Perhaps it is obvious that most cars are parked in the sun when people are at work. Perhaps it is obvious that fast sexy cars are low and wide … great for solar panels. Perhaps it is obvious then with all the startups that the future of EVs is NOT as a load management or even a load growth device for the grid but rather as one more solar source that destroys load factors on electric service. Please review this Wall Street Journal article and watch the video for context.
As the article notes, most of these startups can use the sun to provide most if not all of the typical daily commute energy needs. That is great, right? Customers save money! Well, that is not what I hear our electric utilities desiring … they want the load. When will they get the load? The answer seems clear … when the sun does not shine … so just when the loads were higher already … oh … then solar EVs worsen the electricity load shape!
Think about it. Wherever solar is a large part of the resource mix electric utilities want customers to use MORE energy during the peak hours the sun shines.
Does this mean that the next move is for electric utilities to move to a demand charge … and possibly a double demand charge where customers are incentivized to keep their loads between two demand levels … thereby improving load shapes?
That is what some serious European electric utilities are thinking.
Thinking … oh … once again that seems to be the problem.
