A Toyota spokesperson claims that the proposed GM VOLT-hoax will
lead to electric outages.
| Bill Reinert...In an interview with Autoblog...believes
this highly focused high intensity electric demand could spell disaster...“You can have a situation where you have
three electric cars on the same transformer and all start charging at the same time on Level 2, 220-volt charging
and you can bring down the transformer,” said Reinert. |
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Level 2 charging is about 6 kW, 6000 Watts -- about 4 hair dryers -- or about 35 Amps. The average home main panel
is over 100 Amps and rated for 25% more, more than 3 times the maximum power draw for an EV.
Utility Service Planners allocate about 10 residences to each pole-mounted transformer (2000v to 240v), each residence
can draw 100 Amps or more (some homes have 400 Amp service) without hurting the transformer. Hence, even if 10
EVs charged at Level 2 on the same transformer, it would not even be one third of the planned load the transformer
is supposed to handle.
At night, mostly appliances are turned off, and the excess capacity available to the utility's pole-mounted transformer
dwarfs any number of EVs conceivable in the near future.
Moreover, if there were more than 100 EVs for each 10 residences, ten
per house, all charging at the same time, unlikely as it seems,
the utility Service Planner would be required to reallocate utility resources to account for it. This would NOT be
impossible to handle with the current grid!
Hence, Reinert's claim that "three EVs" pulling
35 Amps each would blow up the transformer is ludicrous, not to say fatuous.
This outrageous lie competes with Toyota's current lie about selling fuel cell cars by 2015. Note that in 2003,
GM and Ford lied that fuel cells would be sold in 2008, and Honda lied that fuel cells would be sold in 2009.
Contrary to Toyota's false claims, off-peak charging of a plug-in car actually HELPS the grid.
Honest utility execs will tell you so.
When I asked DWP why they left all their power on at night, one engineer told me, enigmatically, "load balancing"
— which cashes out to the fact that it's more difficult to bring big generators down to "warm start"
than it is to just keep them producing. So they'd rather burn off the excess power at night than bring down the
generators, a dirty and expensive process.
If you look at our electric usage curve on caiso.com you will detect that the only time we come even close to a shortage of
electric is in the daytime peak summer months (weekdays only!). The rest of the time, electric goes begging.
DWP uses excess electric at night to pump water up to Lake Castaic via six giant pump/generators, "storing"
power from the Pacific States Power Grid that otherwise would be wasted. Even with the small losses of pumping
and generating, the total cost (4 cents per kWh) is far less than the daytime peak cost of over 40 cents per kWh.
The next day, the pumps turn into generators, and the "stored" electric reinforces the grid ... just
as rooftop solar power helps in the daytime peak.
Secondly, it's a Reinert-Toyota fantasy that EVs have to charge all the time and always at "level 2".
Mostly, our cars sit at night unused; a study of Tesla drivers validates anecdotal reports that instead of using
the 70-Amp Tesla fast-charger, most of the electric energy for the Tesla comes from slow charging via the 120V standard electric
outlet -- not even the dryer 240v plug.
If you charge an EV at night, you are soaking up power that they want to get rid of!
And, contrary to the maniacs who think EV have to fast-charge, SLOW
CHARGING is the best; you want the utilities to be
running all night at the same rate, not fast charging at 9 pm. And really, unless you are in the wrong job, your
car is sitting idle almost all the time: if it's true that the average drive is 30 miles per day, that's at most
1 hour, even in clogged traffic.
The other 23 hours, the car could be (slow) charging,
getting ready for its one hour of glory!!
Charging a RAV4-EV from 30% to 90%, which is what we usually do, requires about 16 kWh of electric energy. Even
if we charge at 240v and 6 kW, or 30 Amps, which only takes 3 hours, we are not using more than 3 hair dryers of
maximum power. 30 Amps is well within the capacity of the average home, is capable of 100 Amp or 200 Amp power
draw and still has 25% margin of safety.
So Reinert is just plain lying.
Conversely, the solar rooftop systems that EV
drivers put in place generate power during the daytime peak. Using "Time of Use" pricing you can get
"extra credit" for valuable daytime power.
Each of these systems lowers the daytime peak, and lessens the argument for new power plants that only run during
peak periods of excess usage. Put another way, the money goes into hardware on your roof that you get to keep,
not into burning coal in the desert or running a nuke power plant.
So it's a synergistic BENEFIT to the grid, not a strain, for EVs and plug-ins to charge at night (although
they COULD charge in the daytime, right off the solar system) and for the solar system to pump power
into the grid when it needs it — daytime peak.
So we LOWER the problems on the grid, and increase grid reliability...lowering the strain on local pole-mounted
transformers.
IF the VOLT-hoax were real, it would actually help the grid.
Driving 1000 miles per month on wall power only takes 250 kWh of electric -- about what two old beer refrigerators
need, and about a quarter of the average home daily usage.
Why does Toyota lie? Are they aspiring to GM's vaunted place as the biggest liar of all time? |