Afternoon Charging - No Excess Generation

Generally there is a lot of unused electrical generation capacity late at night and through the early morning hours.

However, during the afternoon and early evening, particularly in the hot months that require Air Conditioning, our electrical generation and distribution gets stretched to the limit, sometimes even resulting in power outages.

It would seem that Energy Storage (already being done in some places) and Non-Critical Load-Shedding (also being practiced in a few places) will become increasingly imporant.

The Shedding of afternoon EV-Charging loads is likely to become a "normal" part of the plan during Peak Consumption periods.

Afternoon Convenience-Charging, and afternoon Charging-At-Work are likely to be the first candidates for "reduction", either by actual Turn-Off Load-Shedding, limiting charging times to a rotating 10 minutes per hour, or perhaps by mandating very high usage fees during those times.

Of course, in our homes, TOU rates are in place for many of us, tending to push our At-Home charging well into the Off-Peak hours.

Right now, there are so few EVs and Charging Stations that it APPEARS that Load-Shedding of Public and Employer-Provided EV-Charging during Peak-Usage is being "overlooked", one wonders what the future will bring.

Anybody have some real-life insights in this area?

Some utilities have voluntary programs where, when capacity is tight on peak days, residential air conditioners can be cycled off for brief periods of time - typically 10-15 minutes per hour. I shouldn't be hard to use the same technology on any dedicated circuit, including a circuit dedicated to EV charging.

Yodrak said:

Some utilities have voluntary programs where, when capacity is tight on peak days, residential air conditioners can be cycled off for brief periods of time - typically 10-15 minutes per hour. I shouldn't be hard to use the same technology on any dedicated circuit, including a circuit dedicated to EV charging.

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While true, I think that residential charging is going to be fairly aggressively pushed out of Peak through Time of Use rates. If done right, there just shouldn't BE much Peak EV charging going on at home.

davewill said:

Yodrak said:

Some utilities have voluntary programs where, when capacity is tight on peak days, residential air conditioners can be cycled off for brief periods of time - typically 10-15 minutes per hour. I shouldn't be hard to use the same technology on any dedicated circuit, including a circuit dedicated to EV charging.

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While true, I think that residential charging is going to be fairly aggressively pushed out of Peak through Time of Use rates. If done right, there just shouldn't BE much Peak EV charging going on at home.

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I personally don't think there is going to be a whole lot of resdidential charging at time of peak. It's public and 'at work' charging that will be taking place at time of peak. In any case, the same technology that's used to cycle residential air conditioners can be used - as I wrote - to cycle any dedicated circuit including a circuit feeding an EV charger. Such circuits need not be in a residence .......

Residential Time of Use rates aren't going to discourage on-peak charging for people who do not opt for a TOU rate treatment, and people who will be wanting to charge at home during the day are not likely to opt for a TOU rate.

Yodrak said:

Residential Time of Use rates aren't going to discourage on-peak charging for people who do not opt for a TOU rate treatment, and people who will be wanting to charge at home during the day are not likely to opt for a TOU rate.

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I don't expect TOU to stay optional for home EV charging in the long run.

As far as public charging, I don't think they will use something as simple as cutting them off. After all, many of these will be tracking usage and payment. I think the actual charging units will have to be remotely controllable, either by the utility directly, the network that manages them, or business that hosts them. They will have to suspend charging while otherwise staying alive to display status (when is it coming back on) and keep track of who's paying, and to allow new customers to connect and activate, even if charging is delayed.

I don't either. But I don't think "the long run" will be in my lifetime, and I've got a long way to go.

Then again, things can change fast with the right stimuli!

davewill said:

I don't expect TOU to stay optional for home EV charging in the long run.

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There seems to be enough gadgetry in the "Blink" units to allow them to do the load shedding thing already.

In another tale, the folks at Better Place have done more than propose battery swapping. They propose a network of charge stations working in combination with the supply and demand information from the electric utility. Then they "prioritize" the charging operations. So you plug into the EVSE at work, and give it some additional information. "I leave work at 7 PM and I need 10 kWh in order to get home. Then the scheduler arranges the priorities based on need, and insures you have at least your 10kWh by 7 PM. You can "cut in line" once or twice, but after that you would start paying for that privilege.

Fun with computers.

Yodrak said:

I don't either. But I don't think "the long run" will be in my lifetime, and I've got a long way to go.

Then again, things can change fast with the right stimuli!

davewill said:

I don't expect TOU to stay optional for home EV charging in the long run.

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Virtually every residential customer in California will have a communicating, interval ("Smart") meter installed by the end of 2013. At that point it is completely a matter of social policy for the California Public Utilities Commission to order whatever rate structure they choose for residential customers, whether TOU or some other. So unless you are old enough to collect Social Security, it will happen in your lifetime, at least here. Universal TOU rates (coming soon for commercial accounts, and eventually for residential) will go a long way toward pricing daytime charging out of practice for those who don't actually need it to get home.

The long-term "vision" for daytime charging, actually, is for the utility to be able to actually discharge EV batteries during times of system emergency - in signing up for such a program you would set a minimum charge level (i.e. "leave me enough to drive home"), and allow the utility company to use the car battery as a power source in an emergency, perhaps for an hour or two. If you could charge at home overnight for 10 cents/kWh, and sell it to the utility for 20 cents or more the next day, it's not a bad idea. However, they are a long way from building the needed communication sets into the vehicles and the charging infrastructure (ChargePoint might be able to "credit" your account, since they know whose car is plugged in to which charger, but my home A/V charger has no idea who/what is plugged into it), so this remains a "vision" for now.

Ahhh, but I'm not there. And despite what a lot of Californians seem to think,
- most of the USA is not there, and
- California does not lead the way in everything.

EricH said:

Virtually every residential customer in California will have a communicating, interval ("Smart") meter installed by the end of 2013. At that point it is completely a matter of social policy for the California Public Utilities Commission to order whatever rate structure they choose for residential customers, whether TOU or some other. So unless you are old enough to collect Social Security, it will happen in your lifetime, at least here. ...

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Yodrak said:

Ahhh, but I'm not there. And despite what a lot of Californians seem to think,
- most of the USA is not there, and
- California does not lead the way in everything.

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Actually smart meters are rolling out quickly all over the country. Utilities HATE having to send meter readers around, and love the idea of having more options for billing. I have no idea where you are, but California is not the only place this is going strong.

Except, perhaps at the LADWP. They are still using 40 year old software (true story)!

EricH said:

Virtually every residential customer in California will have a communicating, interval ("Smart") meter installed by the end of 2013. At that point it is completely a matter of social policy for the California Public Utilities Commission to order whatever rate structure they choose for residential customers, whether TOU or some other. So unless you are old enough to collect Social Security, it will happen in your lifetime, at least here. ...

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EricH said:

Yodrak said:

I don't either. But I don't think "the long run" will be in my lifetime, and I've got a long way to go.

Then again, things can change fast with the right stimuli!

davewill said:

I don't expect TOU to stay optional for home EV charging in the long run.

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Virtually every residential customer in California will have a communicating, interval ("Smart") meter installed by the end of 2013.

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Everyone except those of us whom are net metering customers. The so called smart meters are incapable of TOU metering when spinning backwards, a strange anomaly pointed out to me by my local SCE planner. So we Solar Generators are immune for awhile.

Apparently it isn't the meters that are incapable of doing that, but the back office software and billing procedures at the utilities which are incapable of understanding what the meters are trying to say. So all of us net metering TOU folks still have "old fashioned" meters that, despite being digital, have three counters built in, and no communication. So they are assisted by meter readers that go around every month and write down the three numbers.

I assume they will get their software and procedures fixed one of these days, and we will, indeed, all be migrated to smart meters.

Ray

Don't confuse 'smart' meters with electronic meter reading - two different things. While today's 'smart' meters include the capability for being electronically read, the elecronically readable meters that have previously been installed are not 'smart' meters.

Beyond that, while I agree that some states are receptive to the alleged benefits of 'smart' meters, there are also states that are not. The New Jersey and Maryland utility commissions, for example are not disposed to 'smart' metering.

davewill said:

Actually smart meters are rolling out quickly all over the country. Utilities HATE having to send meter readers around, and love the idea of having more options for billing. I have no idea where you are, but California is not the only place this is going strong.

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We have a 'smart' meter that's not very smart. It doesn't understand net (negative) metering;i.e...I went to our utility website to see how much our bill was going to be and it showed $12,400! It said it would be taken out of the bank account on June 2nd. The solar billing people usually catch it before it gets billed, but they missed it this time. They did correct it and it is actually only a couple bucks. :mrgreen:

Most of the smart meters I have looked at have a remote disconnect switch which offers a way to control load. But before I have my lights shut off for driving an BEV I would like to see the BEV have their own metered charger (e.g. PG&E E9B) which would enable load management and provide a means to collect road use taxes as in a gas tax.

Now if we really get serious about grid power management, the Level3 connection could be setup with a V2G inverter and your BEV can contribute to load management when needed. Even those partially spent batteries could become a means to provide more load leveling and a source of level 3 power for charging newer EV batteries. And with a night cost of $0.05/KWHr and a summer peak of $0.60/KWHr - that's a serious multiplier.

As for smart grid I would rather see more distributed grid approaches. My current favorite idea of a level 3 charging station would use a Capstone C60 microturbine for the AC power source. When the unit is not charging a car it can supply 60KW of generating capacity. A C30 unit was used to make a hybrid turbine CMT380 with AC propulsion running gear.

Of course this is not zero emission but about 30% of our California electricity is zero emission with the bulk of that from hydroelectric.