EV's and Cold Weather

[bubbasuwannee]

Naval Nuclear Power School

Those Navy Nucs sure are a special bunch.... I work with a few of them here at Siemens on the Healthcare side. My cousin is a retired Nuc MM. They offered me Nuc school, but I was more concerned with blowing things up, so I was an FC instead. Anyways, definitely a smart bunch! Always great working along side them.

 

[BigN8]

Those Navy Nucs sure are a special bunch.... I work with a few of them here at Siemens on the Healthcare side. My cousin is a retired Nuc MM. They offered me Nuc school, but I was more concerned with blowing things up, so I was an FC instead. Anyways, definitely a smart bunch! Always great working along side them.

Haha! I'd say "special bunch". Navy Nuke School was one of the hardest things I've done in my life. The guy I served with at Siemens name is Shane. Dude is in Dubai one Month and then Alaska or Canada the next. Flies First class every time. Not sure exactly what he does but it's some sort of troubleshooting or setup with turbine driven generators for power plants.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Haha! I'd say "special bunch". Navy Nuke School was one of the hardest things I've done in my life. The guy I served with at Siemens name is Shane. Dude is in Dubai one Month and then Alaska or Canada the next. Flies First class every time. Not sure exactly what he does but it's some sort of troubleshooting or setup with turbine driven generators for power plants.

Right on…Robert, the guy I worked with was doing something similar with Siemans, flies all over the place, but nationally not internationally, as a troubleshooter, mainly for the aero derivative gas turbines.

 

[bubbasuwannee]

Haha! I'd say "special bunch". Navy Nuke School was one of the hardest things I've done in my life. The guy I served with at Siemens name is Shane. Dude is in Dubai one Month and then Alaska or Canada the next. Flies First class every time. Not sure exactly what he does but it's some sort of troubleshooting or setup with turbine driven generators for power plants.

Those fellas are working for the Siemens energy division from the way it sounds. Their wind turbine school is down in Orlando....got to visit that site back in 2015. Siemens has their hands in a bunch of different sectors. I'm on the Healthcare side; my electronics training/background got me in the door. Left the Navy after 9.5 years and been with Siemens 20 years later this year. Now an instructor teaching field service engineers how to troubleshoot/repair/maintain advanced X-ray equipment that I serviced for the first 11 years. Angiography, Cardiology and Neuro labs.

 

[BigN8]

Those fellas are working for the Siemens energy division from the way it sounds. Their wind turbine school is down in Orlando....got to visit that site back in 2015. Siemens has their hands in a bunch of different sectors. I'm on the Healthcare side; my electronics training/background got me in the door. Left the Navy after 9.5 years and been with Siemens 20 years later this year. Now an instructor teaching field service engineers how to troubleshoot/repair/maintain advanced X-ray equipment that I serviced for the first 11 years. Angiography, Cardiology and Neuro labs.

Thank you for your service Squid!

 

[bubbasuwannee]

Thank you for your service Squid!

You as well!

 

[BlkGS]

Yeah I read that about hertz. Seems like the whole EV experiment is going backwards.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that people travelling would find a vehicle that the best way to charge it is at your home was inconvenient.

Honestly, the only way renting an EV could almost make sense is if the rental agency charges them all before renting and it's a short day trip type deal. Having inventory of them for such limited use cases is just poor business.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

Hertz has always had specialized rental cars in the fleets, at least as far back as the ‘66 Shelby GT50-H. Hertz has appeared to made an economic decision that the Teslas just are not worth keeping in its fleet, between the higher than normal (talking ICE vehicles) repair costs and lower resale values (as Tesla drops the price of new cars). Looking at the Hertz used car website, many of the cars have 60K+ miles are were likely due to be retired anyway. There are some lower mileage cars for sale, but this just goes with the decision to drop Tesla from the rental fleet. I never rented on of these EV’s, but my understanding is that expectation was that they come back with a full charge, very similar to the expectation of a full tank of gas in an ICE vehicle.

 

[BlkGS]

Man, that sounds like a hassle. Last thing I want to do when traveling is plan out a charging location near the airport before I drop off my rental. Maybe if the hotel had chargers I could use it wouldn't be as bad, but filling up a rental was always the 2nd worst part of traveling (behind airport security).

 

[Bottom Bracket]

Solid state batteries give "800 mile" range , how about sodium ion, .gov is controlling the mining permits. Will it be the Salton Sea and Ca. getting it all? Kicking Dragonfly/Battleborn Nevada to the curb?
Ford is Hertz, the writing is on the wall there.
EV's will become the new apple phone, disposable when the next version is released

Here's a link to an article I quoted, from a source I know nothing of...

https://www.greencars.com/expert-insights/future-ev-battery-technology-could-offer-800-miles-of-range?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=gc_merkle_electric%20car_expert%20insights_dsa&utm_term=&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAh8OtBhCQARIsAIkWb6_ZAY-NBrveEsGgBuKp8lAkloQsV7tN0ibbhIo4Er80BJaO5gP4bd4aAjwLEALw_wcB

 

[Julian]

Now you're really reaching....anti lock brakes and air bags which are improvements in safety compared to entirely new form of energy to power the car. Gimmie a break dude.

Give me a break dude....its not an entirely new form of energy...its been around for decades!

 

[Julian]

adding exponentially more load

Oh wise one, please do tell us how EVs will be adding "exponentially more load", do you understand what exponential means?

Given your expertise in this area, you should have a pretty good idea of how much load EVs have added already, and would add if we converted every single car in the US (not happening ANY time soon). There are lots of articles on this subject, but since you are in the business, I'm guessing you have very accurate data on this.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

Man, that sounds like a hassle. Last thing I want to do when traveling is plan out a charging location near the airport before I drop off my rental. Maybe if the hotel had chargers I could use it wouldn't be as bad, but filling up a rental was always the 2nd worst part of traveling (behind airport security).

I agree. When I’m returning a rental car I want to get in and out of the gas station quickly, so I can catch my plane!

Jim

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

Solid state batteries give "800 mile" range , how about sodium ion, .gov is controlling the mining permits. Will it be the Salton Sea and Ca. getting it all? Kicking Dragonfly/Battleborn Nevada to the curb?
Ford is Hertz, the writing is on the wall there.
EV's will become the new apple phone, disposable when the next version is released

Here's a link to an article I quoted, from a source I know nothing of...

https://www.greencars.com/expert-insights/future-ev-battery-technology-could-offer-800-miles-of-range?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=gc_merkle_electric%20car_expert%20insights_dsa&utm_term=&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAh8OtBhCQARIsAIkWb6_ZAY-NBrveEsGgBuKp8lAkloQsV7tN0ibbhIo4Er80BJaO5gP4bd4aAjwLEALw_wcB

One would hope that battery technology continues to improve over time. That said, I’m not sure everyone needs “800 miles of range”. More advance batteries would mean that longer range would be possible, but it would also likely mean lower battery prices for those that only want or need 300/400 miles of range.

Regarding Apple phones, I love my 14 Pro Max. I have NO plan to replace it in the immediate future.

Jim

 

[Julian]

Per a Consumer reports blog:

A recent CR analysis found that even if EVs accounted for 100% of new vehicle sales by 2035, it would take until 2050 for almost all vehicles on the road to be electric vehicles. This is due to the fact that cars and trucks last a long time, and new vehicle sales only displace a small percentage of the overall vehicle fleet every year. Since the FHWA expects driving to increase over time, we need to recalculate the increase in electricity demand in 2050 if all vehicles were to be electric. Doing this calculation, we find that electricity demand would have to increase by 1.1 trillion kilowatt hours or 26% compared to current electricity demand. However, 2050 is 27 years into the future, so we have a long time to increase electricity production as EVs enter the fleet. On average, meeting this new electricity demand for passenger EVs will only require about 1% per year growth in electricity production. This is well below the 3.2% average annual growth rate for the electricity generation over the past 70 years.​

​

@FSH 210 Sport how do these numbers jive with what you know? What are your thoughts on VTG and how that will help with load/demand?

 

[BlkGS]

Just s tidbit... A 70 year average increase in power generation is kinda not relevant. What has it been over the past 5? Maybe 10? That's what's setting your pace right now. A 70 year average would be heavily skewed by the time before the government was constantly involving itself with preventing new power plants that don't fit an agenda.

 

[Julian]

One would hope that battery technology continues to improve over time. That said, I’m not sure everyone needs “800 miles of range”. More advance batteries would mean that longer range would be possible, but it would also likely mean lower battery prices for those that only want or need 300/400 miles of range.

Regarding Apple phones, I love my 14 Pro Max. I have NO plan to replace it in the immediate future.

Jim

Only a very few people would ever need 800 miles of range. Heck, most people today don't have that kind of range, and the only reason they have 600 miles of range now is because they don't want to have to go to the gas station all the time. But if you have a charger at home, plugging in overnight really is easy and enables you to drive plenty of distance on most modern EVs now (probably an average of 250 miles on a charge). 70% of Americans live in single family homes, so enabling home charging for the vast majority of Americans would be relatively easy. I installed my own charger - it wasn't hard at all, and I put in a hardwired 48amp charger. I recall reading an article about a company developing a breaker that would allow you to swap out a current 40amp breaker (for say a dryer or oven) and it would auto switch between the car charger and the device it was shared with (quite clever). Its this sort of innovation that will make it even easier for home owners to charge at home.

It will be much harder for apartment complexes, condo buildings etc, to install the volume of chargers those complexes need, but that said, I've already seen plenty of complexes here in Raleigh with L1 and L2 chargers on property (while driving for Uber I go to a lot of these places!).

VTG-Vehicle to Grid capabilities of new EVs will also play an interesting role in helping the grid adapt to its new reality. My current car can power a 15amp circuit on my house for hours, and when the power goes out, that is exactly what it does. I no longer fire up my generator, I just plug into my car if the power goes out.

Just s tidbit... A 70 year average increase in power generation is kinda not relevant. What has it been over the past 5? Maybe 10? That's what's setting your pace right now. A 70 year average would be heavily skewed by the time before the government was constantly involving itself with preventing new power plants that don't fit an agenda.

You are correct, using a 70 year average isn't a good idea!

 

[2kwik4u]

Just s tidbit... A 70 year average increase in power generation is kinda not relevant. What has it been over the past 5? Maybe 10? That's what's setting your pace right now. A 70 year average would be heavily skewed by the time before the government was constantly involving itself with preventing new power plants that don't fit an agenda.

Do you use a 5 or 10 year average for your financial investments, or do you hold a slightly longer term look.....You need both.

I'll reference average temperature of the earth here, and this XKCD comes to mind. Earth Temperature Timeline

With that said, it's not just as simple as adding up the kilowatts needed overall. The system is dynamic at a much higher level. Like my previous comment about EV's causing blackouts. Air Conditioning and Electric heating for home has shown to have cyclical affects on the grid. The timing of charging also has to be examined to get a complete picture. I'm sure some statistician has worked out the probability of all the electric cars being charged in the middle of summer at noon in Texas while all of the air conditioners simultaneously engage as well. I suspect it's much lower than we think. I would also be really interested to see what the percentage of home EV charging is as compared to public EV charging. Current draws are much different between the two, and that has a direct impact on the grid utilization as well.

Point being, this is a very complex set of interactions to map out, and due to that I think we can all agree it's not going to be like flipping a switch, but a far more gradual movement. Even with the government mandating deadlines and pushing as hard as they can.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I don’t know how wise I am, but I will say I have a lot of experience with system operations, from generation to transmission, to sub transmission to distribution, in times of normal operations and extreme adversity.

I do know what exponential means, this is not just about car charging, although it’s impact will be huge going forward, this has to do with this push towards electrification, there are certain states that are not allowing the installation of natural gas appliances, water heaters and comfort heating. This is an exponential increase in demand. The amount of generation to support this increase in load demand is just one piece of the system, the high voltage transmission lines, sub transmission lines, receiving stations, distribution sub stations and distribution lines will all have to be rebuilt to handle this increased load. These systems are already pushed to their limits and cannot be loaded to the extent to support a small portion of this proposed expanded load. Again, if during high load times “grid operators are bracing for big loads” then the system is not capable of dealing with this increased load. California re set it all time peak load for one hour last year at 51,292 MWs, for one hour. The previous record was set in 2005 at 50,205 MWs. If half of ca’s registered vehicles were electric and all plugged in within a three hour period, that load alone is 59,000 MWs, more than double the current system load, and Ca barely made it at 51,292 MWs, and to do that they had been flying flex alerts for days(public appeal for load reduction), and using interruptible load programs as well as all they peaking units, and it was either this last summer or the summer before where rolling blackouts had to be used to balance laid with available generation resources. In addition to the flex alerts was something new added, don’t charge your electric cars, this was for a four day period. FYI electric vehicles make up 1.8% of the fleet in ca.

Then there is the siting issue, these expanded grid systems need room, a lot of room. And everyone is a NIMBY, not in my back yard. Here an example, SCE was trying to build a new transmission line into so cal from a wind farm, there was enormous public aversion to this project even though it was critically necessary. I do not believe this line was ever completed, and there was plenty of room for it, in the east the transmission line corridors are full to capacity, there is really no room in the existing corridors for expansion. So what’s the answer there? Force people to leave their houses to make room for these new facilities?

VTG.

If the power is out.

You’ve seen the ford F-150 add where the guy plugs his truck into his house and the whole house lights up? That is possible, however it requires an auto transfer switch to disconnect the house from the distribution transformer first or that F-150 would try to back feed the distribution ckt, which it will not but for the briefest of moments before the breaker in the truck tripped. Not having an auto transfer switch is also dangerous to utility workers.

If you are just running a cord from the inverter in your ca to a power strip that will work just fine. In your case that’s 1800 watts of power. I don’t know the KWh of your battery but it’s easy math.

As far as expanded storage goes via a “smart” grid and cars being able to support the grid, it sounds good, and I think it would work, but your charger would have to be changed out to converter / inverter. The converter part changed AC voltage to DC voltage to charge your car. But you need an inverter to change your cars DC voltage back to AC voltage. This is same thing that roof top solar systems work. One thing that needs to be considered here are the losses in the form of heat from conversion / inversion process, probably around 7%, each way I think. It also sounds good until you get into your car and there isn’t a sufficient charge in your cars battery to do what you want.

Here is another thing about home chargers, they all need to be permitted through the utility just as an air conditioner is for load calculations on the distribution ckt you are on. Otherwise you end up with voltage problems on distributions ckts, I’ve seen and dealt with that a lot, people installing loads and drawing permits, mainly extreme low voltage problems. Further, as home car chargers expand, the utility will have to have control of a dedicated meter, smart meter as they are sometimes called that can be turned on or off to control charging, this is already in place in Britain. The reason for this is a phased load increase, as an example if a lot of people get home and plug in within say 30 mins, this could easily exceed the generators ability to respond to that much load pick up, @2kwik4u mentions that above, all studies aside a very complicated system will have to be in place that allows the utility to phase in car chargers whether it’s peak or off peak load to keep the system Hz in balance. You have to be able to forecast normal load pick up and cold load pick up after an outage to be have resources available to handle this load as well as setting the protective relays properly.

Battery life; These NMC or LFP batteries have a mean cycle life of 3500 cycles, longer if the
DOD (depth of discharge) is limited to 80% or less. A cycle as I understand it is every time a charge is put on the battery. If an electric cars battery is used to support the grid on a daily basis then number of battery cycles is doubled and the useful life of the battery is cut in half. How much is the utility going to pay you for using your battery? Will it be enough to cover half of the replacement cost of the battery?

Another lesser talked about phenomenon that battery chargers induce is the third harmonic. This is caused by the way battery chargers operate to convert the AC sine wave to DC, the charger chops off the upper section of each sine wave to get a clean noise free signal if you will. This in turn wrecks the sine wave and causes excessive heating in the distribution xfmr, and it’s capacity or KVA has to be reduced by 75% if all the load was 100% battery charger load, it’s the same with load that is all computers as their power supplies work the same way. This will require upsizing of distribution xmfrs which increases costs and hysteresis losses in the system that has to be accounted for and will be paid for by the rate payers.

Depending on the load type in a given system, and or distribution ckt, will have something to do with how well car chargers / inverters could support the load in the grid. If the load needing to be supported is inductive, meaning AC / heat pumps or other electric motors then that load is VAR (volt amp reactance) dependent, this is the vertical leg of the power triangle, if just watts / voltage are supplied to a ckt without VAR support this will have adverse effects to the PF in the AC system, this led to a collapse of the 66Kv sub transmission system in the Palmdale / Lancaster area of So Cal where there is a lot of wind generation. Think of VARS as wattless energy, or another way to look at it, if you pour a mug of root beer the foam on top of the root beer are the VARS, and the liquid root beer is the watts, the height of the root beer on the power triangle determines angle of the hypotenuse which is MVA or what is called apparent power. While there doesn’t seem to be a lot to the foam, it’s still part of the mug of root beer, and VARS have to be supported. At the distribution level this can be accomplished with shunt capacitors, at the generation level VARS are generated by the level of excitation of the rotor or flux density. In a generator this causes more drag and more power from the prime mover which means more fuel. All that to say, your car charger being used to support the grid has to have away to produce VARS.

 

[Julian]

Bottom line is a 1-3% increased load each year is certainly something we can cope with. My neighbor installed solar, his energy needs dropped by 60%. Our subdivision has 120 homes, so he cut our use by .5% on his own.

Also, we have excess load overnight, which is when most people charge their EVs. My utility doesn't give any incentive to charge overnight, so I don't pay any attention to this-they'll catch up eventually.

Central electric generation will always be cleaner than millions of small gas/diesel-powered auto in terms of total emmissions. Natural gas and nuclear are clearly great ways to produce power, and renewables are increasing and improving every year.

But I didn't buy my car for climate or emmissions reasons! I bought it because it is a blast to drive! Prices will continue to come down as more manufacturers build better and more attractive vehicles, and the naysays actually drive one. One pedal driving alone makes driving so much nicer-I honestly thought I'd be like "meh, who cares about 1 pedal", but I'm a convert now I've driven with it for a year. But not all EVs have this at this point.

There will be NO EXPONENTIAL increase in demand on the grid as @FSH 210 Sport claimed in his hyperbolic reply. Its manageable, and will result in a better more resilient grid over time.