As California (and some other utilities) become reliant on unreliable wind and solar PV power, a study says that EV charging will need to be done during the day and not overnight.
Instead, the study says more EV charging should be done during midday hours—ideally at work or public stations—when wind and solar power supplies are at their peak, sometimes producing more energy than the grid can handle. State officials should “consider utility rates that encourage day charging and incentivize investment in charging infrastructure to shift drivers from home to work for charging,” said Ram Rajagopal, one of the study’s authors and an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford.
Source: Charging EVs At Home Overnight May Not Be The Cheapest Option For Much Longer
Translation: Electricity costs will need to be more expensive at night to discourage overnight charging.
We seem headed towards roughly doubling the prices of vehicles whose refueling costs may often be greater than that of gasoline. No wonder states need to mandate a ban on sale of gas cars. Time will tell if manufacturers can really get costs down, and if utilities can produce sufficient electrical power.
California’s electrical grid is already unreliable and they intend to increase EVs from 6% of vehicles today to 30% within 8 years, at which point, the grid may not be ready. That’s what the study says.
All this for a conversion whose product life cycle achieves a -28% carbon emissions reduction for EVs driven to 200,000 miles (but less that when the vehicles are driven fewer miles – because the bulk of carbon emissions are produced during manufacturing).
