I just read where RJ was critiquing people who purchase gasoline vehicles.

[NY_Rob]

Our home was built in 1967 and had 200A service (pool pump, heater, quad-zone HVAC with two furnaces/AC). We just bought a house in the country with 200A 3-phase service. Currently pricing out solar.

Our homes here sold for $12,000 back in 1962.. our next door neighbor is still an "original".. I've had to reset her breakers.. four 15amp breakers in a tiny little panel that sits behind a picture on the wall

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[BigSkies]

add in the push to move away from natural gas and you end up with heat pumps/resistive heating, and electric stove/ovens.

An unscientific google search says average home consumption per month is 886 kWh. Assume you drive an average of 1000 miles a month @ 2.2 miles / kWh, that means if you only charged at home, you'd add ~450kWh to your energy consumption per vehicle (R1) per month. Given that the R1 is on the low end of efficiency it isn't that bad for other vehicles. But the grid does not have capacity for a 50% increase across the board for every house in an area. There are ways to mitigate this increase, like smart grid and smart chargers, but people don't really like the reach of big brother deciding when their car can charge.

Similarly, adding fast chargers to the middle of nowhere (like gas stations) is also a challenge. Many of the chargers you see are at large shopping centers which have a higher capacity budgeted in when their grid hookups were designed. This doesn't exist in the middle of farmland where many of the chargers are needed to support cross country travel.

Upgrading distribution lines (neighborhood) based on increasing demand isn't too terrible of a cost. Where we run into problems is upgrading the transmission lines. These costs are enormous and it is very hard to finance due to no guarantee they will make money in the future. Thankfully the infrastructure bill is helping out on this part.

I’ve read a few studies on this in the past. There’s a range of estimates, but I’ve seen electrification of all passenger vehicles increasing overall electricity demand in the 10-20% range. Keep in mind that a huge portion of electricity demand is commercial/industrial, so the denominator is much larger than your residential number.

And most of this increase is at night when demand is low anyways. So it’s not much of a challenge on the generation side.

Most of the challenge is on the transmission side where smaller communities (in general) have transmission infrastructure designed for the pre-air conditioning world. There’s a lot of power lines, transformers, and maybe even substations that need to be upgraded to get the charging infrastructure in place. But this isn’t something that needs to happen overnight. Just faster than it has been happening.

 

[Craigins]

I’ve read a few studies on this in the past. There’s a range of estimates, but I’ve seen electrification of all passenger vehicles increasing overall electricity demand in the 10-20% range. Keep in mind that a huge portion of electricity demand is commercial/industrial, so the denominator is much larger than your residential number.

And most of this increase is at night when demand is low anyways. So it’s not much of a challenge on the generation side.

Most of the challenge is on the transmission side where smaller communities (in general) have transmission infrastructure designed for the pre-air conditioning world. There’s a lot of power lines, transformers, and maybe even substations that need to be upgraded to get the charging infrastructure in place. But this isn’t something that needs to happen overnight. Just faster than it has been happening.

Correct there are 3 issues here. Distribution, transmission, and generation.

As you stated from the studies, generation isn't too big of an issue until we start phasing out Natural Gas generators.

As you also pointed out, the largest energy consumers are commercial/ industrial.

Thus adding a 10-20% load mainly in residential areas is quite a big increase, and require improvements to the distribution network.

Transmission on the other hand will need to be improved to remote areas that do not currently support high loads (think large charging stations on the highway in the middle of nowhere).

 

[CrazyOne]

At the moment I would definitely agree with you. But in fairness, RJ is speaking about sometime at least 10 years from now. He's talking about the direction things are headed.

Based on comments, he said buying a gasoline vehicle in 2023.. he was talking of buying now. 10 years is the useful life of a vehicle. Beyond that, it is a second car from me. I would be pleasantly surprised if Rivian is in reasonable shape after 10 years.

 

[BigSkies]

Correct there are 3 issues here. Distribution, transmission, and generation.

As you stated from the studies, generation isn't too big of an issue until we start phasing out Natural Gas generators.

As you also pointed out, the largest energy consumers are commercial/ industrial.

Thus adding a 10-20% load mainly in residential areas is quite a big increase, and require improvements to the distribution network.

Transmission on the other hand will need to be improved to remote areas that do not currently support high loads (think large charging stations on the highway in the middle of nowhere).

Agree completely.

I find it a fascinating topic to read about. And some of the requirements do sound crazy when you think about fully electrifying heavy trucking corridors through rural areas. Supporting MW chargers for hundreds of semis would have higher energy requirements than most cities along those corridors.

Distribution concerns in residential areas are overblown IMO. It does require semi-competent utilities to plan and manage for (which is a stretch in many places). But the utilities are picking up a lot of new revenue which can fund improvements. Todays billing structures mostly support the added residential infrastructure needs.

In some ways, this is a fascinating time to be alive and to be part of these changes. It’s not always positive, but we’re mostly making progress on making the world a better place. I don’t think it’s fast enough, but we’re at least moving in the right direction.

I also find it comical thinking about how some people claim it’s an impossible infrastructure task. Compare the extreme need of MW chargers in rural areas with the infrastructure we’ve already built supporting oil & gas operations in Prudhoe Bay. We’re keeping a small city alive and running pipelines across Alaska’s most inhospitable climates just to fill our current need for gasoline. There are zero electrification projects that come close to rivaling O&G for logistical complexity and infrastructure cost. I actually think electrification will be cheap and easy compared with the cost and complexity of winding down O&G operations.

 

[emoore]

My HOA doesn't allow solar roof panel.. :-(

I am paying over $400 per month on electrical bill. I'd like to offset or pay $0 as the bill goes up every year.

But my darn HOA doesn't allow to install solar panel on the roof or on the ground..

My only option is to move...

Depending on the state you live in that could be illegal.

 

[tosehee]

Depending on the state you live in that could be illegal.

I am in GA...

 

[emoore]

I am in GA...

well maybe not then...... But it might be worth checking it out to see if you can get the HOA to change their policy.

 

[NY_Rob]

Distribution concerns in residential areas are overblown IMO. It does require semi-competent utilities to plan and manage for (which is a stretch in many places).

We already get urgent pleas via text message, local news coverage and email on very hot days to "reduce consumption or face possible brownouts". With even hotter days forecast for future years.. add the stress of charging EV's to systems that can't handle hot days and you are looking at serious issues.
But, like you said... "It does require semi-competent utilities to plan and manage for (which is a stretch in many places)" so that covers the situation here on Long Island ?

 

[COdogman]

Based on comments, he said buying a gasoline vehicle in 2023.. he was talking of buying now. 10 years is the useful life of a vehicle. Beyond that, it is a second car from me. I would be pleasantly surprised if Rivian is in reasonable shape after 10 years.

This is the comment I was referring to and supposedly has some people's pearls clutched. No mention of 2023 in there:

Then I think the reality of buying a combustion powered vehicle, in light of the policy that’s coming, is sort of like building a horse barn in 1910. Like, imagine buying a Chevy Suburban in 2030. Like, what are you going to do with that, right? In 10 years? Yeah, like gas stations will be slowly disappearing. It’s just weird.

 

[R1Thor]

My HOA doesn't allow solar roof panel.. :-(

I am paying over $400 per month on electrical bill. I'd like to offset or pay $0 as the bill goes up every year.

But my darn HOA doesn't allow to install solar panel on the roof or on the ground..

My only option is to move...

I'm president of an HOA.

Your HOA is full of shit. There are statutes protecting people from things like these. The ONLY possible local government option that can prevent people from installing solar *in certain locations* is if your home has a historic title. And even then, the most they can do (since you own your home) is to install the panels say, on the 'backside' of the roof.

In other words, your HOA is acting illegally by attempting to block your solar install.

 

[iansriv]

I'm president of an HOA.

Your HOA is full of shit. There are statutes protecting people from things like these. The ONLY possible local government option that can prevent people from installing solar *in certain locations* is if your home has a historic title. And even then, the most they can do (since you own your home) is to install the panels say, on the 'backside' of the roof.

In other words, your HOA is acting illegally by attempting to block your solar install.

I'm in TX and my hoa said they cannot deny a request to install solar when I did mine in March. My house (incl Rivian) is now net zero. I know this isn't possible everywhere but I wish those that wanted to go solar could. It would certainly help the grid.

 

[R1Thor]

I'm in TX and my hoa said they cannot deny a request to install solar when I did mine in March. My house (incl Rivian) is now net zero. I know this isn't possible everywhere but I wish those that wanted to go solar could. It would certainly help the grid.

Damn, I did some Googling; I thought (when I was informed) that these were national statutes.

It's pretty incredible that in this day and age anyone can tell you how to provide utilities to your home...especially those that improve your situation, as well as the system as a whole. Fortunately, here in PA, what I said is true; HOAs cannot block Solar. This should be the same everywhere.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Everyone talking about the grid needing to be replaced being some huge stumbling block doesn't really realize the replacement of the grid has been a long time coming anyways. Most of the infrastructure is still cobbled together from the 50's and 60's at this point and is long overdue for replacement anyways. Modernizing our distribution network is a great idea that we should be doing regardless of EVs. Right now we are way to vulnerable to a bad actor taking down large swaths of our power grid.

Personally I think the climate reasons for switching to EVs are exaggerated by the government to cover for the real reasons which are strategic in nature. The tech package included with EVs has military applications for sure, and there have been articles for at least 20 years talking about how our power grid is vulnerable security wise to another nation wishing to do us harm. Either way it's a good idea to modernize our country because investing in the future of your country, and the world is how you guarantee prosperity in the future.

The climate reasons allow the government to push for all these technologies while not angering the countries we are hardening against. That's why we're seeing all these bills being targeted now at domestic production and tech advancement happening with allies. It's all strategic and I think that's a smart and good thing.

 

[Boston Bill]

Not so fast people. Not every one can afford to pay more than $20k for a vehicle.
Also as of last week the U.S. electric vehicle inventory was at about 100 days of inventory.
Electric is not for everyone. The wife does a 250 mile trip to see her mom once a month. She does not want an electric car.
And you all make me laugh. In the end you all burn fuel. Unless you have solar panels how do you think most of the electricity is generated? Some type of fossil fuels.

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