Dept. of Energy: enough power for electrics

[Dr Mordrid]

If this diatribe from a deranged mind ever did come about, then the cost of electricity would rise because of the massive new cabling and transforming infrastructures required in residential districts. Post-fitting a >doubling of the power capacity would be enormously expensive.

You underestimate our local power system capabilities.

A Tesla Roadster recharges in 3.5 hours from dead using a 220v line at about 70 amps.

Typical American homes have 220v line connects with capacities of 100-400 amps. 100 amps is the minimum allowed in most locales, 150 is common and 200-400 are often found in newer/larger homes.

Most all homes have both 220v and 110v circuits with 220v often found in the garage. If one isn't in the garage an electrician will install one cheaply (< $250). Hell, I've installed them myself and the city inspector approved it without a twitch.

The Tesla can also be charged slower @ 110v and/or lower amps, ideal for minimal services, but either way it has a 200 mile range with god-awful power. The average American commute is < 36 miles/day.

Given its high performance more mundane electric cars will not need the 220v/70a level of input, especially if they're on an 8 hour charge cycle.

Uppance: no major rewiring needed.

[cjolley]

There are thousands of homes in OKC built before 1940 that have 60 amp service.
Ours did when we bought it in 1988.
It was built in 1938.
We went to 200 service amp when we had our power lines buried, but that is unusual.

So it's not "no rewiring needed".
A ball park figure for here might be only %15-25 of houses needing work, but that's a lot of houses total.

Not to mention that you couldn't run the charger and your AC at the same time on 100 amps.

PS The funny thing is that I don't think it's a bad idea/goal if only for the security reasons.
But pretending that the transition wouldn't be expensive, and that it wouldn't raise electric rates is not the way to go about it.
It need not be a complete transition to be helpful.
And realism about it would help in making it work.

[Tjalfe]

how much power does it take to charge a car?.. there are limits to how much the batteries can take without getting too hot..

[Brian Ellis]

We're not talking about concept cars. Just a few days ago, you said you need a 7 seater van with space for kids' sports gear etc. This would typically have a 150 kW engine, and you would average 35 kW output to drive the car, the alternator, the aircon and all the accessories, over the "average" 50 km daily travelling, taking about 1 hour. So you need to charge 35 kWh x 1.2 (battery efficiency losses, which are much higher at fast charges. To charge that over, say, 8 hours, you need 5.25 kWh/h. At 110 V, this translates to 47 A. At a 4 hour charge, more than double that. See whether you can run 3 TV sets, your aircon, your electric cooker and/or dishwasher plus your lights and computer on top of that.

Look at it differently: multiply your 42 kWh by 220 million and you need 9.24 TWh/night. Do you know how much the total daily consumption of electricity in the USA is? 10.016 TWh (https://cia.gov/cia//publications/factbook/geos/us.html) in 2003. Do you really think that the 20% extra night capacity can supply this?

Sorry, but the OP is pie in the sky on several counts. The maths do not add up.

[Umfriend]

To put it another way, they were selling a service and got more efficient at it.

Electricity is a tangible commodity.
The electric company can't sell you "better" electricity.

You misread my meaning, may be my english. Internet acces is a tangible commodity as well, one byte of traffic is as good as another. The point is that it is possible that the infrastucture has a cost. If it is underutilised at time, it moves less of the commodity (be it electricity or data). The cost has to be shared among less units of the commodity. That is the point and I hope this is clear.

And this is what he said:
There is nothing in that about it depending on a restructuring of the market.
Just the bald statement that the electric cos would start charging less per unit.
And what would be their motivation? Just to be nice?
What do you think the electric co stock holders would have to say about an arrangement like that?

I stated in my very first post that it would require a competitive market (as we have in the Netherlands). I was not aware that that was not the market structure in the US and the proviso has remained for all my posts. You know that. Your question was

So if demand goes up costs will come down without new capacity?
Has any market in history ever worked like that?

I have argued it has. The fact that it does not, may not or will not in this specific case does not refute my position AFAICS. Moreover, Doc (and I typically am weary of agreeing with him) states that Michigan does have a competitive market and that prices have fallen.

In this specific case, if the company has a monopoly then yes, they should not lower prices, with the possible exception of doing it for a limited period to lure all into electric cars and then raise the living shit out of prices to reap profits. There is a good reason why (natural) monopolies should not be private property.

[Dr Mordrid]

First of all you wouldn't be running all that stuff concurrent with the battery charge, which has already been defined as an off-hour (late night, sleepy-time) activity.

Modern A/C units use 1-1.5 kw, well within the range of 100 amp & up services and in these parts are on separate meters/lines.

Second you wouldn't recharge the whole capacity every day. With a 36 mile average commute and 200 mile range you'd do a deep recharge maybe every 3-4 days and trickle charges between.

IMO that's a very conservative number given Tesla's estimate that their BMW E60 sized sedan's range will exceed 300 miles. This takes you to a trickle top-off most nights. Since a Chrysler minivan's mass is about the same as an E60 sedan, ~4,000 lbs in their gas versions, I'd expect similar numbers if geared similarly using Teslas drive system.

As noted 110v charging is an option, and with 300+ mile ranges....

A/C might be a concern for cjolley, but we've used ours maybe once a summer. Might cut range 20% for him, but not here.

Lights? LED headlights are here. Same for interiors and signal/tail etc.

Radio? Trivial....2 amps maybe.

Heater? Betting on propane catalytic in cold climates or perhaps scavenging battery recharge heat with supersaturated solutions of sodium acetate or sodium ethanoates. These store/release heat nicely.

[cjolley]

Exactly. Michigan's power system is now competitive and this has caused rate moderation by the local utility.
...

Note that doc's wording is NOT "prices have gone down".
I'll bet they haven't except in some unusual cases like, perhaps, municipally owned systems.

Pennsylvania's experience is concidered a huge success here for deregulation and it is thought to have saved consumers an average of $10 a month.
Put a huge increase in demand in against this marginal savings and the lowered price would evaporate quickly as the existing players divided up the pie.


Here is a fairly recent article about electric markets in the US:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/11/AR2006031101603.html

Under the old system, the price of electricity was strictly based on what it cost the power company to produce it. Now, prices are based on what several hundred highly sophisticated power suppliers and traders believe the market will bear, prices that can have only nominal relation to cost.

[cjolley]

...and in these parts are on separate meters/lines.
...

(off topic)

Really?
You have separate lines and meters for the AC?
Why?

How about an electric range?
It needs a circuit rated even higher than AC does. (in case you turn on all the burners and oven at once)
(Regarding separate lines/meters question, not charging. People don't generally bake while sleeping)

(on topic)
Though, code usually assumes at least enough capacity to turn everything on at once + some padding doesn't it?

[Dr Mordrid]

Note that doc's wording is NOT "prices have gone down".
I'll bet they haven't except in some unusual cases like, perhaps, municipally owned systems.

SSB937 was signed June 3, 2000 providing all customer retail access by January 1, 2002. Residential customers receive a mandatory 5% rate discount. Utilities are allowed to securitize and divestiture is not required.

The separate A/C meters are also remotely controlled by the power company. If the load increases to the point of impending brownout they can cut the A/C's on a rolling basis to balance the load. No biggie since they only do it a few minutes at a time. For that we get a discounted rate.

Most everyone here cooks and heats water with gas, but an electric range is no problem. We've run an electric dryer, water heater and range simultaneously in previous homes.

[cjolley]

SSB937 was signed June 3, 2000 providing all customer retail access by January 1, 2002. Residential customers receive a mandatory 5% rate discount. Utilities are allowed to securitize and divestiture is not required. The Michigan Public Service Commission has issued a series of regulatory orders intended for retail competition.

In other words, you don't have an unregulated electricity market in Michigan.
Getting ready for it maybe.
So you don't really know what the result will be?



uh oh..

http://tdworld.com/news/public-sector-michigan-restructuring/

"It is clear that residential electric rates were lowered by PA 141," says Jeff Williams, senior vice president at Public Sector Consultants. "However, these rates were not lowered by competitive market forces; instead, they were decreased by a price cap on Michigan's two major electric producers, which expired at the end of 2005."


"It is evident that alternative energy suppliers are not interested in serving Michigan's residential customers," states Jim Weeks of MMEA. "The savings that were seen by business customers appear to have been more an effect of artificial incentives or Michigan's skewed rates, instead of a truly competitive market with a number of suppliers."


"With skewed rates and different obligations on incumbent vs. competitive utilities to serve customers, Michigan will have a tough time meeting the increased future electricity demands outlined in the capacity study written by the Public Service Commission," says Jim Beaubien of Protect Michigan.

[cjolley]

...
The separate meters are also remotely controlled by the power company. If the load increases to the point of impending brownout they can cut the A/C's on a rolling basis to balance the load. No biggie since they only do it a few minutes at a time. For that we get a discounted rate.
...

We volunteered for a system like that here.
They just put a radio receiver on our AC compressor.
Not new lines and meter

We bailed out after a while.
Letting them control when your AC runs when it's 105f (40.5c) outside turns out not to be a good idea.

[Dr Mordrid]

It's a worse idea for the whole damned grid to go down. After the widespread 10 day outage 2 yrs ago no one is willing to risk that.

As for the discounted rates from the new providers; most using it we know are still happy with it, though most takers of the indie providers own small businesses.

Also interesting in these parts is that since 2000 Edison has been experimenting with high temperature superconducting cables in a couple of stations. Then today I found out that in March the Chinese tested a superconducting power transformer constructed using American materials in a working grid;

http://tdworld.com/news/China-power-transformer/

[cjolley]

Different situation here.
I don't think we've ever had a brown out.
The only times we've lost power are from storms (usually ice), fallen trees etc.

On the plus side, we signed up for 100% wind power back when it was marginally more expensive.
But now we get a marginal discount because of the high price of gas.