
US utilities have finally realized electric cars may save them - prostoalex
https://qz.com/1230297/us-utilities-have-finally-realized-electric-cars-will-save-them-and-asked-congress-to-put-more-evs-on-the-road/
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spchampion2
A few years ago I was working with a custom builder on a house plan (that we
didn't end up pursuing), but one of the things I suggested was future proofing
the garage for electric cars. Given that a Tesla can charge on 80 amps, it
seemed reasonable that a two car garage in a custom home should have 160 amp
service. It may not useful right away, but it would very probably be useful
over the life of a home.

He thought I was crazy, and maybe I was. But articles like this make me
wonder.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I would suggest 200A service as a bare minimum, with 400A being ideal (this
will be heavily dependent on your electric utility service entrance). Consider
two EVs, HVAC loads, and possibly electric water heaters, clothes dryers, and
a stove. Also, NEC 80% derating (100A circuit required for an 80A 100% duty
cycle load).

The electrician's time is the most expensive part; oversize for decisions such
as these (load center, EV run to outlet, subpanels, etc).

~~~
blattimwind
200+ A circuits in a residential home really makes a point for 400 V three
phase (where the same load would be ok with a standard 63 A circuit, which is
still a lot). [1]

However, when more and more people try to have fast chargers in their homes
for EVs, then not only the residential installation poses a problem, but
utilities would need to rebuild ~two layers of distribution to accomodate for
a 100-200 % increase in residential power consumption.

[1] Not just because high currents are more difficult to handle properly, but
also because you need a lot less copper.

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lolwhatitis
If you live in a subdivision built within the past couple decades, your
electric runs underground, making it quite expensive to run a second or third
primary phase. You also then need a three-phase transformer, which is
considerably larger than a typical one-phase. Oh, and your service will be
commercial/industrial, which typically comes with demand and energy charges
that can be quite steep: [https://www.northwesternenergy.com/docs/default-
source/docum...](https://www.northwesternenergy.com/docs/default-
source/documents/E-Programs/E-demandcharges.pdf)

~~~
blattimwind
That's true, for North America, but entirely misses the point I made (i.e.
when you try to push dozens of kW into a house, single phase becomes worse
than a below-average idea).

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maliker
Can’t forget the potential load from those kitty hawk autonomous electric
helicopter/planes.

[https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/business/dealbook/flyi...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/business/dealbook/flying-
taxis-larry-page.html?referer=https://www.google.com/)

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beiller
This is maybe off topic, but it also may pave the way for us to use nuclear
energy to produce electricity without greenhouse emissions. I think the
problem we have yet to solve with nuclear, is safety diligence. Maybe some
automation can help with modern tech? Or maybe with efficient manufacturing
like 3d printing, we could tear them down and rebuild them each year?

~~~
wongarsu
In the case of the Three Miles Island Accident, modern sensors and more
automation would have helped. With Fukushima, automation wouldn't have helped,
what they were lacking was better tsunami protection, more resistant
construction, bigger battery backups. At Tschernobyl they had an inherently
unsafe reactor type, operated the reactor outside the safety parameters and
had safety systems deactivated. Not much you can do about that.

Automation would help, but more modern reactor designs that are less prone to
causing problems likely have a much bigger impact.

>Or maybe with efficient manufacturing like 3d printing, we could tear them
down and rebuild them each year?

Tearing nuclear reactors down on regular basis sounds like a much worse
nuclear waste problem than the power production already is. All the stuff that
would be interesting to tear down and rebuild is contaminated from radiation
exposure.

~~~
blattimwind
> With Fukushima,

The main issue with Fukushima and other Japanese nuclear plants is Japanese
regulation enforcing 1960s nuclear safety.

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noobermin
Am I the only one who finds this whole logic upsetting?

We're on the verge of a mass species extinction event and with the news that
efficient electronics are in fact using less energy is somehow _bad news_.

The profit motive doesn't work for utilities...well it does most of the time,
but this is a clear example of when it doesn't.

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jakecopp
It's sad how anything but continuous growth is "bad".

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ThomPete
I don't think you want to live in a society that doesn't grow.

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croon
There's a finite need for ovens, or lamps, or whatever. In some countries, I'm
sure that need isn't met, maybe everywhere, who knows.

But at some point you can't sell more product than what breaks down and needs
replacing, which I would call maintenance mode, not growth.

At that point, you either start designing obsolescence into the products
(arguably already done in both lamps and other various electric appliances),
or you need to disrupt the industry to supply something worth replacing to, or
you (or at least a majority of the workers) move to another industry where
growth can happen.

I absolutely don't want to live in a society where electricity needs grow in
perpetuity, or every house gets more and more lamps "just cuz".

The end goal for any company should be monopoly in their market, at which
point they slash their workforce to just keep the market, and divest into
another market (where they can then employ the workers again).

~~~
ThomPete
Growth isn't just about consumerism it's about human flourishing. We grow not
just because we produce things we grow because we get better and better at
using the resources around us which provide more flourishing for more and more
humans. Without growth we can't do that as we won't have the surplus to invent
and invest in new technologies.

Improve medicine, explore space, optimize production methods, invent new
energy method etc. for more and more people. Those require growth.

~~~
croon
I don't think that definition applies to what you initially responded to
though, as it was about the utilities market.

Other than the definition, I agree with what you're saying.

~~~
ThomPete
I understand that but I don't think you can isolate the two.

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loeg
@dang: Article title is now "may save them," not "will save them."

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olivermarks
From repoweramerica.org in 2009

"The Problem: The US electricity transmission and distribution system – or
‘grid’ -- is in critical need of an upgrade. It is old, balkanized and too
limited in its reach. The current grid is a series of independently operating
regional grids – it can’t meet the needs of a nation whose economy would
benefit substantially from the system optimization that comes with national
interconnection. Its limitations and vulnerability to failure are also
reported to cost the nation $80 billion to $188 billion per year in losses due
to grid-related power outages and power quality issues.1 And most critical to
clean energy development, areas rich in renewable resources like solar, wind
and geothermal are currently not well-served and thus have no ‘highway’
available to move power outputs to the markets where that power is needed"

I wrote a post on ZDnet [http://www.zdnet.com/article/al-gores-unified-smart-
grid-vis...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/al-gores-unified-smart-grid-vision-
for-repowering-the-usa-will-it-happen/) discussing efforts for a unified grid,
but haven't seen much progress since then to support the demands of electric
vehicles.

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John_KZ
US utilities don't need saving. It seems like a bizzare statement to make. The
reason behind the slow growth in electricity demand is the high price dictated
by environmental politics.

Also having such a high burst in demand will be a major problem, not a
benefit. Maybe we need to account for grid expansion, peak demand management
and production capacity increase costs in a new bill of EV taxes. Arguing that
it's good for the economy because of jobs is the same like arguing war is good
for the economy because you get to rebuild infrastructure. It's not, we can
use this potential for more useful things.

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sauwan
>The reason behind the slow growth in electricity demand is the high price
dictated by environmental politics.

That seems like a pretty dubious claim. For one thing, how often do you (or
any home or business owner) not turn stuff on because of how much it might
cost them? For another, the largest driver in my understanding is growing
energy efficiency (e.g. LED's use fractions of the old incandescent bulbs)

~~~
John_KZ
Energy efficiency has been a big factor, but an even bigger one is the energy-
intensive heavy industry fleeing from the developed world to china and other
places where power is cheap and plenty. Countries like Germany that kept their
industry at home face extraorbitant prices. I think they pay close to
30+cents/kWh.

~~~
blattimwind
Residential power is more expensive (per kWh) than industrial power, which
might also be subsidised depending on industry — likely the same for most
western countries. Half of the residential price is a good approximation for
Germany.

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themihai
Isn't the energy getting cheaper due the advances in regenerable sources? This
can't be good for utilities.

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IpV8
Why not? Utilities make money by power transmission. Even if every single
house in the US has solar panels there still is a massive market around
transferring power between houses to balance loads and time of use issues. In
my direct and relevant experience talking with r&d folks and strategic
planners at big utilities, they treat cheaper utilities as another market to
get in to. They don't think of it as a threat to their business.

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miketery
I'm not following. Let's say current transmission and generation is the
baseline. In the future when there is distributed generation, transmission is
definitely going to go down as generation will be tightly coupled with
supplying private, commercial, or industrial entities (eg panels on the roof).
So generation goes down (since more renewable), and distribution as well on
average (due to coupling mechanisms).

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chapill
Not if those cars are going to be largely powered by home solar.

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maliker
A lot of the charging will happen at homes at night, so until energy storage
doesn’t add 200% to the cost to take a solar install to solar + storage, the
utilities are still going to be the power providers.

There are also going to be (hopefully) some low cost utility scale storage
options that, along with the 50% cost advantage of utility solar over rooftop,
could be combined with the existing distribution infrastructure to provide
low-cost and low-carbon energy for transportation.

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meric
It's a reasonable idea if car batteries become easily swappable.

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xyzzyz
Not likely any time soon. There's absolutely no way humans are going to pull
>1000 lbs worth of batteries out of the car every day, and put the same >1000
lbs worth of batteries into it. With a unit of work of 50 lbs (reasonable for
fit people), and a minute to pull out each pack, stow it away, take fresh pack
and put it back in, it would take half an hour of hard physical work every
day. No way regular people are going to do that.

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ddnb
Ofcourse this would be automated, you don't see a person hauling jerrycans to
fill up his car in gasstations do you?

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xyzzyz
I definitely carry jerry cans when I want to fill up my vehicles at home,
which is the context we are in — we were talking about home rooftop solar
installation, and how it can or cannot be used to charge cars overnight.

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justonepost
I laughed long and hard when I read this. You never really know who your
friends and enemies are.

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inteleng
Thanks for telling us.

~~~
justonepost
Ok, fair point. Sometimes though you have to take a step back and appreciate
the wonderful complexity of the universe. So long have we railed against
utilities for their environmental destruction - when it looks like they might
be the actual solution for what we face.

It really makes you question all of your assumptions about what you know and
the people who you think might be working against you. Maybe there is some way
they can work with you.

