EV charging and hydro generation/distribution challenges

[danbrotherston]

Finally. Really looking forward to this. Clean travel.

There will be some work that will need to be done to ensure we have sufficient generation and transmission capacity to support a massive shift to EVs in the coming decades. How much of that incremental generating capacity will be carbon-free is something no one knows yet.

I do wonder how large an EV population could realistically be charged overnight (considering that few cars will have completely empty batteries each night) given our current spare overnight generation capacity.

In theory, overnight charging is a no brainer, and basically amounts to free capacity, I don't think transmission capacity is a concern here. Local distribution capacity might be more of a problem, but fairly easy to solve.

However, the projection is that the electrical grid will become less and less clean in the next few years as there is a shift to more natural gas away from some nuclear. I think EVs efficiency should be based on the average energy emissions, rather than emissions at the time of charging...I suspect getting that detailed is probably irrelevant and at that level of detail, is going to be missing other side-effects like infrastructure investments to support charging anyway.

Interesting and unrelated tidbit. The small town I am in right now has a DC fast charger in their municipal parking lot. It makes a lot of sense because this is a destination that is at the extreme range of EVs from much of the GTA, so to support round trips a fast charger would be necessary. But it is the least efficient of EV charging, albeit also most rare.