STANFORD, Calif. — Leaving your luxury electric car charging overnight to have it ready in the morning seems like a good idea in theory. But in reality, research suggests doing so does more harm in the long run. Stanford scientists say that it’s more costly to charge your electric car at night and it could stress out your local electric grid.
Instead, researchers suggest drivers should switch to charging their vehicle at work or in public charging stations. Another added benefit to charging in the daytime at a public station is that it reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
With the effects of climate change more apparent than ever—frequent forest fires, widespread flooding, and stronger hurricanes—car companies are expecting people to start investing in electric-powered cars in the future. For example, California residents are expected to buy more electric cars as the state is planning to ban sales of gasoline-powered cars and light trucks in 2035.
“We encourage policymakers to consider utility rates that encourage day charging and incentivize investment in charging infrastructure to shift drivers from home to work for charging,” says study’s co-senior author, Ram Rajagopal, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, in a statement.
So far, electric cars make up one million or 6% of automobile sales in California. The state’s goal is to increase that number to five million electric vehicles by 2030. However, the study authors say that the change from gas to electric will cause a strain in the electric grid when there’s 30% to 40% of cars on the road.
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“We were able to show that with less home charging and more daytime charging, the Western U.S. would need less generating capacity and storage, and it would not waste as much solar and wind power,” explains Siobhan Powell, a doctor of mechanical engineering and lead study author. “And it’s not just California and Western states. All states may need to rethink electricity pricing structures as their EV charging needs increase and their grid changes.”
If half of vehicles in the western United States are electric, the team estimates it would take over 5.4 gigawatts of energy storage—equivalent to five large nuclear power reactors—to charge the cars. However, if people charged their electric cars at work instead of home, the electric demand is expected to go down to 4.2 gigawatts.
California currently uses time-of-use rates to encourage people to use electricity at night such as running the dishwasher and charging cars. However, the authors argue that with growing demand of electric cars, this strategy is outdated and will soon incur high demand with low supply. More specifically, the teams says if a third of homes were to charge their electric cars at 11 PM or whenever electricity rates go down, the local grid would become unstable.
“The findings from this paper have two profound implications: the first is that the price signals are not aligned with what would be best for the grid – and for ratepayers. The second is that it calls for considering investments in a charging infrastructure for where people work,” says Ines Azevedo, associate professor of energy science and engineering and co-senior author.
“We need to move quickly toward decarbonizing the transportation sector, which accounts for the bulk of emissions in California,” Azevedo adds. “This work provides insight on how to get there. Let’s ensure that we pursue policies and investment strategies that allow us to do so in a way that is sustainable.”
The study is published in Nature Energy.
That should be an easy fix, since the government spend billion of dollars in useless war, and… wait, the didn’t even have enough toilet paper to clean their a**$ with.
People, we are inside of satan body. This, free-range humans experiment is coming to an end. Now the ball and chain is coming back on, to let you know exactly what you are; slaves of satans. It is why EVERY THING is a problem. No matter how good the idea, it all turns to dog shet. Name anything, its dogshet. Everything should be like a walk in the park, but no, our slave masters want you to be frustrated, angry, and constantly in fear. Monsters Inc. explained this. Ies, its cartoon movie, but its how they let out the truth, hidden in plain sight, like magic, misdirection, and deception.
Pray for your flesh, cus satans are devouring your flesh…….
The article doesn’t even make sense. Like it is all backwards. At night there is surplus energy that would otherwise go to waste. And the rates are substantially cheaper at night. I pay less than $0.09 per kWh. I can operate my car for about 2.2 cents per mile.
Who wrote this FUD?
Humm… This article seems laden with BS at a number of levels.
Who is suppose to pay for all the at work charging stations and the parking /real estate necessary. The companies will not. That is for sure. At home the owner will pay. This seems like another pipe dream.
You must have inside knowledge.
You are absolutely correct. Less power demand during night allows electric utilities to run cheapest generating units.
This equates to less stress on power lines and less cost for consumers.
Sounds like a great idea, not. Do they really think that people will want to stand at a public charging station paying $0.35 or more per kilowatt instead of charging at 12 cents per kilowatt while they sleep? And for all of us who are retired or don’t go to an office, public charging and daytime charging in general just aren’t going to work
I work in the electric utility industry, and everything in this article is not just wrong, it is absurd. Don’t waste time reading it.
“With the effects of climate change more apparent than ever—frequent forest fires, widespread flooding, and stronger hurricanes—”
What blathering nonsense.
First came the problem with usage of gasoline and now even the battery charge is becoming a problem. There is the Hybrid / Plug In which uses gasoline and electricity but most important is that the battery is charged by the gasoline engine when the battery goes low. It is a matter of the onboard computer switching from one to the other. Yes the car uses gasoline but not all the time. On a long road trip once the battery is low the gasoline engine kicks in and charges the battery.
Toyota has this system.
Yes. Toyota is wisely not going full EV direction only for many good reasons. They have the foresight to see it won’t fully work at this time for sure. And there is no infrastructure and people would not be able tovtravel distances among other things.
As a long time employee of a Transmission Company where my responsibility was the stability of the power grid I have two comments:
1. I am 62 years old and in my short time on this earth I have seen alternating “studies” that claim to be hard science, tell me that Coffee will kill me or make me healthier. Not sure what the current “study” says but I drink coffee. “Studies” are not science.
2. I can say with certainty that today, charging electrical vehicles at night makes the power grid MORE stable. It is ironic that wind blows more at night and at night the grid actually has way too much generation capacity and way to little load. Charging vehicles at night will increase the load and stabilise the generation load balance. I cannot predict what will happen 20 years from now but it is my observation and non scientific opinion that the build out of a stable transmission system will happen along side of the increase use of electric cars.
Salt was bad for you and a decade later slat was a necessity.
Science is fact, scientific studies only deal with a limited amount of data to come up with a position usually influence by the agenda of the researchers. Thus, the research is NOT necessarily fact.
“…to silence,disarm, and immobilize the people.”
Preciselomundo !
You must go back to knowing what you are. A slave to satanhood. The gloves are coming off and the globalists (satanslave masters) are letting you know; you will own nothing and you will be happy.
So the dateline on this article is the Stanford suburb of Cali, Colombia? Or is this some newfangled code in search of breaking standards of journalism?
This article is ridiculous. Our provider even discounts the electricity if we restrict our charging to off-peak times of 10pm to 6am. The concept is called “flattening” not “exasperating” the consumption curve.
EVs have a greenhouse emissions issue? who would have guessed, any intelligent individual not consumed by an agenda not full thought out.
And they blow up. And recycle issues with batteries. And, and, and,
Unintended consequences as usual.
We need to rethink how humans work. Driving to an office and then driving back driving to the grocery store and then driving back. All these activities Drive the need for transportation. We need Central hub walking communities with no driving. I have not driven since the pandemic started and I’m a car guy. But my pollution contribution dropped drastically. Conversion from gas to electric isn’t fixing the problem of needing energy. We need to use less of it.
Meanwhile, with an assist from MIT, successful fusion ignition was reported in India today, 9/25/22.
The UN climate report is that there is not worse or more intense weather. What there is is people live in places they never lived in the past like on barrier islands and reclaimed seashore which people avoided in the past. The developed world uses massive amounts of water that depletes reservoirs. 10 million people now live in the US desert. Global warming is 12, 000 years old and is real . The climate scam is where governments and insiders use the weather to gain power just like old Aztec kings . The Holocene heat period we are in is the basis for the scam. So, developers build where no one should live using permits from government then government uses the destruction of those buildings to justify more government power. What a scam. And, electric cars that use masses of rare minerals and need huge electricity to run are the latest part of the scam where government pushes citizens to go buy more new cars where there is no electricity to charge .
Why are all you talking about EV’s?
Californians have a more pressing issue at hand & I’ll bet they won’t make it to 2035…why?
They water their grass once a week and fill pools while draining and drying up every water source tapped into over the past 100 years & there simply isn’t enough water to get them to 2035.
Richy Rich’s spend their money to make it to space but should use their resources to help humanity today on earth by developing a more cost effective desalination process on a grand scale to support citizens in that region.
Blah blah, back to the EV grid problem and how stupid this article is….
This article is horseshit. I worked in the electric utility industry for 30 years. Night time charging is safe, more economic and more pro environment. I’ll tell you. People just write anything today. A true fact free society.
Just wait until there’s 5 million electric commercial trucks charging on the grid EVERY NIGHT to transport and deliver EVERYTHING EVERYBODY uses in their daily lives. Keep in mind those trucks average 500 miles a day. 🤔
It takes 10 kWh in a battery to give the same amount of driving as 1 gallon of gasoline. If all cars are electric and charged at night there is no longer any off peak time. In places with a lot of solar electricity storage is needed and electric car batteries need energy. The obvious solution is to plug cars in daytime parking lots in. It would be easy and not very expensive to put level 2 charging cords at parking places that are usually occupied in daytime.