Electrical demand with more EVs on the road. Is there enough power supply for future growth?

[ExCivilian]

Shutting off power because of the very real issues of power lines causing forest fires is different than not being able to supply power to the grid because of excess demand.

What do you think the difference is?

The same reasons causing the fires across our states are also responsible for some many people drawing so much A/C, which you elsewhere point to as the main culprit for our current power demands.

It's not like CA just doesn't have the infrastructure to deliver power to its residents--we have shut the lines down because of the fire risks just like Oregon has to.

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[The Rogue Robot]

What do you think the difference is?

The same reasons causing the fires across our states are also responsible for some many people drawing so much A/C, which you elsewhere point to as the main culprit for our current power demands.

It's not like CA just doesn't have the infrastructure to deliver power to its residents--we have shut the lines down because of the fire risks just like Oregon has to.

The difference is that managing the grid because of extreme usage is a power supply and demand issue, while managing the grid for a wind/fire event is a natural disaster/preventative measure. We can't as easily plan for high wind events, and that has the potential to need to shut the grid off. We can however plan for the power demand of everyone cranking up their AC, and that demand is known and expected seasonally. The key there is storage and release to be able to meet that demand.

 

[ExCivilian]

The difference is that managing the grid because of extreme usage is a power supply and demand issue, while managing the grid for a wind/fire event is a natural disaster/preventative measure.

The wide-spread power outages in CA are caused by transmission lines being turned off due to high fire risk of leaving them running. I personally don't consider a local outage from malfunction or damage to be a "power grid" problem but based on the many comments on this board it seems people don't distinguish between whether a state can produce enough power for its people, whether shutdowns occur because of a fire or vehicle collision, or just plain fraud or incompetence.

The argument that CA just doesn't or can't deliver enough power to its citizens isn't true. We just experienced a historical demand yet didn't have any problems with that side of the issue. The shutdowns over the past week were due to forest fires just like they were in Oregon.

We're not talking about two wildly different places here: everything between Sacramento and Eugene is roughly the same geographically topographically, economically, and culturally with the caveat that Ashland is probably more accurately understood as a suburb of Seattle

But, again, the reason I'm confused by your distinction is that the reason our forest fires are so severe and risky is the same reason people are pumping their A/Cs--they're both due to peak heat and dryness increasing year over year. Addressing one entails addressing the other.

 

[The Rogue Robot]

But, again, the reason I'm confused by your distinction is that the reason our forest fires are so severe and risky is the same reason people are pumping their A/Cs--they're both due to peak heat and dryness increasing year over year. Addressing one entails addressing the other.

the distinction is that we can control supply and demand. Over supply needs to be met with storage, to be able to offset demand and balance the grid.
Forest fire issues need to be balanced with better line maintenance, personal or local power storage, buried last mile transmission lines.
Just because the power is out in both scenarios doesn’t mean that the situations have the same problem or solution.

 

[ExCivilian]

Just because the power is out in both scenarios doesn’t mean that the situations have the same problem or solution.

The only CA residents who experienced planned power losses this past week were due to forest fire risk.

Statewide CAISO, which does not handle public safety power shutoffs (PSPS is handled by the local utility co.), warned consumers about possible shutoffs due to demand--but that never materialized even though we used more power this past week than we have in the entire history of our state.

The primary reason there's constant talk of CA's "power problem" is because of how our energy rates are set. We produce more power than we need but because of the way profits have been "decoupled" from rates our investor-owned utility companies are incentivized to make these arguments publicly and then fund, on our rate-payers' backs, new buildouts that then sit idling at minimal capacity.

Regardless, the fundamental reason both Oregon and California have to shut off power to their citizens is due to unprecedented heat. Forest fires, hydro-electric underproduction, and even household demand are all consequences of unprecedented heat.

 

[ExCivilian]

Here's an interesting article regarding our "football field" sized batteries that are currently providing more power to our grid than our largest nuclear facility:
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/sto...ctric-grid-batteries-heat-wave-september-2022

One interesting figure is that, at their peak, these batteries were contributing over 3,300 MW of energy to our grid. Their average contribution is roughly 2,000 MW, which also happens to be the amount of energy consumption increase we've experienced since 2002! Currently, battery prices are beating fossil fuel energy plants.

 

[MM in SouthTX]

Here's an interesting article regarding our "football field" sized batteries that are currently providing more power to our grid than our largest nuclear facility:
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/sto...ctric-grid-batteries-heat-wave-september-2022

One interesting figure is that, at their peak, these batteries were contributing over 3,300 MW of energy to our grid. Their average contribution is roughly 2,000 MW, which also happens to be the amount of energy consumption increase we've experienced since 2002! Currently, battery prices are beating fossil fuel energy plants.

That’s an opinion piece, not a news article. There are opinion pieces that would counter a lot of the things said in that opinion piece about how good batteries are. I am not taking sides because I don’t know enough about it, but some of the questions to ask when you read something like that are: Where did the minerals for these batteries come from? What type of mining was done to get them? What type of energy went into the mining? How long do they last?

I did read an article recently that said that China is building coal plants faster than we are removing them. Just things to think about. Grid-scale batteries may be a good green choice. I don’t know. Seems like nuclear is better if you want green.

 

[ExCivilian]

That’s an opinion piece, not a news article.

It being an "op-ed" is not relevant to the numbers provided, which were facts and not opinion-based.

I didn't post it to claim batteries were great and therefore get into some weird debate with you, or whatever articles you claim would refute that point, about whether batteries *should* be used. It's an article explaining that they *are* being used, they *are* providing more energy to our grid than fossil fuel power plants, and they *are* providing us more energy than we've ever used in this state.

The questions of "Where did the minerals for these batteries come from?" "What type of mining was done to get them?" "What type of energy went into the mining? How long do they last?" aren't relevant to anything I wrote and I don't particularly care to discuss them. They are wholly uninteresting questions to me. You can have those discussions in *your* state with *your* elected officials (and of course also in this thread with other members--not saying you can't speak your mind just unclear why you bothered quoting and responding to my post just to say that you think batteries aren't great, which wasn't the point of my post or the article at all).

 

[sotek2345]

That’s an opinion piece, not a news article. There are opinion pieces that would counter a lot of the things said in that opinion piece about how good batteries are. I am not taking sides because I don’t know enough about it, but some of the questions to ask when you read something like that are: Where did the minerals for these batteries come from? What type of mining was done to get them? What type of energy went into the mining? How long do they last?

I did read an article recently that said that China is building coal plants faster than we are removing them. Just things to think about. Grid-scale batteries may be a good green choice. I don’t know. Seems like nuclear is better if you want green.

I will take pumped hydro over batteries for grid storage too. At least for anywhere that has hills/mountains.

Except for using "used" EV batteries that have degraded too much for use in a car/truck. It is a great second life for them where power and energy density aren't as critical.

 

[ExCivilian]

I will take pumped hydro over batteries for grid storage too. At least for anywhere that has hills/mountains.

That's not a realistic scenario.

I would prefer we just didn't need energy...but it's not real so rather pointless to suggest.

 

[sotek2345]

That's not a realistic scenario.

I would prefer we just didn't need energy...but it's not real so rather pointless to suggest.

Why is pumped hydro not realistic? All you need is a hill with a resevoir at the top and bottom, some pumps, and a turbine generator.

 

[ExCivilian]

Why is pumped hydro not realistic? All you need is a hill with a resevoir at the top and bottom, some pumps, and a turbine generator.

It's not realistic because we don't have all that infrastructure right now. That's ignoring the reality that it's going to take a bit more than some hills, some pumps, and some turbine generators to supply 40 million people with electricity when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing--it's also going to take a lot of water.

I can only imagine the reason you didn't list "water" as an essential component to that system is that you're assuming the water is there and that we just have to build infrastructure around it to harness energy from it. Assuming the water is there, or that it will always be there, is a dangerous assumption.

The same unprecedented heat that underlies unprecedented energy usage and unprecedented forest fires is also causing unprecedented lack of water. Here is the impact of the once mighty Colorado river drying up on our historical hydro-electric projects:

Regardless, unless some people are ready to muster an argument against transitional battery storage that is *currently* allowing CA to shut down its fossil fuel generators because it's not the end-all-be-all perfect solution we'd all prefer, the idea that we ought not use batteries because storing energy on our waterways is technically feasible seems like an unrealistic and untenable position to me.

I don't see the value in debating which sources of energy are better because we currently need them all to get off fossil fuels...unless one doesn't think it urgent to move away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible.

 

[MM in SouthTX]

1) how do the blackouts affect owners who are new to EVs? No different than blackouts affect gas powered vehicles. Gas pumps run on electricity. No power, no gas.

For short term outages, you may have a point, but usually short term outages aren’t an issue, unless you have an empty tank or a low state of charge.

Having been through many events in which there is prolonged loss of power, I am thinking the comparison is not as simple as you make it. For instance, one small generator can power the gas pumps to fill hundreds of cars. It would take that generator a day to charge one car. Also, many of us have gas cans at home. I usually fill 15 gallons in addition to full tanks in the cars before a hurricane hits. Finally, when there are weather-related power outages, they are usually localized. You can always find a gas station with power. That is not the same for electrical charging at this point.

But this thread is (or was) about the grid handling EV’s.

 

[sotek2345]

It's not realistic because we don't have all that infrastructure right now. That's ignoring the reality that it's going to take a bit more than some hills, some pumps, and some turbine generators to supply 40 million people with electricity when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing--it's also going to take a lot of water.

I can only imagine the reason you didn't list "water" as an essential component to that system is that you're assuming the water is there and that we just have to build infrastructure around it to harness energy from it. Assuming the water is there, or that it will always be there, is a dangerous assumption.

The same unprecedented heat that underlies unprecedented energy usage and unprecedented forest fires is also causing unprecedented lack of water. Here is the impact of the once mighty Colorado river drying up on our historical hydro-electric projects:

Regardless, unless some people are ready to muster an argument against transitional battery storage that is *currently* allowing CA to shut down its fossil fuel generators because it's not the end-all-be-all perfect solution we'd all prefer, the idea that we ought not use batteries because storing energy on our waterways is technically feasible seems like an unrealistic and untenable position to me.

Sorry - didn't mean to come across as anti-battery. We have a lot of challenges and will need an "all of the above" for eco-friendly storage solutions. If you have batteries in place use them. If you can leverage used battery supplies great. If you have hills and water around (i.e. Northeast), use that. Thermal and Kinetic storage can also be used, though they have some challenge as well.

 

[ExCivilian]

Sorry - didn't mean to come across as anti-battery. We have a lot of challenges and will need an "all of the above" for eco-friendly storage solutions. If you have batteries in place use them. If you can leverage used battery supplies great. If you have hills and water around (i.e. Northeast), use that. Thermal and Kinetic storage can also be used, though they have some challenge as well.

I agree with this position. Likewise, I didn't mean to come across as anti-hydro. I'm actually not all in on batteries. I do not consider everyone driving around in RC cars as a viable permanent solution. I don't believe we'll eventually all be driving around in 1,000 mile range EVs with 10 minute recharge capabilities, for example. I imagine we will eventually realize this was a great (or as good as we were willing to go with) 21st century solution that helped get us into the 22nd century but not much more than that.

My point in saying your response wasn't realistic is because I'm talking about the here and now. Last week, tens of millions of CA residents used an unprecedented amount of energy to run our A/Cs (among other things) during an unprecedented heat wave. We did it without imposing rolling blackouts and we were able to do that because of these football field-sized batteries that our state has been placing inside the shutdown fossil fuel generator sites.

We still need to harness hydro in a way that allows energy storage and not just production as you mention. But that's for the future...and even in that future we will almost certainly still need these football field-sized batteries. There may be a day when we don't need them and we'll decommission the batteries eventually when that day comes. But that day isn't today and it certainly wasn't last week

My "that's not realistic" would have been better expressed as "that's not realistic as a solution for the immediate future" or maybe "that's not realistic as our only option."

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