Guest essay by Kip Hansen – April 12, 2022
Have you ever seen a transformer mounted on a pole explode? Magic fireworks. Why do they explode? One energy company executive quipped, “My experience and understanding of how utility companies work is that they just wait until the neighborhood is overwhelmed and then transformer explodes”. [ source ]
And what overloads the pole transformer? A lot of things: light hitting power poles or wires, short-circuiting caused by fallen trees on power lines, or simply, too much electricity being used through transformers in homes and businesses.
What causes a home to consume so much electricity? Well, at the neighborhood level, summer or winter. When every home in the neighborhood turns on their air conditioners to maximum on a hot summer afternoon or in winter, when too many electric homes use electricity for heating to combat the incoming cold. cold winter night.
Or when there are too many houses in the vicinity to install fast chargers for electric vehicles. What? Repeat….
“Existing DC fast chargers require the input of 480+ volts and over 100 amps (50-60 kW) and can fully charge an EV with a 100-mile range battery in a little over 30 minutes (178 miles per hour of charge). Common and more affordable overnight chargers need 240v/50amps – twice means you will need 100 amps to charge your car at night.
So, if your family has two EVs and wants two chargers overnight – and who wants to argue with their spouse about who gets the first charger – your house will probably have to have a control panel. new electrical controller and a new 200 amp charger. service reduction installed by your local utility – it’s the wire that runs from the nearest power pole to your home.
Pictured here is electrical service down to a typical American home. Suburban homes in the United States typically have 100 amp service. My current house only had 60 amp service when we moved in in the 1980s, which meant that the lights dimmed whenever the water heater started up or the well pump motor started up. Newer homes here often have 200 amp service, although a larger home is all electric – like electric heating, air conditioning, electric water heaters, electric saunas, tubs electric hot shower, electric stove and two electric ovens, electric tumble dryer and entertainment system – may require service of 250, 300 or even 400 amps depending on the overall size of the house and quantity power consuming equipment.
“If you are using large appliances frequently (central air, heating) or have appliances with large electrical needs (indoor saunas, hot tubs), you can enjoy benefit from the installation 300- or 400-amp . service to replace.” [source ]
Large appliances include in the modern kitchen two electric ovens and an electric stove, refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher and elsewhere in the home a washing machine, tumble dryer, heat pump, air conditioner Whole house air conditioner, window air conditioner, hot tub. , sauna, or pool heater, electric water heater (many larger homes have more than one). Look around your home you can add to the list.
And now, the EV charger. Repeating the data from above, almost all electric vehicle owners will want an overnight charger for each vehicle. Each request one Circuit Breaker 240v / 50amp in the control panel box. In a modern home with normal electrical appliances, it is unlikely that the local electrical codes will allow you to add two 240v/50amp circuits if you only have 100 amp service.
Note that this is not because 50 + 50 = 100. That is not how you define the circuit in your panel box, it’s more complicated.
In the end, you may be looking at the rather expensive job of replacing your electrical system from the pole to the main control panel (see illustration above) the power company), possibly disconnecting new service and new service control panel. Cost? Up to $5,000.
What if you live in the suburbs and everyone in your neighborhood wants two overnight chargers?
Items in the red box may need to be upgraded or duplicated – base load generating stations, substations and local distribution lines including pole mounted transformers.
Let’s see a real-life example: Palo Alto, California , one of the main cities of Silicon Valley. In this report:
City of Palo Alto Utilities Advisory Committee Report (ID #11639) November 4, 2020. [ .pdf ]
“Highlights of research results: Impact on electric utility
Research shows that electricity demand for homes uses electricity highest on winter mornings due to heating and averages around 3.62 kW per home, or 264% of a home’s peak demand. mixed fuel use. EV charging can add 1,216 kW to the average peak demand of an all-electric home. Assuming each distribution transformer serves eight homes, the load on each transformer in the all-electric SFRs scenario is calculated as 2.64 times the current transformer load plus 9.74 kW for EV charging.
As shown in Table 1 below, the additional load will trigger the need to upgrade some distribution transformers, secondary distribution lines (connecting the distribution transformer to the home served by the transformer), and feeder line (connecting the substation to the distribution point).
The total cost to upgrade the power distribution system is estimated at between 30 million and 75 million USD. About 40% of these costs are equipment costs and 60% are labor costs. This cost includes the cost of upgrading 95% of distribution transformers, 20% of secondary distribution lines and 25% of feeder lines. The cost estimate does not include additional subterranean transfer or distribution lines”.
How much does that cost?
$2,000 to $5,000 per house or total for Palo Alto, somewhere from 30 to 75 million dollars.
Those costs do not include costs to the homeowner, who must pay for service upgrades, service entry wiring, and breaker panel boxes. And, of course, that doesn’t include buying new equipment or installing an EV charger.
Fully electric in all Singots fcomely rreliability (SFR) in California also means alternative all natural gas use with electrical appliances – heating, cooking, domestic water heaters, and for many homes, pool heating.
Expense?
The cost of disconnecting natural gas lines is estimated at $1,114 to $3,578 per home. That not included costs for homeowners to replace appliances with electric models. All told, for the electric part this will cost from $11 million to $53 million – for Palo Alto single family homes. This does not include businesses, condominiums, retail stores and any other type of building.
Palo Alto’s has about 15,000 houses… .but there are about 7.5 million single family residences in California. That means the numbers given in the Palo Alto report would have to be multiplied by 500 to get an estimate for the state of California.
For pole mounted transformers, that would require 335,000 pole mounted transformers. In addition, millions of new electric stove tops, millions of electric ovens, millions of water heaters. Not all of California’s 7.5 million homes use natural gas, but California Public Utilities Commission tell us that there are 11 million meters of gas in California. That’s a lot of natural gas customers.
A gold star for first-time readers outlining the probable cost for an individual California home owner to upgrade a fully electric home with two EV chargers overnight. Make a list of what you are including.
For other readers, try to give an estimate of the materials needed to complete only in California. Necessary components for the grid upgrade, new appliances in the home, EV charges, 200 amp service entry wire (currently about $20 per foot), new circuit board,. . . . . [this is a long list]. Give your opinion on whether you think the production and supply chain is up to the task in today’s world.
Please note that there are approx 140 million houses in U.S.A. Anyone interested in trying to estimate the cost and time to convert all those homes to all-electric?
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Author’s comment:
Personally, I don’t think there is a political will to fulfill the need for all electric cars and homes, not even in California. I don’t think there is enough electricity to supply the US grid with enough electricity to meet the average demand for a country that includes all electric homes and all electric vehicles. I’m not sure we can even provide the components for the transition.
And then there’s the replacement quest 276 million cars and light trucks now exist in households in the United States, even from time to time. Can we produce enough batteries to replace those ICE vehicles?
I hate to be a pessimist, but I don’t think that’s doable.
What is your opinion?
Thanks for reading.
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