EV Sales: "Warm and Fuzzy Now"…BUT…
Source: Zpryme, June 30, 2021
Surely there is a growing sense of excitement, enthusiasm, and optimism for those who espouse EVs presenting a meaningful Climate Change influence. EV supporters, manufacturers, and many political leaders have to be encouraged when they see the eye-popping EV Sales stats that are unfolding in 2021.
While the mantra in support of EVs seems to be deeply rooted in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions reduction, there are some interesting realities that we should be considering.
For example, residentially-installed EV charging stations typically occur without utility awareness. Very simply, a new EV owner contacts his/her local electrician, and just like that a new EV charging station is added onto the grid-edge. This activity is unfolding right now, all across the US (and abroad where EVs are gaining market share).
And, EV customers commonly re-charge their vehicles during the evening hours; when most transformers are intended to be cooling down from the load burden being serviced during the daytime hours.
So what? Well, each residentially-installed EV charging station introduces a new, unplanned electricity demand into the grid. This unplanned (and typically unknown to the utility) demand is commonly equivalent to instantly adding the burden of 1 – 2.5 NEW HOMES onto the grid; depending upon the rate of re-charge selected by the EV owner. It’s fair to conclude that instantly adding an entirely unplanned demand of 1 -2.5 NEW HOMES is substantial. It gets VERY interesting when two or more EV owners have a residentially-installed EV charging station added onto the SAME upstream distribution transformer that historically services their respective homes. And, a lack of appropriate cool-down times for a transformer asset is the recipe for accelerated End of Life (EOL). Either of these examples, or the combination of the two, can quickly result in substantial transformer overload, and therefore sets the stage for imminent transformer failure.
To make things more interesting, the US distribution transformer fleet is now DECADES-Aged...meaning that many of our transformers were deployed decades ago with no expectation of the now-present demand burden being created by today’s EV uptake. Very simply, utility operators did not have ample forecasting information decades ago that would permit them to deploy transformers sized to handle today’s emerging EV charging station demand.
This culmination is known as ‘unplanned load/overload’….and it is now proportionally growing throughout our AGING transformer fleets across America as our EV charging stations are being installed. This unfolding reality is setting the stage for INCREASED transformer failures, and power outages, and fires/wildfires, and increased public safety and environmental risks.
While many proponents are celebrating the emerging ‘successes’ of EV adoption, and eventual GHG emissions reductions designed to impact Climate Change, we are quietly posturing ourselves for serious challenges, costs, and potential disasters.
It is not fear-mongering to reveal the unfolding truth of imminent negative impacts. It is not a scare-tactic to reveal that substantial unplanned EV charging station installations will undoubtedly over-burden our aging transformer fleet. And, it is not nay-saying to suggest that EV charging stations are helping to posture us for major grid-edge impacts.
Rather, this entire perspective is being brought to light so that while we are delighting in our EV market adoption successes, we can appropriately and proactively realize and then address the unfolding collateral impacts of our celebrated “EV progress”.
Yes, utility operators are in tune with commercial EV charging station installations. Yes, new transformer installations designed to create a nationwide public EV charging infrastructure will adequately and safely serve those needs. BUT, the quietly emerging impact of residential EV charging station demand somehow remains an “off the radar” problem; just waiting to rear its ugly head one day in the form of a major problem, or by quietly creating an increased frequency of power outages that will ultimately escalate electricity costs for all of us.
Proactive, reliable intra-grid data is quickly becoming a dire necessity for our operators. Advanced Meter Infrastructure (i.e., AMI, or smart meters) are NOT able to reliably deliver this needed intra-grid info.
Our now-unfolding residential EV charging station matter is yet another perfect application for the time-proven/field-proven Advanced Transformer Infrastructure (ATI) technology; where reliable, unique, timely, accurate, granular intra-grid data is seamlessly driven by ATI from the field, to our utility provider’s existing operations systems.
In closing, while we are celebrating our developing EV market adoption success, we must also apply adequate focus to the unplanned electricity demand that we are introducing onto our aging grid-edge assets. Before we allow a good thing like EV adoption to become multiple bad things like a) drastically increased power outages, b) painful electricity rate increases, c) increased transformer failure/fire risk, d) potential transformer failure-catalyzed wildfire risks, and the plethora of bad news outcomes that all of these items ultimately impart upon our societies, our environment and our wallets, we must get wise to this developing situation.
EV adoption is fantastic….it improves our ability to impact GHG emissions. But we cannot continue a ‘blind-eye’ policy with regard to the undeniable impacts that EV charging stations present to our aging distribution grid architecture; nor the likely negative outcomes that will result from the aforementioned asset failures and associated impacts, damages, costs, risk of injuries/fatalities, etc.
Awareness is the first step…admission of the issue is the second step…corrective actions is the final step.
This message is designed to create ‘awareness’ of the emerging EV charging station issues, and ‘awareness’ that today’s Advanced Transformer Infrastructure (ATI) technology is available to remedy this unfolding problem.