Charging the car at night, beware of a danger ...

Text ｜ Xu Rui

If most people continue to charge electric vehicles at home at night, as the amount of electric vehicles increases, it may bring tremendous pressure on the power grid.

It is estimated that by 2035, 50%of the owners will use electric vehicles, so investing in the vehicle day charging plan is vital to the Western Power Grid.

With the increase of electric vehicles, people need to transform the power grid to meet the charging needs.

Image source: Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

The above conclusion comes from a study published in "Nature -Energy" on September 22.

The research uses a computer model to analyze the charging behavior of car owners, as well as how the infrastructure of the charging station that can be used by home and public places affects the peak of net power demand (the highest power demand minus the power provided by solar energy and wind energy).

Siobhan Powell at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, led the study while working at Stanford University in the United States.

Powell and colleagues used computer models to analyze the model of 2,7700 car owners in the San Francisco Bay Area.

These real data enable the computer model to predict that when the number of electric vehicle owners increases to 48.6 million, what will be affected by the US Western Power Grid, which is powered by 11 states including California.

Studies have shown that if the owner is mainly charging vehicles at home at night, when the ownership rate of electric vehicles in the United States reaches 50%, the peak of net power demand will increase by 25%, and the demand for net power at higher electric vehicle ownership rates will even even be even the demand for net electricity. More than the power grid capacity.

In the above background, if you can increase the opportunity for daily charging of the car, the growth of the peak of net power demand can be reduced to 7.5%, which will help reduce the cost of expanding the capacity of the grid.

"An important result we study is that just changing the location of the charging infrastructure and encouraging people to change the charging will have a huge impact on the power grid." Powell said.

Stanford University's Ram Rajagopal said that the results of the study also showed that from night charging to day -to -day charging, it can help the Western Power Grid to effectively use excess solar energy.

Because the solar energy used during the day is used, it is used for use, and no power grid operator is required to invest more energy storage equipment for night charging.

Computer models show that compared with most choosing to charge electric vehicles at home at night, choosing a day charging can reduce the energy storage cost of $ 700 million to $ 1.5 billion for the power grid.

Gil Tal, who has not participated in the study of the University of California, pointed out that by 2035, 50%of private cars will be electric. As more and more people work at home, some electric vehicles may charge at home during the day, which can alleviate the expected night charging demand surge.

"The analysis of this new study shows that the demand for power on power is very flexible. Many problems can be solved by changing the use time." TAL said.

It is reported that during the research, the US Congress had passed and by President Biden signed an infrastructure bill, including $ 7.5 billion in US $ 7.5 billion for the national network construction of electric vehicle charging stations.

Related thesis information:

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01105-7

"China Science News" (2022-09-29 The original title of the 2nd edition of the international title "Night Charging, Beware of" Capital Network "")

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