When you consider any public infrastructure - roads, telecommunications, electricity grids - the bottleneck is always how much can be supplied during peak periods.
When we add capacity, its always to address the peak demand.
The solution is to get smarter about shifting demand, particularly as we build out a massive fleet of EVs.
We need appliances that can take into account grid pricing, and any local power supply that the owner has (solar, EV battery), and adjust accordingly. eg. heating or cooling a house an hour earlier than when the owner would typically manually request it.
Secondly for EVs that can charge offpeak at night (eg. at 9pm, not simply when the owner gets home at 6pm and plugs it in - contributing to peak demand) and then upload some power back into the grid in the morning, and then during the day again if necessary.
Its going to be hard to integrate this into appliances, but power upload and smart charging/discharging should be mandated for new EVs.
While we're at it we should also begin charging for time of use for roads - to reduce congestion, and replace the revenue from gas taxes. This UI and charging mechanism could be built into the infotainment system.
When we add capacity, its always to address the peak demand.
The solution is to get smarter about shifting demand, particularly as we build out a massive fleet of EVs.
Here's an example of hourly electricity use in Florida: https://energymag.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/daily-demand-f...
We need appliances that can take into account grid pricing, and any local power supply that the owner has (solar, EV battery), and adjust accordingly. eg. heating or cooling a house an hour earlier than when the owner would typically manually request it.
Secondly for EVs that can charge offpeak at night (eg. at 9pm, not simply when the owner gets home at 6pm and plugs it in - contributing to peak demand) and then upload some power back into the grid in the morning, and then during the day again if necessary.
Its going to be hard to integrate this into appliances, but power upload and smart charging/discharging should be mandated for new EVs.
While we're at it we should also begin charging for time of use for roads - to reduce congestion, and replace the revenue from gas taxes. This UI and charging mechanism could be built into the infotainment system.