Electric cars.

Sure thing Daddy.
I was going to mention sarcasm earlier, about it being the lowest form of wit, but I wont bother now.

 

I'm curious. If everyone in your country owned an electric vehicle and plugged it in to recharge every night, would you have the available power and the grid to handle that load?

We don't have any coal generators in our province and power is nasty expensive unless you use it in the wee hours. I don't think our power grid could come anywhere near the capacity needed.

You?

 

Not a car but an electric scooter - spotted at a stand at the Vendée Globe "village" on Saturday.

Brand new, built in 60s Italian style and rather gorgeous and leccy powered. Top speed 45kph; max distance 60km; time to re-charge 5 to 6 hours. Why would you bother?

 

The potential problem seems to be peak demand levels, rather than overall supply.
The time matching of EV charging to grid demand is expanding - for example the intelligent go tariff - you tell the charger how much charge you need and when, and then the supply company manages the charge timings to meet that using electricity when the grid is under less strain. It also, if I understand it rightly, changes charge start and stop times randomly by a few minutes, so that you don't have lots of chargers going on, or going off all at the same time.
As time goes on, hopefully CCS V2G will become widespread - EV's charging and discharging to help balance the grid - being part of the solution...

 

The costs for that kind of technology to be implemented @Stephen Southwest would be absolutely massive would they not?

Why do so many think that each and every one of us has loads of money stashed away and ready to spend. If that system was installed, it would raise the cost of power to everyone, not just those who own electric cars and who seem not to have any financial challenges. How unfair would that be? I don't want to subsidize someone else to drive a Tesla!

 

What happens when the grid decides to not charge or even discharge your car when you suddenly have to go out?
Sounds like a nightmare to me.

 

There's no reason for a V2G charger to cost much more than a regular charger - the price continues to fall.
Time of use tariffs, and intelligent time of use tariffs are already here - no extra tech needed, so no extra cost, and people using those tariffs have lower bills.

 

You choose a minimum limit on what charge level you need - for those rare occasions where you suddenly need to go out in the middle of the night...

 

That sounds sensible.
Next question, what effect would the grid have on your battery bearing in mind they are charging it and discharging it on a regular basis.
Would it shorten its life.

 

Yes - underfunded, overstretched, and needing updating - there's an irony that i can't support the grid as much as I'd like to - the discharge levels are capped to protect the local grid structure.
I wonder how many people will get fed up with power cuts and go for islanding - switching to house or car batteries to power the house when the grid goes down.