The Volt will Jolt our Power Grid....

[dbermanmd]

link:Challenges to grow with electric cars' sales | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

Excerpts:
"When a Chevrolet Volt is plugged into a 240-volt outlet, it will use about 3.3 kilowatts of power, or about the same amount of power as a dishwasher or air conditioner.Most people are already familiar with what can happen when thousands of air conditioners are plugged in and running at the same time during the summer: brownouts.
"The last thing we would want is for everyone to come home ... and plug them in at 5 or 6 o'clock on a hot, muggy summer afternoon ... when we are at our peak," DTE Energy Chairman Anthony Earley Jr. told the Free Press in an interview last week."

With hundreds of thousands of electric cars heading our way (i am on line for the prius plug in) what are we going to do to protect our grid from that increased demand?

looks like no new nukes,,, no new coal,,, no fossil fuel plants... we are i am assuming waiting for solar and wind power to take hold.

i can only imagine the rolling brown outs in 3-5 years.....

ironic,, the car that obama wants to save GM will:

1. be sold at significant loss
2. will cause great strain on the electric grid
3. and probably will be in the shop as often as other GM products
4. not to mention suffer from poor resale valuations

[fuzzy1]

This is just another scare tactic. The grid has a lot of nighttime capacity to charge electric cars, and the 'technology' to use timers to delay charging until later at night is very simple compared to the electronics in existing cars. And there is no reason the charging has to proceed at the full-bore 3.4kw rate, it can be slowed down to stretch the the process over the whole night.

Estimates elsewhere are that the grid needs no upgrade for electric cars until the total reaches the 10-20 million unit range.

[dbermanmd]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1

This is just another scare tactic. The grid has a lot of nighttime capacity to charge electric cars, and the 'technology' to use timers to delay charging until later at night is very simple compared to the electronics in existing cars. And there is no reason the charging has to proceed at the full-bore 3.4kw rate, it can be slowed down to stretch the the process over the whole night.

Estimates elsewhere are that the grid needs no upgrade for electric cars until the total reaches the 10-20 million unit range.

nice,,, where did you see that... and mind you no scare tactics implied here... i was unaware of the demand for each plug in...

i have one on order,,, just not an american made one,,, those days are long over of me ever buying american.

i am worried about not keeping up with demand of electric needs at home,,, .

[amm0bob]

I don't think it's a big an issue as some want to make it appear.

Is the Volt going to be cheap... well... not in $$$$$...

The US manufactures need to be forced to make at least a significant percentage of the cars less dependent on foreign oil... and quickly.

With that said...

I don't believe we will see the domestic manufacturers move in earnest until they are compelled.

[Zythryn]

The night time charging is the biggest hole in this type of argument.
The next one is that the Volt is being built in extremely small (for GM) numbers. I believe it was between 10 and 30 thousand the first full year of production?
So as for 'the Volt will Jolt out power grid', that is completely unfounded. As stated before, basically a scare tactic.
The DOE has a report about the added strain on the electric grid plug in hybrids will cause.
In our case, we will soon have a full EV which should get .3-.35KWh/mile.
At 12,000 miles a year, that will be about 3600-4200KWh/year. My solar panels product more than that, so we won't be adding to the strain at all.

[jayman]

Originally Posted by dbermanmd

looks like no new nukes,,, no new coal,,, no fossil fuel plants... we are i am assuming waiting for solar and wind power to take hold.

I think we are in agreement about the absolutely disgraceful state of our "hard" infrastructure. I fully support nuclear development, look at how well it works in France. A lot of folks here don't realize that around 90% of electricity in France comes from their nuclear power program, and they have the lowest power rates in the EU

I find it ironic that the French fully support their nuclear power industry, but we do not. There research center was Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, first headed by Dr Joliot-Curie, a member of the French Commuinist Party (Another irony, hmmm?) .

Over the years, the French developed world-class and respected agencies like Framatome, Cogema, and CEA Industrie. They merged around 9 years ago into Areva, mostly owned by the French government

A lot of significant technological developments were made right in Canada (Eg: gaseous diffusion, CANDU breeder reactor design, etc) with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd - now that effort and money appears to have been pissed away and forgotten

The French become actually shocked - even insulted - if visiting dignataries from the US and Canada suggest they abandon their nuclear power program. Perhaps what we need here is more rolling blackouts from our outdated, neglected hard infrastructure, to get folks thinking about other electricity sources

[FL_Prius_Driver]

Originally Posted by dbermanmd

l.....With hundreds of thousands of electric cars heading our way (i am on line for the prius plug in) what are we going to do to protect our grid from that increased demand?

Do nothing. With the mandate and phasing out of conventional bulbs to CFLs, about 400 Watts per home is available at night (semi-random guess). This works out to allowing 1 EV per every 10 households with no change in demand. With 100 million households that allows 10 million EVs with nothing added. By the time 10 milliion EVs are on the road, we will have figured out what to do next.

[FL_Prius_Driver]

Originally Posted by jayman

.....The French become actually shocked - even insulted - if visiting dignataries from the US and Canada suggest they abandon their nuclear power program. Perhaps what we need here is more rolling blackouts from our outdated, neglected hard infrastructure, to get folks thinking about other electricity sources

It's only far to point out that the French are still getting an initial permanent waste disposal site ready. So while the front end is impressive, the ugly back end still has a lot of warts.

[jayman]

I'm really surprised we don't just re-burn the used fuel in CANDU-style breeder reactors. The entire point to the expensive CANDU program in Canada, was to only do initial fueling with uranium. The CANDU doesn't even need enriched uranium, but natural uranium

The Evolution of CANDU Fuel Cycles and Their Potential Contribution to World Peace

Subsequent fueling is done with spent fuel and thorium. Obviously, the plutonium production from such reactors is a concern, but depending on what "exotics" are reburnt, you can take care of the plutonium as well

As far as the French, they have reprocessed spent fuel since 1966

Nuclear Chemistry - Recycling Spent Reactor Fuel

Are there criticisms? Sure there are, but at least the French are doing *something* unlike us

http://www.fissilematerials.org/ipfm/site_down/rr04.pdf

I would like to see a lot more research into this topic. But for whatever reason, even mention of pursuing research, brings out ranting and raving in folks. I guess we're just supposed to keep the spent fuel in olympic size swimming pools - indefinitely

[rpatterman]

The only upgrade needed to the electric grid to support EV / PHEVs is to start time-of-day billing.
Night time rates could be 1/2 to 1/3 of peak daytime rates. It would even be possible to charge up at night at .05/kWh and sell back at peak summer dinner time at .15/kWh.

Adding distributed generation (roof top PV solar) would also solve grid overload, since peak production typically matches peak demand.

Also as pointed out phasing out conventional light bulbs for CFLs and LEDs will reallocate some supply. Evs and PHEVs will take years to be available in large numbers. As we retire our ICE fleet and replace with EVS/PHEVs we will also be retiring our old appliances, air conditioners, etc and replacing with new Energy Star models.

Green Technology should not be set back by the typical "scare tactics" that have slowed anything that threatens the big corporations. The US Auto industry has already blown any chance of leading on this new technology and the only "affordable" cars available in a few years will be EVs bought at Walmart and produced in China. Just another example of our lack of leadership or vision over the last 30 years.