Power companies can manage load. The power provider I’m with manages my charging. All I have to do is pick a time when I want it to be ready (the power company not only gives the half rate night pricing, it also pays me to do this). There’s a lot of excess energy at night, off-peak. Millions of vehicles smart charging will balance the load.
The issue is, when millions want/need to charge at peak. Which, I haven’t really seen yet (having owned an EV for 4 years now). Mainly because, it’s more expensive to do so. What I have seen is the grid being overloaded because of students doing all the heating, laundry, dishwashing and showering when power companies offer a “free hour of power” and they all choose the same hour according to student scheduling (they prefer timeslots between 1600 to 2200)… But I haven’t seen the grid go down because of EV’s, we mainly pick the later timeslots (2300 to 0700).
Power companies can manage load. The power provider I’m with manages my charging. All I have to do is pick a time when I want it to be ready (the power company not only gives the half rate night pricing, it also pays me to do this). There’s a lot of excess energy at night, off-peak. Millions of vehicles smart charging will balance the load.
The issue is, when millions want/need to charge at peak. Which, I haven’t really seen yet (having owned an EV for 4 years now). Mainly because, it’s more expensive to do so. What I have seen is the grid being overloaded because of students doing all the heating, laundry, dishwashing and showering when power companies offer a “free hour of power” and they all choose the same hour according to student scheduling (they prefer timeslots between 1600 to 2200)… But I haven’t seen the grid go down because of EV’s, we mainly pick the later timeslots (2300 to 0700).
Actually smart grids could rely on all those cars plugging in at once. Because cars can put energy back into the grid too.