Smarter way to charge for the grid.

[ai4px]

I'm hoping someone can pass this up to Tesla or maybe a Tesla employee can pass this along.

Our cars calculate a start time based on the max current they can draw from the EVSE. My car begins to charge somewhere around 3-4am until 6am. As EV adoption increases this will cause more and more people to start charging at 3am. Next thing you know 3-6am is the new "on peak" time. The solution would be for your car to calculate the charge current to use based on the time available.

Let me ask you which is better for the grid? a car starting to charge a 3am for 3 hours at 32amps or a car starting to charge at 9pm for 9 hours at 11amps? Both deliver the same amount of energy, but the latter is better for the grid.

Now think about this on a massive scale.

 

[Ostrichsak]

I'm hoping someone can pass this up to Tesla or maybe a Tesla employee can pass this along.

Our cars calculate a start time based on the max current they can draw from the EVSE. My car begins to charge somewhere around 3-4am until 6am. As EV adoption increases this will cause more and more people to start charging at 3am. Next thing you know 3-6am is the new "on peak" time. The solution would be for your car to calculate the charge current to use based on the time available.

Let me ask you which is better for the grid? a car starting to charge a 3am for 3 hours at 32amps or a car starting to charge at 9pm for 9 hours at 11amps? Both deliver the same amount of energy, but the latter is better for the grid.

Now think about this on a massive scale.

The latter also "wastes" more energy as the overhead is the same regardless of the charge rate. In other words, the slower rate at which you charge the less efficient of a charger actually getting.

I think that a more staggered start/stop time would make more sense. It would be pretty easy to set that on the head and so that the vehicles that utilize that function are more varied on when they start.

Of course, that would be something pretty easy to put in place well over a decade from now when this actually becomes a concern. As of now, there are so few EVs and fewer still that use such feature that it's really a non-issue.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I'm hoping someone can pass this up to Tesla or maybe a Tesla employee can pass this along.

Our cars calculate a start time based on the max current they can draw from the EVSE. My car begins to charge somewhere around 3-4am until 6am. As EV adoption increases this will cause more and more people to start charging at 3am. Next thing you know 3-6am is the new "on peak" time. The solution would be for your car to calculate the charge current to use based on the time available.

Let me ask you which is better for the grid? a car starting to charge a 3am for 3 hours at 32amps or a car starting to charge at 9pm for 9 hours at 11amps? Both deliver the same amount of energy, but the latter is better for the grid.

Now think about this on a massive scale.

The latter is not necessarily better for the grid. It may be easier in some ways, but it also uses more electricity than the maximum rate charge.
Also, as there are more renewables, you want demand to vary to follow production, rather than simply fill in the bath tub.

The best and likely necessary solution for the future is smart charging (sometimes called V1G) where you set basic parameters (e.g. charge to 90% by 7am) and then your car will charge however it's told to by the smart-charging management software.

The UK has made EVSE smart-charging capability a legal requirement and there is a lot of at least slightly smart charging happening.

 

[ai4px]

I recognize that charging at 120v 12amps absolutely wastes power. Higher speed charging wastes less. Where is that point of diminished returns? I guess I could walk my own car thru various amperage settings and compare what my power meter says I used.
Staggering the start times would be good though. Whatever way works, it is important we don't end up with a peak demand period at 4am as stated earlier.

 

[RTPEV]

By the time we get to the point where this becomes a problem, like @ItsNotAboutTheMoney said, I expect there to be many smart charging options (either EVSE or vehicle-based), as well as other motivators such as dynamic grid pricing.

 

[jboy210]

You will just have to wait and see what your utility does as the peak load changes.

Another option is if you own your home, you could get solar and charge from the photons that hit your roof. I charge mid-morning to mid-day when I charge at home. At those times my solar provides a large portion of my power reducing the amount I need to pull from the grid.

I hear SC has very nice incentives for solar!