Vehicle electrification and infrastructure issues

Don Smolenski | TLT Machinery December 2021

With electric vehicle usage increasing, problems with the number of charging stations and the electric grid increase as well.
 
In the October TLT, I reviewed what various original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) were planning in terms of volumes of electric vehicles (EVs) and what consumers would need to do to charge their EVs at home. Home charging is only part of the equation. If you live in a home, it’s not too difficult to install a charger in a garage. If you live in an apartment and use on-street parking, it’s not so easy. In the next few paragraphs, I will discuss how many public charging stations will be available in the U.S., what has to happen to the infrastructure to support this increase in both home and public charging stations and what “clean energy” will be used to provide the electricity.

Overall capacity required to go from only 4% of the new cars being sold now to two-thirds of the vehicles on the road being EVs by 2050 is not trivial. There are only around 43,000 charging stations in the U.S. today, although President Joe Biden has called for half a million by the end of the decade. Utility Xcel Energy1 estimated that near-term investments in distribution systems would be adequate to supply demand until 2030. In the longer term, though, if every American drove an EV, the U.S. would require about 25% more electrical generation capacity compared to today. A utility with two or three million customers will need to invest between $1,700 and $5,800 per vehicle in grid upgrades, according to Boston Consulting Group,2 an investment that could reach $200 billion. As an aside, a lack of sufficient power in the grid could be a hardship for those other than EV drivers. During the extreme cold weather in Texas earlier this year, Austin’s new fleet of 12 electric buses was rendered inoperable. 

Transportation accounts for approximately one-third of America’s greenhouse gas emissions each year. EVs are a critical part of the solution. Switching the electric grid that fuels EVs from coal and natural gas to solar, wind or nuclear would further reduce their effect. Carnegie Mellon University3 cited that if America’s grid was virtually emissions-free and 84% of all vehicle travel was electrified, light-duty vehicle emissions would fall by 90%. Expanding public transit would accelerate this.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) believes that much of the electricity will, in fact, come from renewable energy. Southern California Edison offers EV owners significantly cheaper electricity if they charge when solar power is abundant. Several utilities are considering taking control of chargers. Vehicle owners would plug in their car, enter when they will need it and the utility will charge up the battery when electricity is cheapest. EVs can provide flexibility in the energy system. EVs can connect sustainable transportation and energy by functioning as batteries, storing energy for a later time. It certainly will be a challenge and require significant regulatory changes to implement this.

REFERENCES
1. Click here.
2. Sahoo, A., Mistry, K. and Baker, T. (Dec. 20, 2019), “The costs of revving up the grid for electric vehicles.” Available here.
3. Alarfaj, A. F., Griffin, W. M. and Samaras, C. (2020), “Decarbonizing US passenger vehicle transport under electrification and automation uncertainty has a travel budget,” Publishing Ltd., Environmental Research Letters, 15 (9). Available here.
 
Don Smolenski is president of his own consultancy, Strategic Management of Oil, LLC, in St. Clair Shores, Mich. You can reach him at donald.smolenski@gmail.com.