Plug-in Cars Are the Future. The Grid Isn’t Ready.

October 13, 2021

Print This Article Share it With Friends

by Will Englund (Washington Post) ... Seventy-four times last year, the wind across Upstate New York dropped so low that for stretches of eight hours or more barely any electricity was produced. Nearly half the year, the main transmission line feeding the metropolitan area was at full capacity, so that no more power could be fed into it. Congestion struck other, smaller lines, too, and when that happened some of the wind turbine blades upstate fell still.

And in New York City this summer, the utility Con Edison appealed to customers to cut back on their electricity usage during the strain of five separate heat waves, while Tropical Storms Elsa, Henri and Ida cut power to thousands.

Converting the nation’s fleet of automobiles and trucks to electric power is a critical piece of the battle against climate change. The Biden administration wants to see them account for half of all sales by 2030, and New York state has enacted a ban on the sale of internal combustion cars and trucks starting in 2035.

But making America’s cars go electric is no longer primarily a story about building the cars. Against this ambitious backdrop, America’s electric grid will be sorely challenged by the need to deliver clean power to those cars. Today, though, it barely functions in times of ordinary stress, and fails altogether too often for comfort, as widespread blackouts in California, Texas, Louisiana and elsewhere have shown.

...

By 2030, according to one study, the nation will need to invest as much as $125 billion in the grid to allow it to handle electric vehicles. The current infrastructure bill before Congress puts about $5 billion toward transmission line construction and upgrades.

...

By 2050, the state (New York) projects, electric cars, trucks and buses will use 14 percent of New York’s total output. That’s equivalent to half of all the electricity used in New York City in 2019 — so it’s like powering a new city of four million people. Overall demand could grow by as much as 50 percent.

...

(Vaughn) Moser points out that he can plant his crops right up to the bases of the wind turbines standing in his fields. “To see good farmland covered with solar, it’s disappointing,” he said.

But wind farms aren’t welcome everywhere. Wind has meant money for Lewis County, though it still has the second-lowest median household income of New York’s 62 counties after the Bronx. Elsewhere — up near the Thousand Islands along the St. Lawrence River, for instance — wealthy part-time residents have had the means to fight off proposed wind farms.

And even in Lewis County, Roaring Brook met opposition. The Tug Hill Land Trust, a private nonprofit, objected to its placement on forest land, instead of farmers’ fields, said Linda Garrett, the executive director of the group. She cited concerns about water pollution and the loss of a wilderness feeling in the state’s third-largest forest. Avangrid has cut more than 10 miles of roads through the tract to connect the turbines.

...

Nationally, wind accounts for about 8.4 percent of power production, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration expects some growth of onshore wind in the years ahead, especially in the Midwest.

Additional growth will occur offshore, at least for the East Coast.

...

But generating all that power will be one thing. Even assuming the goal can be met, that clean power still has to make its way to where the electric cars will be.

...

One main transmission line connects the two grids, carrying power from the north and west to where it’s needed downstate,which uses about two-thirds of the state’s overall energy. Running roughly between Utica and Albany, that line is called the Central East Constraint, and it is congested about half the year, meaning no more power can flow along it.

And at least 11 pockets within the two regions have their own local constraints: high-tension lines that don’t have enough capacity even today.

It is not a problem specific to New York state. Similar constraints exist in Texas, California, Maryland, Illinois and elsewhere.

...

A different workaround to the transmission problem involves numerous new small but local power generators. Hochul (Gov. Kathy Hochul (D)) announced a plan in September to build vast numbers of rooftop installations.

...

If you plugged in 50 cars at once to 50 chargers, it would draw as much electricity as a high-rise office building for as long as the cars were being refueled.

...

Rooftop solar panels will need to be sprouting everywhere. Enthusiasts believe that microgrids could one day be powered by long-elusive hydrogen fuel, or small, next-generation nuclear reactors. All these sources would be local but deeply interconnected, supporting each other. READ MORE

Will electric vehicles short-circuit California’s clean-power future? (North Bay Business Journal)

Why Small Towns Are Fighting Renewable Energy Development (Wall Street Journal; includes VIDEO)

Clean Energy Means More Electricity, Can US Cities Meet the Demand? (Our Daily Planet)

Fact check: Biden says electric cars are the future. But when? (Houston Chronicle)

THE MAINE LINE: Maine voters go to the polls today to vote on a new transmission project (Politico's Morning Energy)

Nothing To Fear for High-Renewable Systems: NREL Shows Scalable, Resilient, and Secure Systems With Communication-Less Controls (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

One of the biggest obstacles to America’s energy transition is its woeful power grid, says Iberdrola CEO (Fortune/Yahoo!)

Federal Judge Issues Preliminary Injunction Against Cardinal-Hickory Creek Transmission Line (Environmental Law and Policy Center)

REWIRING THE COUNTRY: (Politico's Morning Energy)

Secretary of Commerce: chip shortage threatens Biden EV plans (ExBulletin)

U.S. will miss electric-vehicle targets without big investments in semiconductor manufacturing, commerce secretary warns -- Electric cars require 2,000 chips each, but chips are already in short supply globally, adding urgency for Congress to endorse subsidies for semiconductor production, Gina Raimondo says (Washington Post)

GIRDING FOR GRID COMMENTS: (Politico's Morning Energy)

BIP PRODS THE GRID: (Politico's Morning Energy)

NEW ENGLAND’S PRECARIOUS POWER POSITION: (Politico's Morning Energy)

Shining a Light on Reliability: WHAT’S AT STAKE FOR THE GRID (Politico's Morning Energy)

TRANSMISSION GROUP TOUTS LOCAL PLANNING: (Politico's Morning Energy)

Here's Why EV Charging Stations Might Not Be as Convenient as Gas Stations Anytime Soon (Green Car Reports)

Can EV chargers act like gas stations? That won’t be easy(E&E News)

Value of Local Transmission Planning (Charles River Associates/WIRES Group)

An Energy Transition Needs Lots of Power Lines. This 1970s Minnesota Farmers’ Uprising Tried to Block One. What Can it Teach Us? As the country moves toward a massive build-out of transmission lines, a decades-old rebellion offers a way through potential opposition. (Inside Climate News)

Biden’s push for American-made EV ports hits supply snag (E&E News)

Overwhelmed by Solar Projects, the Nation’s Largest Grid Operator Seeks a Two-Year Pause on Approvals -- “It’s a kink in the system,” says one developer trying to bring solar jobs to coal country. “The planet does not have time for a delay.” (Inside Climate News)

The long road to electric cars (Reuters Graphics)

California's electrical grid has an EV problem (Yahoo! Finance)

Scalable probabilistic estimates of electric vehicle charging given observed driver behavior (Applied Energy/Science Direct)

California Wants Residents to Slow Down on Charging all the EVs -- Just over a week after announcing a 2035 ban on gas vehicle sales, California wants EV owners to not charge their cars as much because the grid can't take it. (Jalopnik)

In Norway, Indigenous-led protests against a wind farm heat up -- Sámi land defenders say the windmills must be demolished. (Grist)

Excerpt from North Bay Business Journal: Planning to meet the lofty goals, in June, the California Public Utilities Commission called on suppliers to the California Integrated System Operator-managed grid to bring on line at least 11,500 megawatts (11.5 gigawatts) of additional net qualifying capacity from zero-emissions sources paired and the battery capacity to store it over the next five years: 2,000 megawatts in 2023, 6,000 in 2024, 1,500 in 2025 and 2,000 in 2026. That’s on top of 1,070 and 1,505 megawatts called for in a 2019 commission decision. Overall, the state hopes to increase generating capacity by just over 13,000 additional megawatts by 2026.

Net qualifying capacity is a metric that energy planners can use to compare how various sources will contribute to meeting demand over the day. A California Energy Commission mid-term reliability analysis released in September on the CPUC decisions found that 43 megawatts of nameplate solar capacity — the stated size of the system at installation — would be required to equal 1 megawatt of net qualifying capacity in 2022 and 53 megawatts would be necessary by 2026. Wind power would require 3.5 megawatts of rated capacity per 1 megawatt that could be used in planning.

The energy commission report found that about 10,000 nameplate megawatts of battery storage would be needed by 2026, allowing energy produced during peak solar and wind hours to be stored and discharged during peak demand times. Battery energy storage systems, or BESS, plugged into the Cal ISO grid grew from 550 megawatts at the end of last year to 1,500 megawatts last month and an estimated 3,000 megawatts by the end of this year, according to the energy agency.

“Reliability in the mid-term and beyond will be highly dependent on BESS deployment at a sustained rate and BESS operational performance,” the report said.

The report noted that 20% of the planned battery installations statewide could be delayed by as much as a year because of supply-chain issues. And ongoing testing of battery systems continues to ensure safety and reliability.

...

But there commonly is a one- to two-week period in the winter when daylight is its least, and wind blowing by on-shore turbines typically is not as strong.

One of the Golden State’s key replacements for baseline (always producing) power generation from decommissioned nuclear and natural-gas power plants may be in the North Bay’s back yard.

As part of the plan to make up for the 2.5 gigawatts of potentially always running production from Diablo Canyon, the CPUC called for about 1.2 gigawatt additional geothermal power by 2030 — including 1 gigawatt by 2026 — and 2.3 gigawatts by 2045. READ MORE

Excerpt from Fortune/Yahoo!:Galán (Ignacio Galán, the CEO of Iberdrola) pointed to the collapse of the Texas power system in February, when freakishly cold weather crippled the state's energy infrastructure, as a good example of the disconnection. The resulting shortages of gas in particular in the state were exacerbated by a lack of interconnection with neighboring states that could have supplied additional energy—a disconnect almost unthinkable in Europe, where the grid is already highly connected between countries and increasingly digitized.

A highly interconnected grid is crucial for the electrification required to decarbonize the economy: not just building renewable energy sources, but building out charging stations for electric cars, for example, and heat pumps to manage energy use in individual homes. That interconnection, experts say, also makes renewable-heavy grids more stable.

While all grids must currently grapple with the issue of intermittency—when the wind doesn't blow, and the sun doesn't shine—and the use of stable power sources to underpin those fluctuation, an interconnected grid helps balance the shifting supply and demand of a renewable-heavy grid.

That doesn't mean there is enough infrastructure in Europe, either, he said, pointing out that without distribution to stitch the continent's energy together, it risked creating a bottleneck. READ MORE

Excerpt from Environmental Law and Policy Center: The Court finds that Conservation Groups are likely to prevail on the merits, and that federal statutes prevent this huge high-voltage transmission line with 20-story high towers from running through the protected Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.

Statement by Howard Learner

Attorney on behalf of Plaintiffs Driftless Area Land Conservancy, Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, National Wildlife Refuge Association and Defenders of Wildlife

“The U.S. District Court’s Opinion and Order grants a focused preliminary injunction stopping ATC and the other developers from damaging 114 wetlands on the proposed transmission line path, and the Court finds that Conservation Groups are likely to prevail on the merits. In particular, the Court finds that Conservation Groups have a strong argument on the merits that federal statutes prevent this huge high-voltage transmission line with 20-story high towers from running through the protected Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.

“That will require the Federal government agencies to robustly explore and objectively evaluate better, less expensive and less environmentally damaging alternatives. That should have been done before, and, if the District Court’s final decision is aligned with the preliminary injunction Opinion, then it will be required soon.

“The Court’s preliminary injunction decision is well-grounded in both law and common sense. It is in the public interest and can better protect both the environment and ratepayers.

“ATC and ITC should hit the pause button and hold off from creating unnecessary costs and environmental damage while the Court decides the case on the merits over the next 30-60 days. The utilities should stop throwing good money after bad, and stop playing chicken with the people and vital natural resources in Dane, Iowa and Grant Counties in Wisconsin’s scenic Driftless Area landscape, family farms and rural small-town communities.” READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: REWIRING THE COUNTRY: The bipartisan infrastructure bill outlines new federal powers to build out transmission — powers that may become the bane of states’ existence.

Transmission expansion is necessary to allow renewable energy to be more easily connected to consumers in urban locations where demand is heaviest. But transmission is notoriously difficult to build with a tangled web of state and local authorizations as well as ever-present nimbyism in local communities.

The bill gives the Department of Energy authority to deem a power line in the public interest and lay out “National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors.” It also expands FERC authority to overrule states that might oppose a new line through a national interest corridor — opposition from states has stalled many long-distance transmission projects. It’s now up to DOE and FERC to decide how aggressively to implement their new powers, which could be politically tricky with state and local authorities feeling their feet are being trampled on.

"As written now, it's kind of a 'site it or else' statute," said Anthony Clark, a former FERC commissioner and chair of the North Dakota Public Service Commission, now senior adviser at law firm Wilkinson, Barker, Knauer LLP. Catherine Morehouse dives deep into the issue for Pros. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: GIRDING FOR GRID COMMENTS: A second round of comments on Tuesday flooded the inboxes of everyone closely following FERC’s proceeding on transmission reform. Nearly 200 stakeholders weighed in with additional thoughts on how the commission should approach the issue, which is seen as critical for enabling the buildout of new renewable energy plants.

Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies and executive director of Americans for a Clean Energy Grid, noted one early trend in an email to reporters: 174 commenters supported proactive transmission planning for the future, i.e. preparing the power grid and transmission system for a wave of new clean energy resources. Of those supporters, 59 were consumer organizations, an important signal as FERC weighs the potential ratepayer costs of ushering in the major expansion of high-voltage, interregional transmission lines experts say is needed to meet President Biden’s clean energy goals.

...

NYC TRANSMISSION COSTS HOW MUCH?Two new transmission lines for several renewable energy sources in New York are expected to cost utility customers between $6 billion and $11 billion, according to cost details filed by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. The projects, which aim to slash electricity generated by New York City fossil fuel plants by 50 percent by 2030 through Canadian hydropower and upstate wind and solar, still need contract approvals from the state’s Public Service Commission.

A cost-benefit analysis in the filing finds that the 25-year contracts would lead to a net benefit of $3 billion to $7 billion, depending on future energy costs. Marie French has more for Pros from New York. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy:BIP PRODS THE GRID: Jigar Shah, head of the Energy Department’s loan office, is excited about the new siting authority the bipartisan infrastructure package granted the department, saying it could encourage the private sector to invest more in long-distance transmission. The law grants DOE authority to designate an area a national interest electric corridor, allowing FERC to bulldoze past state agencies to help build out long-distance transmission that could connect renewable generation to urban centers.

“I would say that all the new authorities that we have are enough to really allow the private sector to move with speed and scale” to invest in a new transmission system, said Shah during a Bipartisan Policy Center webinar on Tuesday.

But taking away transmission authority is unsurprisingly deeply unpopular among the states, and Shah acknowledged fear of souring relationships with state authorities could give the private sector pause before backing ambitious interstate projects. He urged the private sector to engage more with DOE to make sure its implementation of the infrastructure package is done effectively. “I'm not going to take responsibility if the private sector doesn't show up,” he added. Pro’s Catherine Morehouse has more. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: NEW ENGLAND’S PRECARIOUS POWER POSITION: New England’s grid operator fears the region could be vulnerable to a power crisis akin to February’s blackouts in Texas, Pro’s Catherine Morehouse reports. The region is currently heavily reliant on natural gas, which grid operators warn could be in short supply this year due to global supply crunches and limited pipeline capacity.

Meanwhile, New England is going through a shake up of its energy mix, with state leaders pushing for more clean energy on the grid and a move away from fossil fuels. But numerous factors from cost to local community concerns are complicating plans to ensure reliability. A recent bid to build out transmission carrying Canadian hydropower was rejected by Maine voters last month, and replacing the carbon-free power of the region's two remaining nuclear plants — which account for more than a quarter of New England's total electricity supply — remains a challenge.

It’s left the region in a precarious spot for years, and Gordon van Welie, CEO of the New England Independent System Operator, fears an unexpected weather event could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and cause rolling blackouts this winter. “We have managed to keep the lights on here through a combination of skill and luck,” he told Catherine.

Van Welie said the region shouldn’t wait for a natural disaster to bring attention to issues of fuel security and urged federal help, including potentially stronger regulations around natural gas and its use for electric reliability. “I also recognize there's no way we can solve this problem on our own. We need help,” he told Catherine. Read more from Catherine here. READ MORE

Excerpt from Green Car Reports: The Alliance for Automotive Innovation (AAI) released a policy roadmap earlier this month, but the group's suggestions don't fully address current charging problems, as detailed in a recent E&E News blog post.

For starters, charging stations generally don't display pricing clearly. You won't find signs showing a specific price, like you get at gas-station pumps, at most charging stations. The AAI has proposed making federal funding for new charging stations contingent on per-kwh pricing, but most consumers aren't familiar with that metric, E&E News pointed out.

Many charging stations also don't accept credit cards, often requiring drivers to create an account with the station operator. In the past, this meant drivers had to keep a collection of cards and fobs on hand to use different charging stations. That's been streamlined somewhat by apps, and the AAI supports universal acceptance of credit cards.

...

Charging sites will also soon need more space to accommodate vehicles with trailers. That's been a problem since drivers began towing with the Tesla Model X, and it's more relevant than ever as a gaggle of electric pickup trucks hits the market.

While the number of public charging stations has grown significantly, charging deserts still exist, particularly in urban areas. Much attention has been given to enabling EV road trips, but the lack of urban charging could hinder electric ride hailing, which has the potential to reduce emissions and improve air quality in populated areas. READ MORE

Excerpt from E&E News: The forum for this debate is a rulemaking by the Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, in consultation with the Department of Energy. These agencies are seeking comment on the rules that will govern what qualifies to receive the $7.5 billion. The timeline is, by the standards of government, lightning-fast: The first guidance will come in mid-February.

...

Unlike gas stations, which almost always have at least one working pump, charging stations have a reliability problem. Earlier this year, Plug In America did a survey of over 3,500 EV drivers and found that 54 percent said they had had problems with public chargers, most often finding them broken.

Groups like AAI are asking for the government to create an uptime requirement as a condition for funding. Another coalition of companies and governments earlier this year made a similar request, seeking a baseline for stations to be 99 percent operational.

...

According to a 2019 study by RMI, the hardware for a 350-kW charger costs up to $150,000, while that for a 150-kW charger topped out at $100,000. Building higher-powered chargers would mean that federal dollars would buy less of them.

That expense would be magnified in far-flung rural areas, where the chargers are needed most. Building the charger is one thing; upgrading the high-voltage distribution lines across miles of forest or farmland to get that power to the charging station would drive prices up still further, said Nicholas (Mike Nicholas, an EV researcher with the International Council on Clean Transportation). READ MORE

Excerpt from Yahoo! Finance: And since the state has committed to phase out all new gas-powered vehicles by 2035 — well ahead of federal targets — the additional load from electric vehicle (EV) charging could add more strain to the electric grid.

...

In Sacramento, officials said California’s grid could face a potential shortfall of roughly 1,700 megawatts, which would affect the power supply of between 1 million and 4 million people this summer. That number would likely be exacerbated by an additional shortfall of 5,000 megawatts in the case of extreme heat and further fire damage to existing power lines.

...

But as California creates a template for other states to follow, Rajagopal (Ram Rajagopal, an associate professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, who authored a recent study looking at the strain electric vehicle adoption is expected to place on the power grid) says it is also exposing some critical gaps that are likely to strain the power grid in the race to net-zero, especially in the transportation sector, where the acceleration of electric vehicle adoption is already underway.

...

Rajagopal’s team of researchers at Stanford developed a model framework to help utility companies around the world calculate charging patterns to better manage electricity demand. In California, it found that peak charging demand would more than double by 2030 if EV owners opted to charge in the evening at home.

“The use of an electric vehicle is like adding one or two air conditioners to your residence in terms of its energy increase,” Mike Jacobs, Senior Energy Analyst at Union of Concerned Scientists, told Yahoo Finance. “So when the local utility engineer looks at this, he thinks of that air conditioning in the afternoon and the electric vehicle coming home at the same time.”

...

A study from Boston Consulting Group estimated utility companies with two to three million customers will need to invest between $1,700 and $5,800 in grid upgrades per EV through 2030 in order to reliably meet the surge in energy demand.

...

Jensen (Tom Jensen, CEO of Norway-based Freyr Battery) cautioned that meaningful decarbonization is unlikely until roughly 80% of the battery supply chain is developed using renewable energy — a goal Freyr plans to reach by 2025. READ MORE

Excerpt from Jalopnik: It’s hot as hell here. There’s currently a high-pressure heat dome over the entire state. Temps in my city are going to range from 103 to 109 degrees Fahrenheit for the next seven days. With people trying to stay cool and air conditioners in overdrive, it’s taxing the grid.

What’s worse is that the Golden State is the number one state for EVs. People need to get around, so they’re charging their vehicles — and plenty of people are getting ready for Labor Day road trips. The problem is that the state wants people to not charge as much right now. So the American Public Power Association and state energy regulators are asking people to turn up the temperature of their air conditioners and to turn down how much they’re charging their EVs.

“The top three conservation actions are to set thermostats to 78 degrees or higher, avoid using large appliances and charging electric vehicles, and turn off unnecessary lights” the association said. They’re asking EV owners to only charge between 4 pm and 9 pm.

If thousands of EVs charging at the same time people are running their A/C or washing clothes can be too much for the grid to handle is a problem, you would think officials are doing what they can to guarantee the grid is prepared to make an all-EV transition, right? Nope. And as a state resident, it’s annoying to see.

Despite all the lead-up to the ICE ban and inevitable EV transition, no one has done anything to address how weak the grid is here in California. Not to mention not everyone thinks the plan is viable, especially with equality and unaffordability concerns with EVs.

We literally have power outages if the wind blows too hard. Sure, there have been plans or investments made in clean energy generating initiatives. Wind farms, geothermal plants, etc. Everything is being done to deliver more power to the grid, but nothing to actually prepare the grid to handle that extra power and load from potentially millions of EVs.

What’s worse is that some of the state officials’ steps have contradicted themselves. Consider that in January 2022, Governor Newsom’s office, along with the Biden Administration, announced huge plans for the state’s clean energy sector. Among them was a Lithium valley to provide materials needed to manufacture EV batteries and electrical grids that “enable a 100-percent clean electric grid, and move the state’s homes and industries away from fossil fuels.”

But then just five months later, a report came out in the L.A. Times that a controversial plan state legislators were considering would do just the opposite: it would give the Department of Water Resources broad, desperate authority by giving the department the power to buy energy from anyone that supplies it, including diesel generators and four gas-fire energy plants that were supposed to have been shuttered two years ago.

The Governor and other state officials are also backing a plan that would set aside a fund of $5 billion to maintain the current grid rather than investing in making it better. Even worse, details of the plan include relying on fossil fuel-powered generators to shore up the grid.

It all comes down to this. While an EV transition and clean energy are needed to save the planet from global warming, officials need to take a step back and consider why they’re in such a hurry with pressing ahead with the EV transition while not properly investing in making a better power grid. As summers get hotter and more and more people to buy EVs, we’re going to be facing a lot of rolling blackouts thanks to an unprepared grid. READ MORE