel pickup if things go belly up with your EV. I don’t have that luxury.
I’m not dismissive of EV hesitancy; conversely, I am not any kind of EV promoter. I’m just a facts and logic guy. There are good arguments against owning an EV, but I don’t think strain on the grid is one of them, at least in the United States in general.
I very much agree with you about EV ownership if you can’t charge it overnight at home. I posted about that elsewhere in this thread, and invite you to scroll and find that long and detailed post.
Please try not to paint me as some EVangelist. I’m not one. By the way, and please correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think the UK sees a whole lot of temperatures that compare to the northern tier of the United States. I could go into more detail about that; for now, the short story is that EV fuel economy doesn’t get really nasty until you get below freezing and/or you climb steeply or carry heavy loads.
Again: I am not promoting EVs, nor am I trying to convince you or anyone else to acquire one. I did it only because Think went out of business in 2012, and I was able to get one for $8,500 net of the stupid federal tax credit. Like many Americans of my age group, I have at least a mid-level car fascination, so I thought, “Why not?” Really, that’s it. I’m a not, not, NOT any kind of zealot.
Jake ==> Have you read the Palo Alto report yet?
I don’t think I suggested you were either an EVangelist or an EV zealot. Indeed, that argument would be difficult to support as you own a diesel truck.
My point is, it’s difficult if not well nigh impossible for 40% of people to run an EV in the UK.
I was also pointing out that ownership and running costs are’t what they will be in the future. Frankly, EV owners are being conned by governments right now.
Here in WA State, whose leaders appear to be in an ongoing stupidity contest with Oregon’s and California’s, they talk out of both sides of their mouths on the EV front. Yeah, the fuel cost is much cheaper, but the tax addicts in Olympia really stick it to EVs.
Would you normally run your dryer for 10 hours? If, for example that, you have say 1 in 2 homes doing that then the street mains will be challenged.
Peter ==> More likely the pole transformers and service drops.
Remember this: People who charge their EV at home (which is >90% of EV owners in the U.S.) do it at night. You really have to do it that way, given how slow they charge. Electricity demand goes way down at night.
I will admit to not knowing the capacity of neighborhood transformers. All I’ve picked up is that, in single-family neighborhoods, a transformer is shared by a half-dozen houses. At least that’s what I was told a long time ago by someone who’s business it was to know, and who would have forgotten more about it than I’ll ever know. If you want to challenge me on that, I’ll provide more detail, and I think it will be convincing.
Basically, an EV being charged on a 240v/30A dryer circuit will use about the same amount of juice as two 10,000 BTU air conditioners. That’s a slap-dash reading from a search I did, so I won’t bet the ranch on it. But I do think it’s pretty accurate.
Is widespread EV adoption going to strain the grid? Not from overnight home charging, in my opinion. Something else to consider is that, given the range of the new EVs, I think it’s unlikely that even half of the EV-owning households would be charging their cars on any given night.
When do you dry your clothes after washing?
No particular time, which is to say that I’ve done it during the day and at night.
Jake ==> Yes, I am aware of this, and sayso
Jake ==> Seems to me that you haven’t read the essay itself. I say that most people can charge their EV overnight with a 240/50 amp outlet. What they can’t do is charge both their family cars without local codes requiring an upgrade of the service drop. Overall, the essay is about requiring EV charging and going all-electric home.
No need for 240/50. An EV is, in appliance terms, 240/30. No need for any upgrades.
Nice try, duane, but you may have noticed that EV’s don’t figure in the headline of this piece and are just a portion of the load issue. But, that’s a real purty strawman you’ve made there.
Duane ==> California is pushing for all-electric homes — disconnecting the natural gas lines entirely.
That may be true today but it won’t stay that way. Remember, Fossil Fuels INCLUDING natural gas are being phased out. There are places already that have ceased adding new natural gas pipelines and residential new connections are banned. Just like ICE auto’s there will come a day when there will be no new gas furnaces allowed.
Minimum loads now. Not in the Brave New World future.
And what if the utilities connections to your home are underground? Add yet another factor to the cost.
John ==> Yes — but most underground connections are modern and if rated high enough (over 200 amps) may not need replacing. If they must be replaced — lots of bucks.
The author refers to himself as a pessimist about not being able to pull off all electric all of the time (and all renewable electric at that). Hope he meant that as satire because it seems reason to believe they might – eventually – recognize this as unsubstantiated folly.
Coach ==> My high school football team went out into every game thinking that THIS TIME they were gonna win…..
For the average Canadian, one of the most impactful planks of the federal government’s newly released Emissions Reduction Plan is a 2035 ban on all sales of private vehicles running on internal combustion engines. As in many other countries, in just 13 years it will become illegal to purchase a new car or truck powered by gasoline or diesel. We already see a surge in new EV sales and manufacturers are investing billions in retooling to make only EVs. As the necessary grid upgrades are not even being costed and planned yet, I expect to see charging EVs or electricity usage generally to be rationed suddenly as peak grid capacity is reached, probably in less than a decade. There will then be as lot of frustrated EV owners.
People that still have operable gasoline or diesel powered vehicles will be able to see them to EV owners for a substantial profit.
I can’t wait until the people sitting back and thinking, “well, ok, whatever” find out what this will cost them EACH. Hopefully, the clamor will become, “No way in hell!!”
All of these massive transformational issues in the electricity and gas distribution systems in the developed world arise because there is an unproven still disputed theory from the UN/IPCC that Earth’s climate is warming, the warming is caused by 0.04% atmospheric CO2 and increases in CO2 are all due to emissions from the use of fossil fuels.
Surely it would make much more sense for this theory to be conclusively determined to be correct or incorrect before starting a huge worldwide transformation of energy and transport systems costing trillions. First, what is the real temperature trend of Earth’s climate? Is it warming, cooling or stable with little change? If it is not warming, all concerns about CO2 would be irrelevant. Second, if warming, then by how much, is it concerning or beneficial and does atmospheric CO2 have any effect on warming?
If none of this is conclusively determined, trillions are already being planned to be spent on a worldwide very complex unnecessary transformation that may well be due to an entirely incorrect theory coming from the UN/IPCC.
A “green” “all electric” is not only extremely expensive, but also, most likely impossible. I think the best solution is for “progressives” to recognize natural gas as the ultimate “renewable” and work toward a highbred system that maximizes its use.
We already have most of the technology and infrastructure. For example, My house is heated and cooled by a highbred heat-pump, gas furnace system. When the outside temperature drops below 40F and the heat-pump looses efficiency, the gas fired furnace kicks in. My combined utility bills are relatively constant through the year here in North Carolina. Another example: highbred cars don’t need charging stations. Gas fired home generators could be used to handle peak loads as well as power outages.
Natural gas is a clean burning renewable; much better than either wood chips or cooking grease. It burns only one carbon atom for four hydrogen atoms. For years it has been produced and used in waste treatment plants and landfills, Just think how much more electricity could be produced if that technology were applied to hog and chicken farms, and possibly to leaf collections. Then there is the simple fact that nature has been producing natural gas all along. and storing it underground for us to discover and use.
Congressional progressives could possible save their seats by simply recognizing these facts.
Kip—good write-up; my guess is the $3.7k per SFR is quite optimistic, between licensed labor and copper prices. Then there is the per-residence time required to upgrade, how many in all of California? Another point is that all the upgrades have to be sized for the new reactive loads (non-resistive) that pull the voltage and current out-of-phase. These need extra generation capacity to cover.
Carlo ==> 7.5 million homes in California…..
I am going to push back on your numbers. Hard.
I own a first-generation EV (out of curiosity and because I got it very cheap.) It uses 14A/240v, i.e. 3.36kWh per hour of charging. The battery is 24kWh, same as the first LEAFs, and takes about 6 hours to stick 20 kWh into the battery. The newer generation of non-Tesla EVs are designed for 30A/240v circuits — same as an electric dryer in the United States. If my EV was a later generation, it would take about 3 hours to recharge.
But my car’s battery is small, so let’s look at what’s being sold now. Start with the Chevy Bolt or Tesla Model 3, with a 70 kWh battery. The owner would typically add 55 kWh in an overnight charge. This would take about 8 hours. Got a uber-Tesla with a 100 kWh battery? Worst-case, add 90 kWh in about 13 hours on a standard U.S. electric dryer circuit. More typically, 75 kWh in 10-1/2 hours.
Bottom line: No particular need to buy anything more than a charging cable, and plug it into the dryer circuit. Oh, and if you own an EV you almost certainly have 200A service. That charger would use 30 of your 200 amps.
Look, I think the global warming hypothesis is complete b.s., and generally have a high regard for Wattsupwiththat. But occasionally, it’s a swing and a miss. If someone can refute my numbers, fine. I’m not defensive. Still, in this case I’m confident, so I’m going to be surprised if I’m incorrect. I think this article is alarmist.
It’s a big country. The author once lived in a house with 60A service. It happens. But new houses are 200A, and so are a whole lot of older ones. Are some neighborhoods lacking enough trunk and transformers to handle an extra electric dryer in, say, half the houses every night? Yes, but it’s fatuous to extrapolate that everywhere. Wattsup is factual, and my read of this article is that it did not mangle facts. Instead, you “modeled” a ridiculous, misleading outcome that fit a predetermined conclusion. Hmm, I wonder who else always does the same thing.
Note: I wrote about “non-Tesla EVs” and then included a Tesla in the example. I was thinking of the so-called “superchargers” that the author of this article implicitly assumes Tesla owners will install. I’m sure some of them do that, but you can also charge a Tesla on a 30A/240v electric dryer circuit, and the example used those numbers.
There’s plenty to say (not much of it good) about those “superchargers” and their claimed vs. actual recharge speed. But in my comment above, I wanted to have a common reference point, i.e. an electric dryer circuit in the United States, for comparability.
Jake ==> My assumption, in a general sense, was to use 240/50 overnight chargers.
Sorry, but this recalls a long-ago instruction that I have not forgotten: “Never assume anything.” At the risk of coming across as an EVangelist, a 240v/50A circuit for home EV charging is the epitome of overkill. See my other comments here for details.
Jake, what happens when your truck is no longer an option? Will you then have 2 EVs?
Charging both EVs at night would be the the equivalent of running 2 electric dryers all night. I’m still not seeing a problem so far.
But then what happens when all of your neighbors on the street, and in the neighborhood, and in the town, and in the city are running the equivalent of 1 or 2 dryers all night, as well as actually running loads of laundry and heating the house with electricity? And what might we expect if all of the electricity comes from solar and wind?
I am not disputing your actual experience and observations. I don’t see a problem in many cases at current levels of electrical generation and home wiring except for older homes. They need an upgrade in any case just for modern living.
The article is about what it would take to upgrade the existing grid to handle all those 1 or 2 dryer running all night equivalents. Another part of the puzzle is how to get that electricity to cars parked on the street.
Your experience and example doesn’t seem to address that, or so it seems to me. I took it to mean that you would need no upgrades to your house or service. So right now, today, your personal portion of the expense to go to all electric houses and transportation would be zero point zero.
But what will it take and how much will it cost to upgrade the grid and generation-to-house lines, transformers, and other equipment? And especially if it’s all mandated to be done in a few short years?
Again, I see nothing to criticize about your current personal experience charging your EV. It’s just not telling me what to expect if everyone has to make the switch to all electric everything and pretty much all “right now.”
“what happens when your truck is no longer an option? Will you then have 2 EVs?”
This won’t be the case for decades. What we claim to be aiming for and what is achievable are two different things. Over the next say 30 years the grid would have got multiple upgrades and replacements anyway, so claiming they’re additional expenses purely to support EVs is disingenuous. For example new subdivisions requires large changes.
I’m really not seeing the dire case. I’ve pointed out the numbers in exhaustive detail. There might be some particular cases in a vast country with so many people and vehicles. But in the main, I do not believe that widespread home charging of EVs will strain the grid. There are other downsides to EVs, as I’ve noted, but “breaking the grid” is not one that I think is justified by a close look at the numbers and the application of logic.
We don’t know each other. If you knew me, you’d know that I am a relentless fact seeker. First the facts, then logic, then an opinion based on both. It still might be wrong, but it will not be casual and it will not be invented out of whole cloth.
I don’t expect, even in this strange new political climate, that I will be forced out of the truck. They might try to make it so expensive that I won’t have a choice, but I doubt that too. If I am wrong, and the same happens to our third vehicle, a Toyota RAV4 gasser, the implications for the grid where we are ought to be negligible. Remember: If I get another EV with a bigger battery, it’ll still charge overnight on a standard electric dryer circuit.
We live in a rural area, so maybe I’ll ask someone on the local utility board. I would be surprised if it matters. If we went all-electric and drove a combined 15,000 miles a year (an overestimate, but I’ll fudge this against my argument for conservatism’s sake), we’d use an extra 12 kWh a day, which would be an increase of 20-25%.
However, all of that increase would be consumed overnight when demand is much lower than during the day. As I wrote, this is a big country, and there will always be contrary examples, just as there are always weather records being broken in both directions. Still, I don’t see how this would cause anything more than local problems, as opposed to some national crisis.
Watch me be wrong. It won’t be the first time. That said, I’ve spent enough time on “all things EV” to believe that I have a solid, objective understanding. I always include fudge factors that work AGAINST any argument that I’m making. I think there’s enough cushion that my analysis works. We shall see.
You asked about cars parked on the street. You’re correct, I have not addressed that. Before I do, I hope you will understand that I am in no way an EVangelist. I am a fact-based, logic-based realist. EVs are just cars, not causes, at least to me. As vehicles, they have advantages (torque, low maintenance) and disadvantages (range, poor cold weather performance, slow charging, high acquisition cost, questionable resale value.) I attach ZERO “virtue” in either direction. Again: They are just cars.
People without home chargers would have to use “public chargers,” and God help them. To me, they are the Achilles Heel of mass EV adoption. Yep, not a problem if you can plug in overnight. Use a “public charger,” and you will wait, and wait, and wait. And you will pay through the nose for the juice.
It’s a big country, and people will always do unexpected things. In the main, I expect that apartment dwellers and others without home charging will be the last group to take up EVs. The challenges mentioned in the article could well face at least some of the issues the author mentioned. That will be a numbers game, and at this point I don’t think there’s enough data for me to attempt a prediction that I can live with.
A tidbit about “public chargers.” Let’s take the best example that “favors” EVs, and see how pathetic it is. If nothing else, it ought to convince you that I am very far from an EV shill.
My truck “recharges” at the pump, and they run an average of 5 gallons a minute. (I’ve timed it. Some are faster, but 5 gpm is a good number.) That’s 80 miles of range per minute. My little EV adds about 0.05 kWh per minute, drawing 14A/230v, which works out to an average of about 0.2 miles of range per minute, or 12 miles of range per hour at the plug.
If I had a Bolt or Model 3, it would add 0.17 kWh per minute, or 0.4 miles per minute at the plug, or 25 miles per hour. A “DC fast charger” will roughly double that rate, or 0.8 miles per minute/50 miles per hour at the plug. A Tesla “supercharger” will add about 5 miles of range per minute, or 300 miles per hour at the plug.
My DC and Tesla numbers are best-case. This means they are too high, because if multiple cars share a charging station, the charging rate declines. Thus, my truck will take 5 minutes to add 400 miles of range. My EV will add 1 mile of range in 5 minutes at home; a second-generation EV will add 2 miles at home and 4 miles at a “fast” DC charger. A Tesla at a supercharger will have a best-case number of 25 miles of range in 5 minutes.
These charge times are flatly unacceptable for the mass market. Today’s EV owners do well over 90% of their recharging at home — for a reason. Anyone who thinks that people without access to overnight charging in their house or apartment building will put up with those charge times will learn differently.
Sorry for the length of my posts, but they are in response to a highly quantitative original article. It’s impossible to frame a rebuttal without doing a deep dive.
Jake,
Re your April 12, 2022 5:00 pm post.
Now, you’re talkin’!
All I’ve been doing is pushing on you about your personal case as opposed to the impossibilities of the Green Nude Eel mandates and the short time period for them. That’s all.
That said, where your case does apply, it cannot be dismissed by the ‘woe is me’ crowd. So a little something has to be subtracted from the doom and gloom because there will be some areas (your area, for example) which will not likely be affected.
P.S. Your best point is somewhere above, where you point out that where onerous conditions are imposed, people will find a way around those restrictions. It’s already on your to-do list. 👍😁
I mention my “personal case” mainly as a real-world anchor to a conversation that is otherwise mainly theoretical. The numbers “scale up.” Given that EVs are mainly charged at home at night, and that EVs can accurately be seen as appliances equivalent to an electric clothes dryer, the numbers and logic are widely applicable.
Will there be contrary examples? Yes. It’s a big country. Still, we’re talking about adding a clothes dryer to the load, at night. And not everyone every night. More likely, once every two or three nights. I am not seeing any kind of widespread issue.
Jake,
I’ll see your diesel 1-ton and raise you a dually diesel HO 1-ton plus my Honda Fit and a Cadillac SRX. No EV, though I’d like one purely for the ‘Ludacris Mode’. 👍😉
No! I am not discounting nor disputing your personal real-world experience.
Also, you are probably correct that in your rural area of ~15,000, there would be minimal effect on the grid.
As far as you possibly being ‘wrong’, and you cheerfully concede that, the article is about a hypothetical that is in the hands of dufus or evil politicians, take your pick, who are mandating or are getting ready to mandate things that absolutely cannot happen in the fact-based, real world you are living in and talking about.
You are not wrong in the here and now. There is no problem for anyone with 200+ amp electric service and the ability to charge on site and given today’s electricity demands. Plug in the car and pray the garage doesn’t burn down. 😲
The problems of going all EV all-the-time in a short period are what is arguable. Those mandates and their effect on the grid are what’s in question. There is much evidence that it is not even possible… except in cases such as yours.
I interpret that what you’re saying is that in your experience and in your neck of the woods, it’s not going to be a big deal. You’ve got the electrical service already. The only problem you’ll maybe experience is legislative bans and other nonsense that affect your truck.
The problems that will come from all-electric-everything mandates won’t have much of an effect on you.
What do people in hi-rise high density apartment do to charge their cars? What do people in little red cars do (other than celebrate, see image above) when they are not lucky enough to get a spot next to the charging pole?
How much will it cost to allow all EVs on the streets to be able to charge their cars so they can be ready for work in the morning? Can the current grid support the proposed radical changes of the Green Blob?
No one, including me, has disputed your experience and facts, as far as I can tell. Any pushback you are getting is because your experience doesn’t easily translate to a forced changed to all-electric-everything in a short time frame.
The question is, how much extra money will it take to get from ‘here’ to ‘there’?
In your case in the U.S., “not much, if any”. In the U.K. and elsewhere, where plugging into the house dryer circuit isn’t an option for so many people, the answer could be “w-a-a-a-a-y too much!”
True enough, my comments reference the U.S. grid and standards. I’d love to discuss the UK, but I don’t know enough and I adamantly refuse to make it up. Your circumstances might be different, and I respect that.
I am trying to comment narrowly. The author posits that mainstream EV adoption will require a huge investment in the grid. My answer is: Not in the United States. It’s not simply a matter of my own circumstances, which are easily generalized to the U.S. grid, with the proviso that it’s a big country and there’ll be exceptions.
I don’t think the grid is the problem for people who can’t charge at home. Those people will have much bigger fish to fry: the slowness of charging, and the high cost of electricity at those “public chargers.” I have detailed that in a different post here, and won’t repeat it now. Scroll to it if you want.
My larger point is that if people want to object to EVs, I will have considerable sympathy and agreement. But if the basis of those objections is that EVs will crash the grid, my answer is to laugh and advise that someone unjerk their knee and take an honest look at the facts. Nothing more, nothing less.
Jake,
Where there will be issues due to unreasonable mandates, we diesel owners can make our own diesel fuel. (There are recipes online for that.) I thought you might bring that up. You didn’t, so I just did.
IMO, your best and very important point – somewhere, I’ve lost it going back and forth – is that if they try to suck the juice from your battery, you’ll find a way to put a stop to that. That was pure gold
Prohibition, anyone? The one thing these planners never address is how people who can’t or are unwilling to comply will find a way around their plans.
–
Kip has pointed you and me to the Palo Alto study. They conclude that Palo Alto will need an upgrade to their distribution system and many homes will need to be upgraded if Palo Alto goes all electric, including transportation. They estimate the shortfall, outline the costs to make up the distribution shortfall and include costs for decommissioning gas.
Jake: “ But if the basis of those objections is that EVs will crash the grid, my answer is to laugh and advise that someone unjerk their knee and take an honest look at the facts. Nothing more, nothing less.”
You disagree. I’m fine with that.
H.R. ==> Just to be clear, neither I nor the Palo Alto report said anything about “crashing the grid” .
Oh come on. “Crashing the grid” is what your post is all about, regardless of how you phrased it.
Okay, I read the Palo Alto report. They would spend >$50 million to remove natural gas lines, replacing gas heating with electric heat. I am discussing EVs only, not heat pumps. Nothing against heat pumps. We have one, along with a propane backup furnace.
There’s a gap in my knowledge. Rather than make things up, I’m admitting it. I will give myself a mild pat on the back for a statement I made in this thread that one pole transformer serves six houses; the Palo Alto report says eight, and in this context I think that’s close enough.
Past that, I don’t know enough about pole transformers to intelligently discuss their capacity. I could imagine that if Palo Alto bans anything other than electricity, they might have to upgrade. But I was discussing EVs only, not the rest. Therefore, I remain skeptical that widespread EV adoption would entail transformer upgrades.
I can always be convinced by facts. I have a very long personal list of examples where I started out skeptical and went the other way after learning more. That said, if Palo Alto’s pole transformers are running so close to capacity that they can’t handle another 55 kWh of load for eight houses charging EVs at once — quite improbable, by the way — I’d be really surprised.
Your post (and Palo Alto’s scheme) goes beyond EVs. My rebuttals concentrate solely on those. Again, I am absolutely not an EV promoter, only a facts & logic guy. If a pole top transformer can’t handle another eight electric dryer equivalents being run overnight, I’d say Palo Alto already had a grid problem.
Palo Alto also thinks they’d have to upgrade the rest of the grid. Sorry, but I have to be convinced with hard facts that any of this would be necessary to serve more EVs. The report examines more than EVs, but my posts focus there only.
By the way, PA’s plan is crazy. No wonder people hate California.
Jake ==> Yes, you’ve been going on about something other than what I wrote about and the rest of us have been discussing. Your “rebuttal” was about something not said nor intended and you failed to address the issue at hand. Had you read closely and did your homework, you could have saved yourself hours today blathering on about something someone else may have said somewhere else.
“A gold star for the first reader to give the probable cost to the individual California home owner to upgrade home to all-electric with two EV over-night chargers. ”
You don’t get a gold star.
First off, your screed touched off a lot of conversation, much of it from people who think EV charging will crash the grid. That’s just wrong.
Second, what got to me was your belief that anyone would need not just one, but two 240v/50A dedicated EV chargers. That’s ridiculous. All an EV needs is to be plugged into a 240v/30A electric dryer circuit. Nothing else. I know this <i>because I own an EV and that’s how it’s done.</i> (Want to see a picture of that bad boy, plugged into the wall outlet?)
Sure, if someone has more money than brains, maybe they’ll do what you suggest. It’s a big country, and there are more than a few idiots. To be honest, I think the Idiot Quotient is higher in Palo Alto than it is where I live. So maybe they think they need two 240v/50A dedicated chargers, because they got lucky on this or that tech venture and cash ain’t nothin’ but trash?
Third, you wanted a cost to upgrade a house to all-electric with “overnight chargers.” The answer is that if the house has 200A service, which I’m willing to bet is true of just about every house in Palo Alto, the only cost would be replacing anything that uses natural gas. But there’d be no need for an “upgrade.”
I know this because <i>we live in a 200A house</i>, and never even come remotely close to hitting the limit. It would be mondo stupid to swap out the gas cooktop and the gas water heater for electric versions, but if I suffered a bout of insanity they’d each use the same 240v/30A circuit.
If it was a tankless water heater, you’d have a problem because they need 120A on startup. That’s why our tankless water heater runs on propane. If I went all electric, I wouldn’t go tankless for that reason. I researched all of that, and more, when we built our house in 2017.
Fourth, I will just have to find a way to go on without that gold star. It will be excruciating, but I’m a tough cowboy and will hide my tears.
H.R. ==> It is important to read the Palo Alto report .
Kip,
I took it that the Palo Alto report was the jumping off point for “what are they missing? What about the rest of the World?” And, does Palo Alto generalize?
I read the report. It was published in early 2020, before inflation had really hit its stride. It is pretty good as far as analyzing the components of the generation and distribution system that would be affected, as well as the decommissioning costs of phasing out gas, not discussed much in comments. The report comes right out and says they have not accounted for the costs of “the last hundred yards” so to speak.
Even more interesting is their estimation of the extra bureaucratic staffing that would be required for permitting, inspections, and whatnot. Ha! The staff will grow like mold on bread. Don’t forget, the costs are no longer good at this point in 2022, just due to rapid inflation since 2020.
I’ve been going back and forth with Jake, because he has some important points to make about parts of the system that will not need to upgrade. He has a pretty solid position about how some things won’t be affected. I’ve just been pushing Jake out of his back yard to show how his experience fits the article. I’m done with that. Just my opinion, and worth every penny you paid for it, Jake is on solid ground about where his real experience fits in. It can’t be pooh-poohed.
There are a lot of comments, such as HotScot’s regarding street parking, that point out wild cards that may not apply in Palo Alto. Comments of this sort show that the Palo Alto estimated costs don’t generalize to everywhere, where everywhere costs half or twice as much as everywhere else.😉
What no one has commented on until now (thanks, H.R.!) is how any government estimates are always woefully wrong by factors of 2X, if you’re very lucky, and 10X or more in too many cases. 3X to 5X is generally a safe bet. And the times to complete are usually off by years.
Given the track record of government estimates of costs for anything, I am pretty sure the Palo Alto report is wrong, wrong, wrong, and off by at least a factor of three. (I’m just playing the odds. Anyone want to bet against me?)
–
–
–
Kip, you started with exploding transformers and then moved to costs based on the example of Palo Alto.
I was interacting with HotScot on the street charging problem. Jake was a bit puzzled by some pushback he was getting so I pushed back at Jake with some leading questions to get him out of his “But I’m OK” mode.
Jake came through bigly with one of the better points that are not accounted for in just about any study, let alone the Palo Alto study; people will find a way around government obstacles. That is a “Whoa!” point that Jake dropped, and I’ll have to rethink much of your post in light of that point. Where will corners be cut and where will rules be bypassed? That’s never in any report.
I have ended with my observation, just above, that any government cost estimate and timeline is always off by… well, a lot.
My apologies, Kip. That was a lot to wade through. I usually make my points with short, sometimes humorous one or two liners. But since I’ve been dancing around this thread a good bit more than I usually do, I thought a little more complete explanation was in order.
H.R. ==> To me it seems that Jake is always looking for a work-around. Which works for individuals but not populations.
The Palo Alto report is what it is and it clearly states what reality of the grid and reality of city electrical codes will require.
If electrical codes require new service drops — 200 amps if you are going to have 2 overnight chargers, then that’s what they will require and no electrician will install your EC chargers without the upgrade.
It’s Palo Alto. You know, the heart of Silicon Valley, for God’s sake?
How long do you think it will take some software geek to invent and then distribute a patch that will allow electricity to flow in only one direction? You wouldn’t even have to put it in the EV, thereby (possibly) voiding the warranty.
Instead, you simply make an outlet with a toggle switch on the side. Up is two-way, down is inbound only. The minute some utility starts stealing electricity from EVs, those outlets will sell fast.
Are you serious??? This is AC electricity, the Tesla stuff… And what would some database jockey know about power engineering?
Maybe a communications equipment geek? A lot of those guys are E.E.s. But you have a point. I don’t know enough to make the device, but as I was thinking about it, I wondered whether there’d even be any need for a software element anyway.
You know what would be really cool? If someone here actually knows what would be needed to make an outlet that wouldn’t allow the electricity to flow backwards. Maybe it’s a lot harder than I think, but I’d be surprised.
You do know what “AC” stands for?
Yes. Your point?
Jake ==> “Essentially, a diode allows current to flow through it in only one direction (if you need a refresher on diodes and transistors see Introduction to Basic Electronics).”
This does not and cannot work for Alternating Current. One cannot make AC “flow” in only one direction.
“If someone here actually knows what would be needed to make an outlet that wouldn’t allow the electricity to flow backwards.”
I’m no EE but I’ve worked a lot with electronics. Based simply on the physics of electricity I don’t see any way to do it. The only thing that controls the “direction” of electricity is a diode, and the best that can do is convert AC to (wavy) DC. You’re idea of “flowing backwards” is appropriate to water, but does not, and cannot, apply to electricity.
Unlike a lot of people, I try very hard to avoid claiming knowledge I don’t have. I am always seeking more facts and knowledge. Along those lines, a question: If it’s impossible to block the reverse flow of electricity, why?
Past that, would an EV require a modification to permit the current from the battery to run back into the grid? It amazes me that there might be no way to block this at the outlet, but I’ve been amazed before.
My knowledge of electricity has definite limits. There, I admitted it.
Jake ==> There is no way to block backflow of A/C current, without a lot of sophisticated electronics.
If your electric utility puts in a smart meter and your car charger is required by code to allow it use as backup battery for the grid, then that will be it.
Of course, as you see, there are a lot of caveats. Special meter, special charges, etc.
They won’t be able to sneak it past you….
Kip, unlike you, I actually know anything about EVs. I don’t have a “car charger.” Don’t need one, your ignorant misinformation here notwithstanding. If they do the “smart meter/backflow” thing here, I’ll find a way around it if I ever have to.
I guess (from the feedback here), there’s no way to install an outlet that’ll keep electricity from going back to the grid. Then I guess I’d just have to charge the EV from one of our generators (either a 20kW Kohler whole-house unit, or my Honda portable), although it’s not something I’d want to do given the cost and hassle.
All of this is theoretical where we live. Now are you going to keep telling people that they need two 240v/50A dedicated EV chargers at home?
Actually, if you have a plug-in car, you do have a car charger. It is part of the car’s electronics that convert the AC input to DC so the battery can charge.
Yes, an EV has an on-board charger. Among other things, it’s why an external “EV charger” is unnecessary. The on-board charger, among other things, regulates how much juice goes into the battery as it’s charging. This is why the charging rate varies as the battery is being charged.
In any case, an EV owner doesn’t need anything more than an outlet to plug a charging cord into. A 30A/240v circuit with the matching plug will do it. The hype artists sell external EV chargers to gullible fools. This is America, and America is #1 at a bunch of things, one being selling unnecessary things to fools.
Jake ==> You ought to study up:
https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/articles/ev-charging-home
Apparently you didn’t read it too closely yourself, because it supports the points I have made. Where they come up with any need for a “wall mounted charger,” is a mystery. There’s simply no need for it. If there was, I’d have one.
See, Kip, you don’t own an EV. You know nothing about EVs at any level. But that doesn’t stop you.
Electricity does not “flow” like water, it requires a full circuit in order to work.
Water can be blocked simply by using a backflow preventer:
Regular flow
Backflow preventer
The backflow preventer is simply a flapper valve, much like what’s at the bottom of a toilet tank. If the water pushes backward, the valve closes from the pressure on it.
Electricity, on the other hand, needs to flow in both directions already:
If you block that full circle at any point, the flow stops.
On a DC circuit, it’s possible to insert a “one way valve” called a diode that forces that current direction to go in only one direction (=>):
Inserting that in the other direction would block the current:
But this is no different than a simple break:
The problem is that what’s coming in to the house is AC – it changes “direction” 60 times per second:
So if you put in a “one-way valve” you block that flow in one direction only, and if you put in two in both directions you block everything.
The “flow” of electricity is from a power source (#) to a load ([])
In this case, the power source is the power company generators and the load is your car battery.
I think it’s already been acknowledged that the car charging system would need to have the right circuitry to support it, but given that, the power company could simply send a signal to the car to switch, and it would change the battery over from being a load to being a power source (which is handled by how the current is directed into the battery.):
You still have the full loop.
edit: The formatting all disappeard when I saved the comment, hopefully it’s still clear
TonyG ==> Very kind of you to explain that concept so clearly for Jake.
I did the same for my kids in 6th grade home school when we built various electronic projects. Now, most junior high schools teach these concepts in STEM class.
It’s obviously more of an issue than I thought it would be. I still have a hard time imagining that someone couldn’t invent an easy workaround, but I freely admit that there are mechanical details that I do not know.
In my case, if the local utility were to start using my car’s battery as a power source, and a preventive device really was impractical because of cost and/or engineering issues, I suppose I’d have to fire up a generator.
“here are mechanical details that I do not know”
It’s not mechanical, it’s electrical. Since you are trying to dump AC power into the grid you need to have your AC signal at the same frequency and phase as the grid at your location. That’s not a trivial thing to do. It requires an inverter to convert your batteries DC signal to AC. As the phase of the grid signal can vary from second to second because of load changes on the residential grid (e.g. someone fires up a large motor or welder) your inverter needs to be able to follow it almost instantaneously. Otherwise your signal winds up bucking against the grid signal. One residential user doing this isn’t a big deal, hundreds of them is a different matter.
In the case of a blackout, i.e. the grid generators go down, you could have hundreds of individuals trying to dump power into the grid at who-knows what frequency and phase. It would make recovering the grid much more complicated.
Far better to keep you isolated from the grid and use your inverter hooked to your car to just power your own individual, internal grid. Of course you would then have to worry about the load on your car battery. If you have electric heating in the dead of winter at night in Chicago you might not have a usable car in the morning.
Mechanical, electrical. Okay. In any case, if utilities start sucking juice out of people’s EVs, I think someone who knows more than I do will find a workaround. It’s obvious that I’ll never be the one to design it. But if the time ever comes and if I get a different EV equipped to allow the battery to be used as a power source for anything outside the vehicle, I’ll be a customer.
If I’m wrong and no one can design a cheap device to block that theft, then I’d charge it off of one of my generators and never plug it into the utility grid.
Your car battery is a DC device. You can always block someone from discharging your battery by using a diode. The problem is where to put the diode. If you are charging from an AC source then there is a converter somewhere. If the converter is on your wall you can install a diode from the wall unit to your battery. If it’s integral with the battery and you don’t have access there isn’t much you can do.
The issue is quite a bit more complicated than has been discussed on here. All the common charging units must have an AC->DC converter built in. I’m pretty sure they all have isolating diodes on the DC side to prevent appliances on your internal grid from draining the battery if the power goes out. That means that if the power company wants access to your battery they would have to convince the charger manufacturers to build in a device that could be triggered by them to bypass the isolating diodes. Of course that would also put all your appliances as well as your neighbor’s appliances on the grid to drain your battery. To prevent that it means an external switch would have to be installed in your feeder panel to isolate the rest of your house (like the switch you probably already have if you are using an external generator to power your house). from your battery, But then what good does that do? You would still be in the dark!
Like I said, it’s a complicated issue.
The inverter has to be in the car, or you couldn’t plug into an AC outlet. Obviously, there are big gaps in my electricity knowledge. The EV I now own isn’t equipped to export power outside of the car, so this entire discussion is theoretical as it applies to me or to anyone else who has an EV.
It would only become an issue in the future, if the gov’t or (I think much less likely, but who knows?) the market required or satisfied genuine demand for two-way flow. I don’t expect it to happen, or if it does happen, I don’t think it’ll ever apply to me.
I now see that, by its nature, AC is two-way. It’s something I never have had any reason to think about until this thread. Here’s a stray thought: What will an inverter do if the juice entering it isn’t AC but is already DC? Will it just go right on through? (Be gentle; if it’s a ridiculous question, keep in mind that I’ve confessed my ignorance.)
If DC would pass right through an inverter, how about an external inverter? Plug the inverter (equipped with a diode to make the DC one-way) into the outlet, and run the charging cord from it to the car. This would only work if a) You can run DC through a second inverter with no trouble, and b) An inverter is cheap. I don’t know how much they cost to make.
I hope I haven’t confused the jargon.
An inverter is typically what a DC to AC conversion unit is called. A converter is what a AC to DC conversion unit is called. I’ve attached a simplified diagram of each. Inverters (DC-AC) have been used for ages. I remember working on them back in the 50’s and 60’s in auto radios using vacuum tubes. Back then they used mechanical vibrators to chop the DC signal and make it into an AC signal which could then be run through a transformer to create the voltages the tubes needed. Converters (AC to DC) are the same. Back then they used transformers to change the voltage and then rectified it to DC. Today both use semiconductor devices to do the same thing.
I know lots of people in lots of places use inverters to feed their solar and wind devices onto the grid and get money from the power company. I personally would never do it, especially using the battery in a personal EV. Too many chances for something to go wrong with unknown liabilities (personal and insurance).
forgot the diagram.
Good explanation, and thanks. If nothing else, these exchanges have taught me how many gaps there are in my knowledge. Unlike many, if not most, on the internet, if I get it wrong I have no trouble saying so.
Along those lines: It sounds like the EV’s internal charger includes a converter to change the AC from the outlet to DC for the battery. It further sounds like the internal chargers would need to add an inverter to convert the car battery’s DC into AC to send juice back to the grid. (Is that correct? If not, please say so.)
If someone stuck a converter at the outlet (i.e., an external converter) and turned the incoming AC to DC, what happens when that DC hits the car’s converter? Will it go right on through to the battery? Also, if there was a converter at the plug and the car had an inverter that sent AC back to the grid, could a converter at the plug block the juice coming out of the car while allowing it to go into the car?
Jake, sorry to be so long in replying. Been very busy. I grew up in the days of engineering design being as simple as possible. Less cost, fewer breakdowns, and easier repair. I would not try to design bi-directional components like you are suggesting. Too complicated and difficult to fit into all situations. Two units, one an AC->DC converter and one a DC->AC inverter, could be used in whatever configuration is needed and would be easier to use and repair.
I personally would never want to use a car battery, or any kind of battery string for that matter such as one being charged by wind/solar, to power any part of my house. Being an old telephone engineer I know the cost of maintaining battery strings, especially the labor cost. While newer battery tech doesn’t require checking electrolyte levels as often, each battery still needs to be tested on a regular basis to identify weak ones that would limit the capacity of the overall string. Life is complicated enough with trying to remember to check the batteries in all the smoke/CO monitors, the computer UPS units, and the TV remotes let alone changing HVAC filters! How many homeowners would remember to check their battery strings every month or so?
I would much rather depend on a natural gas/propane generator or a small liquid fueled generator. No worries then about the power company trying to drain my batteries to make up for their short-sited capacity engineering!
No need to install an EV charger. Just plug the car into an 240v/30A outlet. The cords cost $180. I have one, and it works just fine.
When do you wash and dry your clothes? Do you work outside your house? Do you have a maid to do your washing and drying during the day so you can charge your car at night?
“But new houses are 200A”
What do you classify as new? My house was built in the mid-80’s and only has a 100amp service. Same for everyone on the street except for two guys who have outbuildings with separate power feeds to attached service panels.
I tried to find numbers on the proportion of houses with 100A vs. 200A service. I couldn’t, and I refuse to make it up. That said, there is broad agreement out there that new places get 200A. The same happens if electric service gets upgraded for other reasons. I’d point out that, when I had our current house built in 2017, they wanted to install 200A service but I popped for another $2,500 for 400A, because at the time I thought we’d electrify a barn and convert it to a livable space.
But 200A is the standard for new construction in the United States. This is an evolution from the days of fuse boxes. By the 1960s, circuit breakers had replaced fuse boxes in new construction, and those were 100A. As time went on, they became 200A. You can still get 100A service in a new house, but you have to go out of your way to get it — and it would make no sense, because the cost difference is negligible.
https://www.thespruce.com/service-panels-changed-in-the-1900s-1152732
You might be right for “middle-income” housing. Much of the housing built here since the mid-2000’s has been low cost “affordable” housing being built on the cheap. Duplexes and apartments. Most of the duplexes have 100 amp service panels on each side and so do the apartments. Most of the apartments don’t have dryers, depending on a co-located “laundromat” instead. Most of the duplexes have washer/dryer hookups but still are limited to a 100amp service. Many of the older apartments (such as the one my son has in Boston) only have 60 amp service with no dryer hookup even if you could feed an extension cord outside through a window to a nearby car.
Of course these are the places the poor and lower income people live and they probably can’t afford to go EV anyway so it won’t matter. The US will just become even more of a 2-tier economic mess in such a case.
Tim ==> Ah, yes. The Palo Alto report just cover Single Family Residences — not apartments.
I don’t know what they stick in new apartments or duplexes, but these days at least some states actually require 200A in new detached houses. I know this much, with respect to our place: We could pretty easily get by on 100A.
We might not want to run the clothes dryer, the oven, and the heat pump at the same time, or at least not start them up simultaneously, but we use about 45 kWh/day on average. If we were to go at capacity with a 25% allowance for overhead, the calculator tells me we could be within shouting distance of a megawatt a day. (200 x 240 x 24 x .75 = 864,000 watt hours. Yikes!)
That seems outlandish to me. It has to be wrong. $83/day? No thanks, but if we poured it into lighting, we’d probably be visible from outer space. This would be especially true because we’re entirely L.E.D. here except for a few old lamps and a remaining supply of incandescent bulbs that will probably last for at least another decade.
Kansas:
E3602.2 Service Load
The minimum load for ungrounded service conductors and service devices that serve 100 percent of the dwelling unit load shall be computed in accordance with Table E3602.2. Ungrounded service conductors and service devices that serve less than 100 percent of the dwelling unit load shall be computed as required for feeders in accordance with Chapter 37. [220.82(A)]
E3602.2.1 Services Under 100 Amperes
Services that are not required to be 100 amperes shall be sized in accordance with Chapter 37. [230.42(A), (B), and (C)].
—————————————————————————-
I would venture to say that most rural states have similar codes. I know the Missouri residential building code is exactly the same as Kansas. So is Ohio.
Tim ==> And in practice, what does that mean?
Average 2-3 bedroom home with nat gas dryer, water heater, and nat gas heating can get by on 100 amps?
But average modern home all-electric?
As I was researching about electric service to dwellings, I found a bunch of articles. One said that the 2016 California electric code requires 200A in new houses. A different article said that Ontario, Canada (obviously not a state, but still) is requiring 200A service.
That said, I went over my skis when I wrote “at least some states.” I try to avoid that, but I goofed. Kill me now. I do stand behind my belief that 200A is now standard for new houses, by which I mean detached, single-family places.
As a practical matter, if you’re going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a new house, you’d be nuts not to get 200A even if the building code allows 100A. In new construction, the cost difference isn’t even a rounding error.
Jake ==> Yes, the essay itself says that newer homes require 200 amps.
:
“Pictured here is electrical service drop to a typical American home. Suburban homes in the United States usually have 100 amp service. My current home only had 60 amp service when we moved in in the 1980s which meant the lights dimmed whenever the water heater kicked in or the water-well pump motor started up. Newer homes here usually have 200 amp service, though a larger all-electric home – as in electric heating, air conditioning, electric water heater, electric sauna, electric hot tub, electric stove top and two electric ovens, electric clothes dryer plus the entertainment systems – may require 250, 300 even 400 amps service depending on the overall size of the home and number of electricity gobbling appliances.
Jake ==> Read the Palo Alto report.
Why only “half?” What is planned is that everyone will need at least one charger, and the ‘dryer on wheels’ will have to run every night, in every home, all night long. Right now, when I dry a load of clothes, I only expect it to run for about 45 minutes, not all night.
The latest EVs have 60-70 kWh batteries. On 80% of capacity, using the midpoint of the range, i.e. 65 kWh battery, with 80% being 52 kWh:
The above numbers are conservative. In the real world, ranges are likely going to be 15 to 20 miles better, but I am worst-casing it here so as not to be accused of tweaking the numbers in favor of my argument.
In most places, given how most cars of any kind are used, an EV will go for three or four days until it needs a recharge. The colder the weather, the more electricity used, and the more recharges. I used one-third to one-half of EVs charging on any given night. I did that for the same reason that I used worst-case numbers in this reply: To forestall the accusation of tilting the numbers toward my argument.
Given that this is somewhat speculative (but not by any means plucking numbers out of the air), precision is impossible, so I choose to opt for caution and credibility and state these numbers in terms that are less friendly to my case.
One question and an observation
1. Is there any information on the cost to actually fully charge an EV? The narrative is that EVs will be cheaper than ICE, but I haven’t seen any numbers for operating. They talk about the cost (with pretending that it will come down as more and more people buy EVs), a little mention about the cost of the batteries but nothing about actually charging the EV.
2. My father was an electrical engineer and spent most of his career planning, designing and building transmission power lines. A year before he died, he was visiting me and saw a power about how the future was EV. Of course being an engineer he had to do the math. He used my house as typical single family dwelling (1200 sq ft building in 1961) and concluded that my service would need to be upgraded to accommodate an EV and noted even then that I could not have my microwave and toaster oven on at the same time. He admitted that he didn’t do the math on if there is even enough power in the current power grid to accommodate existing usage to say nothing of increased usage just through growth let alone adding a huge power draw that EVs would require. When I redid my basement in 2020 got a new panel and the system was upgraded to 220 – it made sense then since the whole basement was being revamped – the cost was close to $5,000 Cdn. I can now plug in my toaster over and microwave at the same time!
How much do you pay per kWh for electricity? Which EV are you thinking about? I can give you exact numbers if you give me those two. Oh, and describe the climate where you live.
Maureen ==>Thanks for joining us. Wait til you try to add EV chargers.
Ignore Kip Hansen. If you get an EV, you can either use an extension cord and plug it in the outlet that you electric dryer uses, or you can pay an electrician to run a 240v/30A circuit (what an electric dryer uses.) Your EV will come with a cord for that “Level 2” charge. If they try to sell you a dedicated charger, laugh at them unless they’ll throw it in for nothing.
Kip doesn’t own an EV. He knows nothing about them.
Jake ==> You are swerving into TROLL territory now. You have been carpet bombing this thread with your cockeyed ideas about bypassing electrical codes and blathering on about a topic that is not the subject of this essay.
This kind of behavior is not appreciated here.
You know nothing about EVs, “troll.”
You gave no numbers so here goes:
If you’re an ordinary commuter and have a place to charge it off-street, and have a 240v/30A electric dryer circuit that you can plug it into, an EV is a reasonable choice. If you drive long distances or have to use a so-called “public charger,” forget it. Same if you live in the mountains or in the frigid northern Great Plains, the Great Lakes region, or Canada.
The highest priority should be hardening the electrical grid from EMP of a nuclear explosion putting the US into the stone age.
Besides burning your house down, the batteries don’t age well and become less efficient if they don’t catch fire first. Then you have the problem of contamination of humans and the environment after a crash. Battery replacement is also expensive. Me, I prefer the gasoline engine that can move the car or truck for 300 to 500 K miles before replacement. And the quick fill of the gas tank as opposed to long delays charging batteries.
The most important thing to consider is how the leaders of the world can make such disastrous changes without the consent of the people they represent.
I don’t think anyone has ever priced out the cost of keeping batteries at the home. What’s the cost for a hazmat removal of leaking batteries in the basement? What’s the cost to build a separate, outside shed for the battery string?
What “battery string” are you talking about?
Kip – you’re not a pessimist you’re a realist.
Kevin ==> Thanks, sir.
Another cause of overload of transformers: Small Soldiers.
Thinking ==> Don’t know that expression.
The fire hazard problem alone is insurmountable.
I think we are being overly naive here. The UK legislation to allow suppliers to limit your demand and to remotely switch off your car charger and other appliances was passed earlier this year. Anyone who has a car charger installed from now on will need this technology installed with it.
That is how it is going to work in practice. You will not be able to charge your car at home at your own convenience. You may not be able to cook or have your heating on at the times you want. We will be “demand managed”. So don’t think they have not thought this through; they have, except they don’t want you to know what the solution is yet.
all UK demand management schemes rely on paying the consumer to shift usage or reduce it, voluntarily.
but if you believe it is all a plot…
Where I live, all the utilities are underground. That probably means trenching to upgrade the service, at increased cost. It means larger transformers out at the curb, affecting the aesthetics. “Ready, fire, aim!”
This covers the issue in the UK.
14-How-will-the-growth-of-electric-vehicles-impact-the-grid.pdf (electricnation.org.uk)
It concludes smart charging removes the problem.
I think anything with the word “smart” in its title is always “carp”. (“Smart paragraphs?)
What that article is telling you is, they have no intention of fulfilling maximum demand. Which is basically what I told you above. It tells you this in black and white.
Also have you done a basic arithmetic sense-check on their numbers? 5GW additional demand, divided by (say) 10 million EVs charging, is only 500W per EV. There are 30-odd million vehicles in Britain, not including the heavy vehicles.
A more likely figure is 15 milllion x 7kW, which is 105GW. This is about 20% more than total maximum demand currently. There is no chance they can supply that, let alone the extra demand from electric heat pumps.
And don’t forget all the 9kW heat pumps!
kzb ==> Smart charging, smart meters, etc just means that someone else controls your electrical usage.
Here in Britain, anything with “smart” in its title is always stupid and useless. The first generation of “Smart meters” certainly fitted that pattern. But yes you are correct, the intention in this case is to manage demand.
Legislation was passed recently to allow remote control of domestic car charging. Future domestic car chargers need this facility built in and also the facility of separate billing.
IMO, the entire EV market will collapse within the next 10 years. Some small market may survive, but overall, it will not exist in any practical sense – not that it is practical now in any event. Way too many issues to overcome in addition to the grid issues noted here – material supply chain, urban dwellers who park on the street, and long charging times to name a few. EVs may be fine as a commuter car in many areas, but even that can become problematic if the commute is in highly congested areas like NY, LA, SF, etc. And, imagine what happens when a winter storm hits causing serious and lengthy traffic jams. At some point, reality will hit, and it will likely hit hard.
Barnes ==> Time will tell….
We are about to learn. I think EVs will be a lot more common than you do. This doesn’t mean that I want them to be, only that I think they will be.
If you really want a ‘one way’ power socket I.E. power only flows out, then just fit a transformer.
A multi tap transformer, used frequently in the power distribution industry typically allows a number of taps in 2.5% steps.
So you could go from 220V to 225.5V or 220V to 214.5V. You can connect it either way round.
Your EV charger would have to generate more than 225.5V to get any power back into the 220v grid.
Of course there is a downside. The grid voltage can vary by plus and minus 5% and be in limits. You may end up with too high a voltage feeding your EV battery charger worst case.
I figured it would be an easy workaround. It looks like I was wrong. Not the first time, and it won’t be the last time.
If you really want a ‘one way’ power socket I.E. power only flows out, then just fit a transformer.
Hmm, hadn’t thought of that. But good point on the downside.
This reminds me of a song. Earth Wind and Fire, “Fantasy”
“all your dreams will come true until the 12th of never”