The Electric Vehicle (EV) Revolution: A Challenge to the Power Grid

As we move towards a future where electric vehicles are the norm, it's essential to consider the impact on our power grid. The sudden surge in EVs on the road by 2030 will put a significant strain on the electrical infrastructure. According to projections, this could exceed the current capacity of 26 million EVS on the road. To mitigate this issue, utility companies are exploring ways to upgrade their transmission networks and increase their high-voltage transmission capacity.

Currently, electricity is stepped up from its generating site due to its low voltage. The reason for this is to enable long-distance transmission through high-power transmission lines, which include tall towers that can be seen across the country. However, as we transition to more electric vehicles, it's essential to recognize that these upgraded infrastructure will come with a hefty price tag. Estimated costs range from $30 billion to $40 billion. The good news is that government money can help alleviate some of this burden, with the Inflation Reduction Act offering almost three billion dollars for transmission networks in 2021 and the 2021 Infrastructure Act providing up to $10.5 billion to upgrade the power grid.

Despite these efforts, there are numerous challenges ahead. One significant issue is obtaining the necessary rights and government permits. Additionally, sourcing materials for the required infrastructure is a complex task, as supply chain backlogs are already affecting larger poles, transmission lines, and other essential components. Furthermore, local power distribution will play a crucial role in handling the increased demand from EVs. At the local level, electricity voltage must be reduced to ensure safe transmission into neighborhoods.

Charging an EV can result in a significant increase in electricity demand, with charging an average household-sized electric vehicle potentially leading to a 70-130% increase in power usage. This will not only put pressure on residential power grids but also necessitate substantial upgrades. According to estimates, utility companies may need to invest $1,700 to $5,800 per light-duty EV sole for each home. Nationally, costs for these upgrades could surpass $10 billion through 2030.

Another pressing issue is charging commercial EVs at industrial parks, warehouses, and package delivery depots. These types of heavy-duty vehicles typically require more electricity than passenger EVs, posing an unpredictable challenge to the grid's distribution capabilities. The resulting strain on local grids may lead to backlogs and equipment shortages, with some utility companies estimating installation times of months or even years.

To address these challenges, some utilities are working closely with car manufacturers and technology providers to develop smart charging systems. California, for instance, is piloting a project between Sacramento Municipal Utility District, General Motors, Ford, and BMW. The program solicits input from EV owners on the best time to charge their vehicles based on their commutes and schedules, and then coordinates this information with off-peak power periods to optimize charging times.

In Michigan, DTE Energy is testing a smart charging setup called bi-directional charging, which allows EVs to send power back to homes during peak demand. This innovative solution has the potential to significantly reduce strain on the grid while providing benefits to homeowners. Other utilities, such as Duke Energy and Pacific Gas and Electric Company, are also exploring advanced systems rather than relying solely on traditional infrastructure.

As we move forward with the widespread adoption of electric vehicles, it's crucial to acknowledge the limitations of our current power grid. The U.S has approximately 290 million cars on the road, and if all of these vehicles were to be electrified by 2030, the impact would be significant. With a potential surge in EVs, it's uncertain whether our power grid will be able to handle the increased demand without suffering significant strain or even collapse. The solution lies in upgrading our infrastructure, investing in smart charging technologies, and developing more efficient distribution systems.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enright now there are two and a half million electric cars on the road in America but in just seven years in other words by 2030 experts believe that between the third or even half of all light Vehicles sold here in the United States will be electric vehicles combustion engine cars are a Dying Breed and soon sales of combustion engine cars will be banned that's a sad but simple fact so here's the big question what will happen to the U.S power grid when all Americans go EV will the power grid get overloaded and fried causing power outages and so forth today I'll clarify what Smith versus fat before I get talking about the near future let's talk about the here and now believe it or not some electrical grid operators in the United States are already struggling to keep up with demand in certain areas and at certain times take California for instance last September California power authorities ask residents to avoid charge in their electric vehicles in the evening during the heat wave so that the power grid wouldn't be overloaded by people running air conditioners that's where they stand right now so imagine how worse things will get As Americans buy more EVS speaking of California did you know that Palo Alto has the highest EV adoption rate than any other city in the United States get this Apollo Alto has 25 000 households of those one out of every six households own at least one EV as we speak that's some 4 500 EVS out of the 52 000 Vehicles registered in the city Plus on top of that during the work week commuters from the surrounding area drive another three thousand to five thousand EVS into the city now this city has a lot of charging ports I'm talking about a thousand charging ports spread across 277 public charging stations and there's another 3500 charging ports at residences one of the reasons Palo Alto has the most EVS is due to the local government's aggressive sustainability and climate action plan its goal is to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below the 1990 level and that's all by 2030. compare that to the entire State of California the state goal is to achieve the same amount by 2050. in other words the state has 20 additional years to achieve the goal so you can see why Palo Alto has an aggressive plan anyway to meet the 2030 emissions reduction goals Palo Alto will most likely increase the amount of local renewable energy that's being used for electricity generation Palo Alto has already given its residents incentives to purchase EVs and charging ports but the city still has a long way to go to reach its goals in less than seven years but let's look at the U.S as a whole utility companies in other states have also warned of rolling blackout periods to prevent total system collapse well I'll tell you now there's good news and bad news let's start with the good there are many experts who think that utility industry will be ready to generate enough power for the coming EV wave that's because of capacity increases that are already in the works we're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in investment but the bad news is there's a serious threat to bottlenecks in the local grids that transmit electricity to the individual homes and businesses to generate the extra lectures they needed to charge more and more EVS neighborhood power Distribution Systems in the expensive upgrades plus as more electric trucks and delivery Vans hit the roads more money will be needed to upgrade the wires and Transformers that serve these commercial sites and analyst believe that these expensive investments will just end up pushing up the price of electricity which is only common sense in other words at the end of the day we the consumer will ultimately end up eating the cost of ramping up the power grid because of these forecasts there's much debate on what's the best solution to deal with higher demand for electricity there's one line of thinking that says companies can manage the demand by controlling when EVS are charged for example encourage less charging when electricity is at peak hours by varying the cost of electricity or offering incentives any way to understand what needs to be done and prepared you have to understand the three major components of the electrical system I'm talking mainly about power generation long distance electric transmission and finally local distribution let's start with power generation here in the US we have some 12 000 utility scale power plants I'm talking about power plants that generate the electricity by burning natural gas coal oil or splitting atoms or harnessing energy from Green sources like the sun wind or water the good news is right now EV charging consumes just a small power all our power production in the states and when I say small I mean very small a recent study found that 2021 to 2.1 million EVS across the U.S consume less than 0.2 percent of the total Watt hours of power consumed that year so one question could be how much of electricity will EVS consume when all Americans go EV well the answer depends on who you ask according to the Electric Power Research Institute from 2021 to 2030 all types of EVS including commercial trucks and buses will increase America's overall electricity consumption somewhere between 8 percent to 13 percent but here's the thing EV charging isn't the only thing that's going to affect future power generation analysts expect power demand will increase in general for example some local governments are already deterring and will eventually disallow the installation of gas stoves and gas furnaces instead they want residents to use electric stoves and furnaces it's not like power companies have never dealt with big increases in electricity demand before they have if you're old enough to remember think back to the era when air conditioning was becoming more mainstream that was 50 years ago got more AC installations meant more electricity consumption or if you want to look at a more recent example just think of how popular cloud storage is nowadays and how it's possible because of the construction of massive data centers now while power companies have dealt with big increases in electricity demand before the problem is it's hard to predict the speed of EV adoption there are just too many variables involved I'm talking things like gas prices build up of public charging stations the price and availability of EVS the continuation of government incentive and so forth consider too the power companies know years in advance about the arrival of new Housing Development shopping centers and factories that will soon demand more electricity so there they have time to prepare and upgrade their facilities but it's a lot less predictable with electric vehicles right now there's a lot of pressure to ramp up power production for EV charging I'm talking about regulations environmental groups and even investors who want electric companies to stay air away from coal and gas-fired plants completely but look if she shut down those plants you still need to replace their electricity output with something else anyway despite all that experts still believe the industry will be able to keep up by 2030 utility companies expect to spend between 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion overall on infrastructure and operations from that some 22 percent to 30 percent of the cost will be adding electrical storage capacity if you look at the Historical trend of U.S electric generation apparently they say the U.S will be able to progressively support a growing EV Fleet as edv adoption continue in fact most power grids are already generating extra capacity During certain periods of the day the US currently has enough capability to charge 80 million EVS during overnight hours that exceeds the projection of 26 million EVS on the road by 2030. now you must understand that as soon as electricity leaves its generating site its voltage gets stepped up reason why it's so high is so it can zoom through the long distance high power transmission lines I'm talking about the tall towers you see across the country they say that by 2030 we're going to need a 10 expansion and high voltage transmission capacity basically they'll need to connect new solar and wind powered installation onto grid to Supply Power for EVS all these needed upgrades will cost anywhere from 30 billion to 40 billion but it's not all bad news this is where the government money can help the reason inflation reduction act alone offers almost three billion dollars for transmission networks in the 2021 infrastructure act offers up a whopping 10.5 billion to upgrade the power grid overall but even with government money there's a host of other challenges there's the whole issue of trying to obtain the rights of whey and government permits and don't forget the challenge of sourcing all required materials as it is right now we're already seeing supply chain backlogs for larger poles transmission lines and other are important components it's a huge mess as it is then we have the third and last main piece of the electrical system I'm talking about local power distribution which will largely impact when America fully electrifies here's why at the local level electricity voltage has to be reduced so it can be safely sent to the local grid once it's sent through the local grid wires take all that electricity into the neighborhoods stores and offices from there Transformers reduce the voltage even more to either 120 or 240 volts but here's where the problems start charging an EV could mean a major boost to the electricity transmitting capacity of the wires and Transformers in a residential household not set up for that much power I'm talking to 70 percent to 130 percent increase depending on the power of the charger that's huge and it won't be cheap through 2030 utility companies need to invest anywhere between 1700 and 5800 bucks and power grid improvements for each light duty electric vehicle sole when it comes to the general power industry Nationwide costs for this work could surpass 10 billion through 2030. so while utility companies will expect to gain a lot of revenue from EV households it may not be enough to cover the needed upgrades so to fix this problem utility companies May likely need to increase the cost of electricity up to 12 percent here's yet another problem and that's charging commercial EVS at industrial parks warehouses and package Depots reason is these types of heavy duty commercial EVS typically need a lot more electricity than the average passenger EV then there's the unpredictable Wild Card of figuring out how local grids will distribute power to supply public charging stations all this extra pressure on the local distribution grid could mean serious backlogs and equipment and shortages of workers to install them I'm talking months or even years to install new infrastructure and get it running that's why some utility companies are already working with car makers and Technology providers on Smart charging California here again is an example so there's a pilot project involving Sacramento Municipal Utility District plus GM Ford and BMW the project solicits input from EV owners and the best time to charge their EVS based on their commutes and overall schedules then the smart charging technology coordinates that time with the off-peak power periods to figure out their Optimum charging time to sign up customers receive 150 and then they receive quarterly payments of twenty dollars now there's Michigan over in Michigan DTE Energy is currently testing out a program with GM Ford and BMW which allows the power company to pause EV charging during periods of peak electricity demand before a pause customers can be taxed participating customers also receive up to a hundred dollars in gift cards no other utilities like Duke Energy and Pacific Gas and Electric Company are experimenting with Advanced systems rather than relying on traditional ones for example there's testing a smart charging setup called bi-directional charge with bi-directional charging you can let your EV Aid the power during Peak demand basically your EV sends power from its own battery pack to your house so imagine your most EVS participating in that together they contribute to a solution then an off-peak hours the utility company refills your EV battery smart as that sounds when it comes to setting this up of course this requires upgrading power networks as well as the wiring inside residential homes plus specific charging technology inside the EVS but now you tell me they say the U.S has 290 million cars on the road right now if that kind of volume were to Electrify hypothetically by 2030. do you think our power grid will be able to handle it or will it get fried please share by commenting below if you like this video please like share and subscribe thanks for your supportright now there are two and a half million electric cars on the road in America but in just seven years in other words by 2030 experts believe that between the third or even half of all light Vehicles sold here in the United States will be electric vehicles combustion engine cars are a Dying Breed and soon sales of combustion engine cars will be banned that's a sad but simple fact so here's the big question what will happen to the U.S power grid when all Americans go EV will the power grid get overloaded and fried causing power outages and so forth today I'll clarify what Smith versus fat before I get talking about the near future let's talk about the here and now believe it or not some electrical grid operators in the United States are already struggling to keep up with demand in certain areas and at certain times take California for instance last September California power authorities ask residents to avoid charge in their electric vehicles in the evening during the heat wave so that the power grid wouldn't be overloaded by people running air conditioners that's where they stand right now so imagine how worse things will get As Americans buy more EVS speaking of California did you know that Palo Alto has the highest EV adoption rate than any other city in the United States get this Apollo Alto has 25 000 households of those one out of every six households own at least one EV as we speak that's some 4 500 EVS out of the 52 000 Vehicles registered in the city Plus on top of that during the work week commuters from the surrounding area drive another three thousand to five thousand EVS into the city now this city has a lot of charging ports I'm talking about a thousand charging ports spread across 277 public charging stations and there's another 3500 charging ports at residences one of the reasons Palo Alto has the most EVS is due to the local government's aggressive sustainability and climate action plan its goal is to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below the 1990 level and that's all by 2030. compare that to the entire State of California the state goal is to achieve the same amount by 2050. in other words the state has 20 additional years to achieve the goal so you can see why Palo Alto has an aggressive plan anyway to meet the 2030 emissions reduction goals Palo Alto will most likely increase the amount of local renewable energy that's being used for electricity generation Palo Alto has already given its residents incentives to purchase EVs and charging ports but the city still has a long way to go to reach its goals in less than seven years but let's look at the U.S as a whole utility companies in other states have also warned of rolling blackout periods to prevent total system collapse well I'll tell you now there's good news and bad news let's start with the good there are many experts who think that utility industry will be ready to generate enough power for the coming EV wave that's because of capacity increases that are already in the works we're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in investment but the bad news is there's a serious threat to bottlenecks in the local grids that transmit electricity to the individual homes and businesses to generate the extra lectures they needed to charge more and more EVS neighborhood power Distribution Systems in the expensive upgrades plus as more electric trucks and delivery Vans hit the roads more money will be needed to upgrade the wires and Transformers that serve these commercial sites and analyst believe that these expensive investments will just end up pushing up the price of electricity which is only common sense in other words at the end of the day we the consumer will ultimately end up eating the cost of ramping up the power grid because of these forecasts there's much debate on what's the best solution to deal with higher demand for electricity there's one line of thinking that says companies can manage the demand by controlling when EVS are charged for example encourage less charging when electricity is at peak hours by varying the cost of electricity or offering incentives any way to understand what needs to be done and prepared you have to understand the three major components of the electrical system I'm talking mainly about power generation long distance electric transmission and finally local distribution let's start with power generation here in the US we have some 12 000 utility scale power plants I'm talking about power plants that generate the electricity by burning natural gas coal oil or splitting atoms or harnessing energy from Green sources like the sun wind or water the good news is right now EV charging consumes just a small power all our power production in the states and when I say small I mean very small a recent study found that 2021 to 2.1 million EVS across the U.S consume less than 0.2 percent of the total Watt hours of power consumed that year so one question could be how much of electricity will EVS consume when all Americans go EV well the answer depends on who you ask according to the Electric Power Research Institute from 2021 to 2030 all types of EVS including commercial trucks and buses will increase America's overall electricity consumption somewhere between 8 percent to 13 percent but here's the thing EV charging isn't the only thing that's going to affect future power generation analysts expect power demand will increase in general for example some local governments are already deterring and will eventually disallow the installation of gas stoves and gas furnaces instead they want residents to use electric stoves and furnaces it's not like power companies have never dealt with big increases in electricity demand before they have if you're old enough to remember think back to the era when air conditioning was becoming more mainstream that was 50 years ago got more AC installations meant more electricity consumption or if you want to look at a more recent example just think of how popular cloud storage is nowadays and how it's possible because of the construction of massive data centers now while power companies have dealt with big increases in electricity demand before the problem is it's hard to predict the speed of EV adoption there are just too many variables involved I'm talking things like gas prices build up of public charging stations the price and availability of EVS the continuation of government incentive and so forth consider too the power companies know years in advance about the arrival of new Housing Development shopping centers and factories that will soon demand more electricity so there they have time to prepare and upgrade their facilities but it's a lot less predictable with electric vehicles right now there's a lot of pressure to ramp up power production for EV charging I'm talking about regulations environmental groups and even investors who want electric companies to stay air away from coal and gas-fired plants completely but look if she shut down those plants you still need to replace their electricity output with something else anyway despite all that experts still believe the industry will be able to keep up by 2030 utility companies expect to spend between 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion overall on infrastructure and operations from that some 22 percent to 30 percent of the cost will be adding electrical storage capacity if you look at the Historical trend of U.S electric generation apparently they say the U.S will be able to progressively support a growing EV Fleet as edv adoption continue in fact most power grids are already generating extra capacity During certain periods of the day the US currently has enough capability to charge 80 million EVS during overnight hours that exceeds the projection of 26 million EVS on the road by 2030. now you must understand that as soon as electricity leaves its generating site its voltage gets stepped up reason why it's so high is so it can zoom through the long distance high power transmission lines I'm talking about the tall towers you see across the country they say that by 2030 we're going to need a 10 expansion and high voltage transmission capacity basically they'll need to connect new solar and wind powered installation onto grid to Supply Power for EVS all these needed upgrades will cost anywhere from 30 billion to 40 billion but it's not all bad news this is where the government money can help the reason inflation reduction act alone offers almost three billion dollars for transmission networks in the 2021 infrastructure act offers up a whopping 10.5 billion to upgrade the power grid overall but even with government money there's a host of other challenges there's the whole issue of trying to obtain the rights of whey and government permits and don't forget the challenge of sourcing all required materials as it is right now we're already seeing supply chain backlogs for larger poles transmission lines and other are important components it's a huge mess as it is then we have the third and last main piece of the electrical system I'm talking about local power distribution which will largely impact when America fully electrifies here's why at the local level electricity voltage has to be reduced so it can be safely sent to the local grid once it's sent through the local grid wires take all that electricity into the neighborhoods stores and offices from there Transformers reduce the voltage even more to either 120 or 240 volts but here's where the problems start charging an EV could mean a major boost to the electricity transmitting capacity of the wires and Transformers in a residential household not set up for that much power I'm talking to 70 percent to 130 percent increase depending on the power of the charger that's huge and it won't be cheap through 2030 utility companies need to invest anywhere between 1700 and 5800 bucks and power grid improvements for each light duty electric vehicle sole when it comes to the general power industry Nationwide costs for this work could surpass 10 billion through 2030. so while utility companies will expect to gain a lot of revenue from EV households it may not be enough to cover the needed upgrades so to fix this problem utility companies May likely need to increase the cost of electricity up to 12 percent here's yet another problem and that's charging commercial EVS at industrial parks warehouses and package Depots reason is these types of heavy duty commercial EVS typically need a lot more electricity than the average passenger EV then there's the unpredictable Wild Card of figuring out how local grids will distribute power to supply public charging stations all this extra pressure on the local distribution grid could mean serious backlogs and equipment and shortages of workers to install them I'm talking months or even years to install new infrastructure and get it running that's why some utility companies are already working with car makers and Technology providers on Smart charging California here again is an example so there's a pilot project involving Sacramento Municipal Utility District plus GM Ford and BMW the project solicits input from EV owners and the best time to charge their EVS based on their commutes and overall schedules then the smart charging technology coordinates that time with the off-peak power periods to figure out their Optimum charging time to sign up customers receive 150 and then they receive quarterly payments of twenty dollars now there's Michigan over in Michigan DTE Energy is currently testing out a program with GM Ford and BMW which allows the power company to pause EV charging during periods of peak electricity demand before a pause customers can be taxed participating customers also receive up to a hundred dollars in gift cards no other utilities like Duke Energy and Pacific Gas and Electric Company are experimenting with Advanced systems rather than relying on traditional ones for example there's testing a smart charging setup called bi-directional charge with bi-directional charging you can let your EV Aid the power during Peak demand basically your EV sends power from its own battery pack to your house so imagine your most EVS participating in that together they contribute to a solution then an off-peak hours the utility company refills your EV battery smart as that sounds when it comes to setting this up of course this requires upgrading power networks as well as the wiring inside residential homes plus specific charging technology inside the EVS but now you tell me they say the U.S has 290 million cars on the road right now if that kind of volume were to Electrify hypothetically by 2030. do you think our power grid will be able to handle it or will it get fried please share by commenting below if you like this video please like share and subscribe thanks for your support\n"