Where is the Electricity going to come to charge EVs ?

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12.4 Gwatts is very impressive for solar. Also impressive is the 8 GW ramp up after the sun goes down. A lot of storage is required to make sure some of that power can be shifted towards the evening. Not sure who pays for it. Here is the California “ Duck “ curve showing net power, that is total demand minus solar.

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I don't think there's any risk of that. The number of solar panels necessary to run a fast charge station during the day is massive, lol.

It might be illuminating to calculate out just how large a solar field would be needed to fast charge (along a major highway, at a place like Bucees) 50 modern EV's at 250Kw peak and let's say, 10 Tesla Trucks at 1mW peak, at a time. Here's the formula for our 22.5MW solar field:

QwjCmc7.png


Of course, that's inaccurate, as even here in S. FL there is only 4.7 hours of available solar per day, annualized. Sooooo, with a rough average of 6 acres per MW, 10 trucks and 50 cars (an admittedly very small number) AND 24 hours per day (a multiplication factor of 5.1) , we need an absolute minimum of 22.5 x 6 acres, x 5.1 multiplicaton factor, x convertor losses = 700 acres.

Quite simply, Solar ain't gonna cut it. 700 acres can fill these vehicles 10X slower than gas pumps. So, to match the capability of fuel, we need another 10x multiplication factor. 7000 acres should do it.
 
I don't think you need calculus when so many things are not deterministic in the real world, just algebra/arithmetic is probably good enough of a ball park.

What likely will happen though, is you have a large fleet of vehicles and not all of them need fast charging at the same time, some will connect and disconnect, and this solar farm should be grid-connected so they are going to be balanced out based on "the law of large numbers".

There are so many things in life that can fluctuate but when in large numbers, things settle to a pattern: sewage treatment plant capacity, water pump and flow need for municipal, electrical grid, data center utilization, traffic on the highway, etc.
 
I see that many are excited about EVs, I can understand part of it but I myself stand by my thoughts that it will not be possible for EVs to come close to replacing gasoline vehicles for at least 20 years, more or less I can see EVs maybe getting to a saturation point of 20% of new vehicle sales, if that much, I think maybe closer to 10%. I think once people see the cost of charging them AND the fact that we do not have the power plants and infrastructure to carry the electricity to everyones home to charge the cars.
So where is the power going to come from to charge these cars? We barely have enough power in the USA to run our home air conditioners at any time of the day.
Until people wake up to the fact that we need nuclear plants, its just not going to happen.

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Source = https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/04/map-of-nuclear-power-in-the-us-see-where-reactors-are-located.html

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Maybe in the near future plasma power generation will be developed to the point that it is a viable power source for the grid.
 
It might be illuminating to calculate out just how large a solar field would be needed to fast charge (along a major highway, at a place like Bucees) 50 modern EV's at 250Kw peak and let's say, 10 Tesla Trucks at 1mW peak, at a time. Here's the formula for our 22.5MW solar field:

QwjCmc7.png


Of course, that's inaccurate, as even here in S. FL there is only 4.7 hours of available solar per day, annualized. Sooooo, with a rough average of 6 acres per MW, 10 trucks and 50 cars (an admittedly very small number) AND 24 hours per day (a multiplication factor of 5.1) , we need an absolute minimum of 22.5 x 6 acres, x 5.1 multiplicaton factor, x convertor losses = 700 acres.

Quite simply, Solar ain't gonna cut it. 700 acres can fill these vehicles 10X slower than gas pumps. So, to match the capability of fuel, we need another 10x multiplication factor. 7000 acres should do it.
Curious... What if every house, apartment, parking lot, etc had solar panels? I don't pretend to understand the numbers, but my little solar project is working for me!
Did you know Stanford University is moving towards 100% renewable energy?
 
Curious... What if every house, apartment, parking lot, etc had solar panels? I don't pretend to understand the numbers, but my little solar project is working for me!
Did you know Stanford University is moving towards 100% renewable energy?
The electricity would definitely go to fixed cost per meter for grid connection and maintenance, and then some dynamic rate for going in and out of each household. The rule will be different in each municipal and it would probably be some sort of "take a penny leave a penny" system for neutral load when the sun is shinning, then you pay a generator somewhere rural to be on a tier list of standby, even if you never use a kwh so it is always ready to turn on, then your EV will be charging one minute and stopping another minute depending on which direction the grid is flowing, and your rate changes by the minute literally.

Overall you will not be completely free, but you will likely save some money if you need a new roof anyways (replacement or new house).

If you really want to pinch penny you will have a contract for certain rate so your electric company can control your laundry dryer, your EV charging, your AC, your water heater, in exchange for either convenience or the best deal. In other word, every appliance will have a smart meter build in.

I don't mind at all if the price is right.
 
Curious... What if every house, apartment, parking lot, etc had solar panels? I don't pretend to understand the numbers, but my little solar project is working for me!
Did you know Stanford University is moving towards 100% renewable energy?
Well, rooftop, while definitely better than using farmland, is less efficient than commercial ground-mount and your exposure time is also typically less because of the less than ideal angles.

Let's do a nuke to solar comparison, lol.
Darlington is oft cited as being able to power 2 million homes, with a nameplate capacity of 3,512MW.

If we wanted to match nameplate, we'd need, obviously, 3,512MW of solar; 3,512,000kW. So, if every house had an 8kW system, that's 439,000 homes. However, the nuke produces ~90% CF, so, over the course of the year, it produces 27.7TWh; 27.7 billion kWh. Now, here in Ontario, rooftop solar would be lucky to have an annual CF of 10%, but we'll use that for the sake of this example.

So, 90% CF for the nuke gives us 3,160.8MW
10% CF for our solar panels yields 351.2MW

We are going to need some more panels.

Working that number backwards we end up with 31,608MW of solar needed; 4 million homes.

So, we'd need 4 million homes worth of solar panels, to provide enough power to run 2 million homes? That's how the math works, lol.
 
Folks I'd rather not close this down however I will if we have to moderate it again.

So no political commentary, no profanity and if trouble ahead make you as giddy as some comments appear just spare everyone your delight.

And the person who gets it closed down will be getting a long time away.
 
Well, rooftop, while definitely better than using farmland, is less efficient than commercial ground-mount and your exposure time is also typically less because of the less than ideal angles.

Let's do a nuke to solar comparison, lol.
Darlington is oft cited as being able to power 2 million homes, with a nameplate capacity of 3,512MW.

If we wanted to match nameplate, we'd need, obviously, 3,512MW of solar; 3,512,000kW. So, if every house had an 8kW system, that's 439,000 homes. However, the nuke produces ~90% CF, so, over the course of the year, it produces 27.7TWh; 27.7 billion kWh. Now, here in Ontario, rooftop solar would be lucky to have an annual CF of 10%, but we'll use that for the sake of this example.

So, 90% CF for the nuke gives us 3,160.8MW
10% CF for our solar panels yields 351.2MW

We are going to need some more panels.

Working that number backwards we end up with 31,608MW of solar needed; 4 million homes.

So, we'd need 4 million homes worth of solar panels, to provide enough power to run 2 million homes? That's how the math works, lol.
Your argument should have been stopped as soon as you put rooftop solar in Ontario. Why would you do that when you are so high up north to begin with?

Regarding to the angle problem, let's say if panel and labor are both cheap, but electricity is not, the architects would build houses that have the right roof angle and direction to take advantage of the solar angle, then over a few decades people will get used to it and think they are beautiful, like how most buildings are actually functional but people got used to them and think they are beautiful.

I think in area where AC usage is high, every new house should be designed with enough roof top solar to cover some median / average amount of AC usage. Gradually it would shave enough peak demand off the grid and average out the local demand / supply. Of course to make it perfect for the grid it would be quota-based, and nobody would like it.
 
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Your argument should have been stopped as soon as you put rooftop solar in Ontario. Why would you do that when you are so high up north to begin with?

Regarding to the angle problem, let's say if panel and labor are both cheap, but electricity is not, the architects would build houses that have the right roof angle and direction to take advantage of the solar angle, then over a few decades people will get used to it and think they are beautiful, like how most buildings are actually functional but people got used to them and think they are beautiful.

I think in area where AC usage is high, every new house should be designed with enough roof top solar to cover some median / average amount of AC usage. Gradually it would shave enough peak demand off the grid and average out the local demand / supply. Of course to make it perfect for the grid it would be quota-based, and nobody would like it.
Just trying to keep it real, lol.
 
Curious... What if every house, apartment, parking lot, etc had solar panels? I don't pretend to understand the numbers, but my little solar project is working for me!
Did you know Stanford University is moving towards 100% renewable energy?
Of course, rooftop solar can provide, in many locations, a nice reduction in power plant output when the sun is shining. I have some solar and understand it well. I'd love a 15KW setup that could run my AC during the summer.

But to replace "ALL" energy use with renewables is nowhere near practical. A careful study of CA energy use clearly illuminates that. Here in FL, we don't/won't have any Hydroelectric plants from nearby states we can draw from. Nor do we have any way to pump water uphill for storage.

Again, be aware that the intermittency of solar is not a problem we have been able to overcome. We burn more NG than ever, despite our huge solar fields. It's cloudy right now!

The only practical way I see this working is to use Nuclear Power.
 
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Solar panels on every home might work in the idyllic neighborhoods of SoCal but in a lot of other sunny regions you have storms that will wreak havoc on the panels. One big hailstorm will create a huge mess of broken panels and high costs to replace them.
 
Of course, rooftop solar can provide, in many locations, a nice reduction in power plant output when the sun is shining. I have some solar and understand it well. I'd love a 15KW setup that could run my AC during the summer.

But to replace "ALL" energy use with renewables is nowhere near practical. A careful study of CA energy use clearly illuminates that.
Solar panels on every home might work in the idyllic neighborhoods of SoCal but in a lot of other sunny regions you have storms that will wreak havoc on the panels. One big hailstorm will create a huge mess of broken panels and high costs to replace them.
The other big issue with solar is that while it displaces daytime peaking demand, it creates morning/evening ramps in doing so, where daytime demand is coming up, but solar is either not yet available, or has already started to bugger off. This needs to be accounted for and presently, this is done with fast-ramp gas peakers. How this appears on our grid is a late day increase in peak demand. The exaggerated version is the duck curve.

Also, if your grid is already using large scale green baseload (hydro or nuclear) then spilling water or dumping steam; throttling either of those sources for solar is insane. Solar penetration should be limited to a level where it only displaces peaking capacity and does not cut into baseload.

We currently have ~3,500MW of nuclear offline for the next few weeks as there is a vacuum building outage at Bruce. The spring and fall are our lowest demand seasons (and the periods of highest wind), so there was no concern about meeting demand and the capacity deficit is mostly being filled with gas. However, you can see how embedded solar (which doesn't show up on this graph, but you can use grid connected solar as a proxy) pushes down daytime demand and by 6PM, that output has waned considerably and visible demand has ticked up:
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You'll note peak demand was anticipated for 8PM, after the sun had set. The day was hot, so wind was predictably AWOL.

This is how that period graphed in Tableau:
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Solar panels on every home might work in the idyllic neighborhoods of SoCal but in a lot of other sunny regions you have storms that will wreak havoc on the panels. One big hailstorm will create a huge mess of broken panels and high costs to replace them.
Solar should never be put in a hail area, ever. I can see it may be ok if you want to spend the money to make it "storm proof" but the cost may not justify.

The other big issue with solar is that while it displaces daytime peaking demand, it creates morning/evening ramps in doing so, where daytime demand is coming up, but solar is either not yet available, or has already started to bugger off. This needs to be accounted for and presently, this is done with fast-ramp gas peakers. How this appears on our grid is a late day increase in peak demand. The exaggerated version is the duck curve.

Also, if your grid is already using large scale green baseload (hydro or nuclear) then spilling water or dumping steam; throttling either of those sources for solar is insane. Solar penetration should be limited to a level where it only displaces peaking capacity and does not cut into baseload.
I think that's very true, our civilization has not really gotten used to on demand pricing, so we don't do anything to avoid peak and shift load to off peak until smart meter came along. This means problem for the grid and these newer volatile generations. It will take a decade or so before people gets into the habit of doing laundry off peak, and charging their EV when the rate is good (that means we need large batteries, which means it will take some time to be cheap). Limiting net metering is the short term solution (Hawaii). Long term solution would be tying the grid across multiple timezone (noon solar in the west, gas turbine in the middle), would take some time to happen.

It would probably work well in Europe as well (solar in Spain, gas turbine in Poland, assuming gas still flows in from Russia, but of course politics and war will make it uncertain), and China (solar in the Gobi transmitting to the eastern population centers).
 
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. It will take a decade or so before people gets into the habit of doing laundry off peak/charging an EV
Charging and laundry happens when I'm home, which is always after 7:30PM and sometimes after 10:00 PM. Like many other people, I have no choice when I use power.

Furthermore, "off peak" rates do little to lower an average electric bill, and for some users, often drive costs way up. That entire "scheme" makes little sense to me.
 
Charging and laundry happens when I'm home, which is always after 7:30PM and sometimes after 10:00 PM. Like many other people, I have no choice when I use power.

Furthermore, "off peak" rates do little to lower an average electric bill, and for some users, often drive costs way up. That entire "scheme" makes little sense to me.
What I was thinking, is a delay start on tumble dry (washing doesn't use much electricity). Charging would probably also be delay start already at least over the evening on 220V (110V probably has no choice but at least it is not charging most of the capacity at early hours).

Regarding to "do little to lower average electric bill", it depends on what rate you sign up for. To some of the people on EV rate plan the peak hours may be 46-60c/kwh but off peak mid-night to 7am would likely be 16c/kwh here. It won't do much if you are just cooking, using computer, turning on light, etc, it certainly will blow you past the flat tier rate plan from tier 1 (300kwh/mo) / 2 (another 300kwh/mo) to 3 and beyond, and those higher tiers are more expensive (likely 60c/kwh) than the 36c/kwh they charge tier 1 on.

If you look at industrial rate you will find that time is a huge factor in cost / kwh.
 
What I was thinking, is a delay start on tumble dry (washing doesn't use much electricity). Charging would probably also be delay start already at least over the evening on 220V (110V probably has no choice but at least it is not charging most of the capacity at early hours).

Regarding to "do little to lower average electric bill", it depends on what rate you sign up for. To some of the people on EV rate plan the peak hours may be 46-60c/kwh but off peak mid-night to 7am would likely be 16c/kwh here. It won't do much if you are just cooking, using computer, turning on light, etc, it certainly will blow you past the flat tier rate plan from tier 1 (300kwh/mo) / 2 (another 300kwh/mo) to 3 and beyond, and those higher tiers are more expensive (likely 60c/kwh) than the 36c/kwh they charge tier 1 on.

If you look at industrial rate you will find that time is a huge factor in cost / kwh.
I think you'll find that if you force people into having to choose when they use energy they aren't going to be happy about that and if somebody offers them the option of not having to do that (think: Politics) then they'll end up eventually voting that way. People won't choose to be inconvenienced when the option not to be is there. Why should we have to craft our lives around variable intermittent resources when there are alternatives that don't require those contortions? More and more people are coming around to that reality.

The Western lifestyle has been built around inexpensive and abundant energy. As much as some like to claim we can and should move away from that, nobody really wants to live like a pauper.
 
I think you'll find that if you force people into having to choose when they use energy they aren't going to be happy about that and if somebody offers them the option of not having to do that (think: Politics) then they'll end up eventually voting that way. People won't choose to be inconvenienced when the option not to be is there. Why should we have to craft our lives around variable intermittent resources when there are alternatives that don't require those contortions? More and more people are coming around to that reality.

The Western lifestyle has been built around inexpensive and abundant energy. As much as some like to claim we can and should move away from that, nobody really wants to live like a pauper.
Totally agree, which is why many things in life should be tiered in terms of how much you want to spend and how much you want to compromise.

Scrap metal arc furnace is probably the lowest tier, and cooking dinner is probably the highest tier. Laundry drying, charging EV (with a big enough battery), pumping water between reservoirs, bitcoin mining, etc are probably somewhere in between.

Regarding to EV, it is really about the competition between gas and electricity price + battery depreciation cost. Even if you are not talking about plug in hybrid, a lot of family may decide which vehicle to drive for the day depending on the charge / gas price of the day (short trip vs long trip of each spouse), and whether to pump gas / charge that day.

A lot of things do not need human to micro manage if design right. Charing EV if done by grid control can be on for a few mins and off for another few, same for laundry dryer's heating element / heat pump, they can be on for a few minutes and off for a few, start one when finish another, to keep the grid / home circuit at peak current capacity without tripping.
 
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