CLEAN CARS, LIGHTS OFF? – Long autonomy and therefore large batteries: the electric cars today they go to great lengths to limit autonomy anxiety. But to quickly charge large batteries you need very powerful columns: what could happen if many electric cars charged all together at high power? The question is not trivial and indeed, these days, the question has been raised in the UK. The president of the Transport Commission of the House of Commons has in fact raised the alarm. On the basis of a study “if charging habits do not change, favoring the night hours, or the National Network is not reinforced, the charging of millions of electric vehicles will cause blackouts in some areas of the UK ”.
GLASS HALF FULL – But the fears about the blackout they are also justified in Italy? For example, a study by the Politecnico di Milano in 2019 provides some data, the conclusions of which are still valid today. Let’s say right away that the real stumbling block is power and not energy. The research takes as an example an electric car that travels 11,000 km per year and has an average consumption of 16 kWh / 100 km: it will therefore consume 1,760 kWh in a year. An average Italian family consumes about 2,700 kWh in a year and therefore an electric car consumes 65% of what the average family uses in a year. The study assumes that in 2030, according to the “moderate” scenario, they will circulate 4.8 million electric cars: they would consume 8.4 TWh per year, equal to about 2.6% of the Italian total (1 TeraWatt = 1 million MegaWatt). There is therefore no need to worry, also considering that in 2 years the Italian energy efficiency has increased and therefore consumption has decreased, leaving more energy for recharging, and the trend will continue until 2030 and beyond.
THE NET DOESN’T HOLD POWER – For the potency the speech it’s more critic and, let’s face it right away, as it is there Italian network it would not withstand the power required by charging millions of electric cars. The Politecnico assumes an average charging power of 100 kW for fast direct current columns. If 185,000 electric vehicles charged at 100 kW at the same time, the committed power would be 18.5 GW, more than 33% of the 55 GW which is the Italian average committed power. Same thing on a local scale: 50 cars being recharged at the same time would require 5 MW, a power that could put a neighborhood in crisis.
COUNTERMEASURES – Obviously there are countermeasures: intelligent charging and the implementation of smart grid, allowed by the V2G (Vehicle-to-Grid) communication which allows electric vehicles to return energy to the grid when connected to it, would make these a sort of “distributed self-propelled battery”. If the 4.8 million electric cars of 2030 had an average battery capacity of 40 kWh, a little less than 200 GWh buffer would be available, useful for absorbing peak demand by “helping” the grid. Renewable energy storage systems are also envisaged, with batteries, kinetic energy storage systems and tariffs that encourage the use of recharging when the grid is less busy. But Very still more you can e it must be done to adapt the national network, with timely investments to strengthen it and not to be in great difficulty when the time comes.
THE V2G – The experiments of the promising V2G technology also continue in Italy, we mention that between Terna and the former FCA (who to find out more) and between Nissan and Enel X (who to find out more) and the regulatory framework is also defined (who to know more).
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