Temperatures reached a record 103 degrees in New York on Tuesday. The heat also tests the power grid across the country, with public services cuts scattered information.
Suppose that the summer peak load also includes plug-in electric cars? The consumption of a load eve. load can cause a house to double, so it is worth considering the possibility of electric cars to cause voltage drops when several cars are finally on the street. Also, because E.V.’s are relatively expensive, their ownership is likely to be concentrated in more affluent areas, which means that some neighborhoods could feel the power strain more than others.
Some observers see potential problems ahead. “In a situation like New York is at the moment, the burden of electric vehicles could add a significant burden,” said Jack Nerad, executive market analyst for Kelley Blue Book. He said the burden would be considerably less if electric cars are charged during the night, “but there is no guarantee it.”
Phil Gott, managing director of automotive consulting for IHS Automotive and author of reports on E.V. adoption, said it was likely that the public services “The additional burden will come and add capacity as needed.” However, he added, “If they decide not to take it seriously, then yes, we will have problems.”
Con Ed, which has asked some customers in New York during the heat wave and were asked to voluntarily turn off non-essential equipment, says he is not worried by the arrival E.V. load. “We do not foresee a problem because the small number of vehicles is expected in the coming years,” said Sara Banda, a spokesman for Con Ed.
Ms. Banda said 3,535 Con Ed customers (of over three million) in the five boroughs and Westchester County were without power on Wednesday afternoon. She said the company has launched pilot programs to “better understand how patterns have an impact load of our system in the future.” Revealed an 18-month program in Queens that was, among other things, evaluates E.V. chargers and said Con Ed reassess its estimate of the electric charge per year.
A January 2010 report to Mayor Michael Bloomberg estimates that New York PlaNYC could have tens of thousands of electric vehicles (including plug-in hybrids) for the year 2015. These include the Smart electric drive and the Chevrolet Volt, which recently announced that New York will be one of their markets soon.
The PlaNYC report concludes that the expected rate of adoption “should not threaten the stability of the power while the majority of shippers are” intelligent “, allowing the load to take place during peak hours.” That is by no means assured, however, because high-tech intelligent networks are still embryonic in many areas.
One solution, proposed by energy companies, including DTE Energy in southeastern Michigan, is encouraging owners of electric cars to charge overnight. Scott Simons, DTE Energy spokesman, said the company was developing an incentive to offer lower prices by one third during peak hours.
Branko Terzic, a former commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is the leading regulatory policy in energy and resources at Deloitte, said that the unit of time of day can be performed even with a “stupid network.” He said some utilities had delayed improvements in intelligent networks because it was the capital cost of future benefits.
There is also the issue of local geography. Mr. Simons acknowledged that E.V. ownership could be concentrated in certain areas. “Electric cars will definitely cost more than standard, so we’re probably looking for higher-income neighborhoods,” he said. “There could be some localized problems.” He said it was working with DTE auto companies to identify potential trouble spots and install larger substations or strengthen services there.
Jeff Seidel, chief strategy officer at Ener1, which supplies batteries for Think electric cars and Volvo, said the mobile electricity storage could provide a partial solution to the problem of overloading the summer. His company is working with Portland General Electric utility in the storage units of a megawatt of battery that could move from one point of difficulty to detect problems in a tractor-trailer and providing emergency power for up to a few hours .