By the end of 2014, there were fewer than one million electric cars in circulation.
But in the coming years, the adoption of electric cars has increased by an average of 60% consistent with the year. As of December 2019, 7.2 million electric cars were in service worldwide.
(Including mine! I have a Tesla and I’m one of the first voices to protect the company’s stock.)
Today, about 40% of all electric cars are in China. But Europe and the United States are experiencing an expansion in electric vehicles.
The car-buying public is embarking on large-scale electric cars. And utilities have had to manage the largest burden to load them … Until now.
There may be a budding challenge for utilities. And many do nothing proactively to pass through.
The next target of vehicle brands is buses and semi-trailers. This is the next major disruption in the maritime transport sector.
All of this is very exciting, however, let’s take a look at what awaits us for the grid of forces.
Drivers “fill” cars by plugging them into a home charger or charging station on the road. Wherever the controllers connect, the power comes from the company’s power grid.
Recharging electric vehicles is a serious and developing problem for utilities because their networks have design limitations.
A given network can only supply a limited amount of power. If this point is exceeded, the cables will possibly overheat. This causes the circuit breakers to open. At this point, the application may not yet have any option to close the network or institute power outages.
(This is precisely what’s in California as a result of the heatwave and wildfires you’re experiencing.)
Now interest in electric buses and trucks is starting to increase. Companies that need their carbon footprint on shipping position orders.
But maximum utilities do not provide for higher power consumption, which can prevent buses and electric trucks from moving for a long time.
The fleets of those cars would want a lot of energy to recharge the batteries.
For example, a Tesla Model 3 battery has a power of 75 kilowatt hours (kWh). Compare that to the 40-foot Proterra Catalyst electronic bus. It has a 660 kWh battery. That’s almost 10 times the model 3’s battery life.
Charging a fleet of electric bus or electric truck batteries similarly in length to the Proterra Catalyst can have a massive effect on a utility’s charging.
For example, the bustling foreign city of Amsterdam has a fleet of electronic buses of 100 vehicles. These buses go to the bustling Schiphol Airport.
They run six other routes around the airport. And they paint 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of the year.
The two main bus cargo bases are advertised as “the world’s largest cargo depot”. Together, they have 109 fast charging stations.
Eighty-six of them can have a rate of 30 kilowatts (kW). They are used to requalify buses at night.
The other 23 are super fast. Used per day, they can be recharged at a rate of 450 kW and recharge the batteries of the buses in two to 4 minutes.
And Amsterdam plans to expand its fleet of electric buses to 250. This will mean significant additional construction in the call for local public service.
Electronic buses are just the beginning. Many companies around the world use “last mile” electric trucks and vans.
Amazon plans to equip its distribution centers with a fleet of two hundred power trucks for last kilometer deliveries. Each charging station built to manage them will extract about four MW from the local network.
An electric semi-trailer loader would possibly require 2 MW of force consistent with the truck. All this additional electricity is more than what power companies can supply in the short term.
In many cases, new investments and infrastructure construction plans are needed. To satisfy the developing wishes of electric buses and trucks, utilities will need to take a proactive stance.
New distribution lines might be needed to meet additional loads. For giant installations such as Amsterdam, new substations would possibly be needed.
The California Electric Transportation Coalition conducted a study on the energy needs of truck and electric bus cargo stations. He found that many more than five MW required upgrades of substations and distribution lines.
Costs can be up to $10 million or more consistent with the site. When is the right time for utilities to start making plans for this?
He’s simple: NOW.
Electric buses and trucks are expected to grow for a decade or more. Investors want to be vigilant about this developing component of the transport sector.
I would like to hear your opinion on electrifying our transport formula and listening to EV owners. Leave your mind in the comments the button below.
Good investment
Dave