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Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

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211–220 of 394 posts

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably worse for poor people, that already deal with the extra cognitive load on every other pricing... But it's also probably best for poor people, that will optimize their usage and get better deals out of it.

Poor people don't use/waste electricity in large volumes because they are poor and don't have money to waste. Rich people can waste enormous amounts of electricity and not be financially affected. It benefits rich people to schedule running the two clothes washers and two clothes driers at off-peak rates. Poor people don't have energy fat like this to cut.

This is about moving usage around the clock, not cutting unnecessary usage.

Yes, poor people have less usage to move around in absolute values, but they have more relatively to their income.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#212
I know this is against the grain, but I do think clean hydrogen is the future fuel.

I know hydrogen is less efficient than Battery-Electric, but it's not about efficiency, it's about convenience.

One can transfer millions of joules at the petro pump in a few minutes without having to actually "handle" said joules.... but to transfer hundreds of joules with a battery-electric vehicle, one currently must actually "conduct" or directly "handle" all of the power that will eventually be used to propel the vehicle. Gasoline in a sense, "compresses" the energy for transfer...

That being said, Battery-Electric is a "here and now" technology. Perfection is the enemy of progress, so I'll gladly take a 1000HP Battery Electric GMC Hummer thank you.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weirdly, the latest iPhone + iOS pops a dialog box saying it will do this. // Weird given tiny amount of energy for your iPhone. But perhaps reasonable in aggregate.

LOL. This is classic “virtue signaling.” Your iPhone battery is not even a rounding error on your electricity consumption.

"virtue signaling" is doing something useless in order to make yourself look good to a particular group.

Could it be that this isn't "virtue signaling", but rather people overestimating the impact of the action? In other words, an honest (if mistaken) attempt at doing a good thing rather than just wanting to be perceived as doing a good thing?

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution is simple. Make electricity cheaper when it's more available From the parts of the world I come from the majority of people are vehemently opposed to time of use pricing. Because that's when they use it most. They and their political representatives would much prefer to keep taking from those who consume in off-peak rather than fix the underlying mechanism.

Ontario Canada did a mass $2b implementation of smart meters for time of day pricing. Unfortunately most people don’t care (or the technology to take advantage of it just isn’t there), and demand shifted less than 1% over several years. But it’s hard to find this info, because it doesn’t fit the (expensive to implement) narrative of “let them pay market price and people will respond to incentives”. https://www.cbc.ca…

The pricing model isn't appropriate to make people care.

What they could do instead of time-of-use pricing is a sliding multiplier that multiplies your total bill based on the ratio of on-peak to off-peak use. Make the multiplier worse based on what the total usage is.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#215
post #17

>We're doing it wrong, according to a new Stanford study Wrong according to what metric? Cost? Raw efficiency? A lot of people are more than willing to give up efficiency so that they don't have to actually worry about finding a station during the day. To say that something is just outright "wrong" based on their personal preference of priorities comes off as unhelpful to me. The solution is simple. Make electricity…

Came here to post a less eloquent version of this sentiment.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weirdly, the latest iPhone + iOS pops a dialog box saying it will do this. // Weird given tiny amount of energy for your iPhone. But perhaps reasonable in aggregate.

LOL. This is classic “virtue signaling.” Your iPhone battery is not even a rounding error on your electricity consumption.

More like product placement.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#217
post #17

>We're doing it wrong, according to a new Stanford study Wrong according to what metric? Cost? Raw efficiency? A lot of people are more than willing to give up efficiency so that they don't have to actually worry about finding a station during the day. To say that something is just outright "wrong" based on their personal preference of priorities comes off as unhelpful to me. The solution is simple. Make electricity…

> The solution is simple. Make electricity cheaper when it's more available From the parts of the world I come from the majority of people are vehemently opposed to time of use pricing. Because that's when they use it most. They and their political representatives would much prefer to keep taking from those who consume in off-peak rather than fix the underlying mechanism.

The point is that off-peak isn't necessarily the best option anymore.

In areas that are going all-in on solar, there is power during the day, but at night it would have to be generated or come from storage batteries.

Off-peak traditionally means when demand is low. Now you have to change your thinking to be when supply is high.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#218
post #17

>We're doing it wrong, according to a new Stanford study Wrong according to what metric? Cost? Raw efficiency? A lot of people are more than willing to give up efficiency so that they don't have to actually worry about finding a station during the day. To say that something is just outright "wrong" based on their personal preference of priorities comes off as unhelpful to me. The solution is simple. Make electricity…

This is precisely what the linked article says. From the section "Charging Incentives": “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,” added Powell, who recently took a postdoctoral research position at ETH Zurich. The article also includes other interesting and more nuanced policy details tha…

> Another issue with electricity pricing design is charging commercial and industrial customers big fees based on their peak electricity use. This can disincentivize employers from installing chargers, especially once half or more of their employees have EVs. [...]

Well, I don't know what to say aside from we would need a lot of work to have it 'both ways'.

By that I mean, if we expect everyone to charge their cars during the day, especially 'peak hours' in a given industrial area, there's a chance that the line and/or station capacity would have to be increased. A large part of the allure of 'night charging' is that it avoids requiring major grid upgrades, and also possibly opens up better uses around certain energy sources quirks. Nuclear, water power, geothermal, all three to some extent have 'consistent load' properties where either it takes time to adjust power output, or power output can be consistent both day and night with minimal incremental cost, vs the need to install additional capacity for extra day load.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#219

I personally think Govt should ban home charging if they are going to ban non-EV vehicles. How is that rich people with homes charge at home while everyone else has to queue up and waste their time at charging stations. Doesn't seem fair at all. Its a extra time tax on the poor.

I'm not sure how you'd effectively enforce that. Charging happens at standard power levels.

Re: Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go: study

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Today, California has excess electricity during late mornings and early afternoons, thanks mainly to its solar capacity. If most EVs were to charge during these times, then the cheap power would be used instead of wasted. > How are people going to charge their cars during commutes? Come on, you're saying most commutes are "late morning and early afternoon"? I too would like a job where my commute in is at 11 and…

My post wasn't not about criticizing EVs. My post was about criticizing the energy grid. I think "slow" charging over night is the best way to use EVs and an energy grid that cannot accommodate that (because of a predominance of PV) should be criticized.

Is a level 2 charger not slow enough? Running that for 2-4 hours should be enough for normal commutes I imagine.
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