Will Electric Cars Wreck the Grid?

[vfx]

Plug-in electric cars could destabilize the distribution of power

scientific american
Science News, Articles and Information | Scientific American

[TEG]

See also:
Smart Grid Data About to Swamp Utilities

And this:
California Electric-Cars Push May Raise Power Costs (Update2) - Bloomberg.com

[TEG]

VFX linked to the scientificamerican.com main site. Here are some more specific searches:

• Will Electric Cars Wreck the Grid?: Scientific American
• The Great Electric Car Quandary: How to Build a Charging Infrastructure Before Demand Grows
• Scientific American: Search

[vfx]

An "Electric Car" or vehicle search on the Scientific American site shows they are covering the scene pretty regularly.

I was looking for an article I was told about in last months issue that gives a chart on the amount of electricity it takes to make a gallon of gasoline. A favorite subject here.

[Norbert]

Originally Posted by TEG

See also:
Smart Grid Data About to Swamp Utilities

Do they really have to store all the individual numbers every 15 min, for a duration of ten years? Does anyone really need to know the exact amount consumed 7 years, 3 months, 4 days, 2 hours, 45 min ago?

Does the cost per kWh really go up when more is consumed? Isn't there, in general, the effect of economies of scale such that the rates should go down? Aren't larger transformers more cost-effective than smaller ones? Or would that really require quantum physics and carbon nano tubes?

[DRM]

This actually isn't as big of a problem as it sounds. Although it's a lot of data, I think it might be instructive to look at how much it costs to store data commercially as opposed to how many 1000's of filing cabinets XXXMB of data fills.

For reference, jungledisk.com (one of the better online backup systems) will archive your data for 15cents per GigaByte online. According to the article, a smartmeter will generate ~400MB of data per user over 10 years. At *today's* archive prices, this is less than a dime in archive costs per customer ... or a penny a year; hardly a large portion of your electric bill.

Yes, they will need to build out storage capacity, but it's unlikely to be a critical roadblock.

//dan.