for those of you who think going all electric will be Just Fine...

ratio

The power company is shedding load this very moment.

ChrisJ

ratio said:

The power company is shedding load this very moment.

So,

Are you saying if many people go all electric, and there's consistent and constant demand for more electricity that power companies will not invest in generation and transmission so they can sell more electric?

Is that the argument?

109A_5

I think, when are they going to build all the needed generation ? Is wind and solar going to provide what is needed ? Around here they have shut down 3 coal fired power plants and a NG Plant is mining bit coin (or something like that, seems like a waste to me). So build the generation and improve the supporting grid after things are chaotic and dysfunctional ?

Public transportation (Transit Buses) are starting to go (mostly) Electric. Apparently China is way ahead on the Electric Transit Buses.

It will be fine, just have low expectations.

KC_Jones

Load shedding has been going on for decades, please don't act like this is new, because it simply isn't.

The power company produces just enough to supply, and zero excess, always have always will. There are no battery banks to store it, so this is how it works.

So when there is a sudden surge such as it's suddenly hot one day, they will shed, or have a brown out, until they can bring more supply up to match demand.

Hot_water_fan

The power company is shedding load this very moment.

Considering it's June, this would happen whether or not heating is electrified. For the optimist view, Northern climates have significantly more HDD than CDD, so as heating is electrified, the upgraded grid costs will be spread over significantly more kwh. Hopefully the distribution costs will start to fall, matching what the mid-Atlantic states pay (my total cost is around $.13/kwh - Generation, transmission and distribution).

109A_5

KC_Jones said:

Load shedding has been going on for decades, please don't act like this is new, because it simply isn't.

The power company produces just enough to supply, and zero excess, always have always will. There are no battery banks to store it, so this is how it works.

So when there is a sudden surge such as it's suddenly hot one day, they will shed, or have a brown out, until they can bring more supply up to match demand.

Load shedding is a means to keep the grid frequency stable and within tolerance to keep clocks on time and substations from tripping out due to low frequency. Enron sure had their issues. Not paying attention to the weatherman seem like incompetence assuming they actually have the needed generation capacity (maintenance schedules and stuff). If you want to play along at home get an accurate frequency meter with tens of milliHertz resolution 60.00 Hz

Jamie Hall

All of the above comments are valid -- up to a point. What is perhaps not quite obvious is that there will be a period of time -- several years to a decade or so -- when the load shedding (which is mostly harmless unless you happen to be running an industrial process or your home oxygen generator which needs constant voltage constant frequency power) or rolling blackouts, which are a little more of a nuisance depending on when they occur and for how long, will become more common.

The presumption is that some combination of factors will come along in that time and the grid will be improved and new power generation facilities will be built, or that consumption will decrease.

Maybe.

But in the meantime, get used to it.

Larry Weingarten

Hi All, Maybe I'm just stirring the pot, but efficiency, can work nicely with going off grid. My place uses about 10% of the energy per square foot of what the average home does. Also, there were pre-grid times when we were all off grid... so there is some evidence that it can be done. I'm not saying cheap or easy, but possible. If motivated building owners worked towards going off grid, it could help balance the electrification movement as far as total energy supplied by the grid.

Yours, Larry

ChrisJ

Larry Weingarten said:

Hi All, Maybe I'm just stirring the pot, but efficiency, can work nicely with going off grid. My place uses about 10% of the energy per square foot of what the average home does. Also, there were pre-grid times when we were all off grid... so there is some evidence that it can be done. I'm not saying cheap or easy, but possible. If motivated building owners worked towards going off grid, it could help balance the electrification movement as far as total energy supplied by the grid.

Yours, Larry

Your place uses 10% of the energy for heating and cooling that a similar sized home does in the same area under the same conditions? I.E. same indoor temperature etc.

Steamhead

See- Texas:

https://www.texastribune.org/series/winter-storm-power-outage/

Jamie Hall

I could poke some very large holes in some of your coimments, @Larry Weingarten -- such as while indeed there was a time when we were all off grid, ... there were many fewer people overall, and large cities were much smaller (New York was 1.2 million 100 years ago, as opposed to about 9 million now; LA and San Francisco didn't even really exist). Heating for those cities was largely coal. Most of the population lived in rural areas, and depended on local wood. None of that would be acceptable now, even if it were feasible.

Or, if might be possible to reduce the energy usage of the built environment by 10% to as much as 50% in some cases.

But that's not really the point. The two questions which are basic are first is it really necessary to restrict the energy supply in the first place? And second, if it necessary, how do you convince people to do it?

A related question is, how fast, if the answer to the first question is yes, is it to be done?

As it happens I think that a transition to all electric power is feasible, though the time line varies (in more southern climates, a very large percentage of heating for instance can be done very quickly -- a decade, perhaps -- though at considerable cost) while long range transport may take several decades or more. I don't happen to think it can be done much more quickly than that, and that for a large segment of the population the cost will be ruinous even if taken slowly. I also don't think it is necessary to reduce the energy supply per person. The problem which I see, perhaps more than any other, is that crash and burn approaches backed by regulatory force, such as California is trying with natural gas in some areas, will result in strong resistance from the population and, for better or worse, ultimately if one is to have a democracy or something like it, you do have to convince the population to support your actions. Which, bluntly, is not being done.

SlamDunk

Nothing is perfect...Remember when the Colonial Pipeline computers were hacked? No one on the East coast could purchase fuel for a few days.

Meanwhile, a coworker traded in his Camry for a Chevy Bolt on a whim because he drives a 100 miles round trip per day and hasn't had to pay for any fuel since. He can charge at work for free. -And his insurance costs dropped.

At this point in time, that is pretty perfect.

Hot_water_fan

See- Texas:

https://www.texastribune.org/series/winter-storm-power-outage/

A good point - unreliability is unreliability. Natural gas failing in Texas impacts both electric heating and on-site heating.

jumper

I was going to say stuff similar to what Jamie posted. Eventually electricity will be plentiful & affordable. But politicians and talking heads dumb up and dumb down the process.

>>As it happens I think that a transition to all electric power is feasible, though the time line varies (in more southern climates, a very large percentage of heating for instance can be done very quickly -- a decade, perhaps -- though at considerable cost) while long range transport may take several decades or more. I don't happen to think it can be done much more quickly than that, and that for a large segment of the population the cost will be ruinous even if taken slowly. I also don't think it is necessary to reduce the energy supply per person. The problem which I see, perhaps more than any other, is that crash and burn approaches backed by regulatory force, such as California is trying with natural gas in some areas, will result in strong resistance from the population and, for better or worse, ultimately if one is to have a democracy or something like it, you do have to convince the population to support your actions. Which, bluntly, is not being done.<<

Larry Weingarten

Hi @ChrisJ , The Energy Information Administration does the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) periodically. That's what I'm comparing to. It doesn't get into the detail of same area, conditions etc, but it's considered to be the most reliable info.
@Jamie Hall , I know holes are easy to poke in what I said. That said, the topic of energy is a big problem that needs brainstorming and creative troubleshooting. Let's throw all ideas, seemingly silly or otherwise into the pot and consider them. We can be pretty sure that thinking and acting along the same lines that got us here isn't going to solve the problem. For a long time, I've seen that efficiency is undervalued, so largely ignored. It's probably a result of "first cost" rather than "lifecycle cost" thinking. Still, I think efficiency is a MUCH more potent tool than we generally imagine. I agree with what you say about getting buy-in from the general populous. How does the question of "What's in it for me?" get answered?

Yours, Larry

Steve Thompson (Taco)

The thing that drives me nuts are the utilities that "sell" the use of electricity, claiming it's 100% efficient. At point of use perhaps but what about the transmission losses from point of generation to point of use.

I remember when energy cost had a lot of us go from gas to electricity - then pow. Electricity goes up and gas goes down (or goes up at a much slower pace than electricity).

Hey, I've got grandkids so you bet I'm concerned about the use of fossil fuels, but lets call a spade a spade.

ChrisJ

Steve Thompson (Taco) said:

The thing that drives me nuts are the utilities that "sell" the use of electricity, claiming it's 100% efficient. At point of use perhaps but what about the transmission losses from point of generation to point of use. I remember when energy cost had a lot of us go from gas to electricity - then pow. Electricity goes up and gas goes down (or goes up at a much slower pace than electricity). Hey, I've got grandkids so you bet I'm concerned about the use of fossil fuels, but lets call a spade a spade.

What drives me nuts are companies that get away with intentionally misleading customers (these 6 rolls of paper towels equal 90 regular rolls!) when a roll isn't a quantity of product.  Or worse, 6hp shop vacs that are lucky to actually be 1hp.  I have a pool pump which lies by using a fictional service factor.  It claims it's 1.5hp but uses the same parts as their 1hp one including the motor.  All they changed was the hp number on the tag  and the SF from 1.0 to "SPA" or whatever the hell abbreviation they created.   It could say Fred it wouldn't matter, it would still be legal for some reason.

Home theater receivers that can do 100 watts x1 from 7 different channels but only having enough power supply and heat sink to do 100 watts total being sold as 700 watt receivers...


That's the stuff that really bothers me.

ChrisJ

@Jamie Hall there's an envelope in your mailbox...  

Jamie Hall

Got it. I think. If I pushed the right button this time...

EdTheHeaterMan

I have been told that the infrastructure in my neighborhood is insufficient for the amount of electricity needed to charge all the Electric Cars in the neighborhood if 50% of the homeowners needed to charge their car overnight. I don't see going all electric as an option anytime soon. I like my gas boiler. I like my fossil fuel car and I like my diesel pickup truck. The Son-in-law can drive his Tesla where ever he wants to.

hot_rod

109A_5 said:

I think, when are they going to build all the needed generation ? Is wind and solar going to provide what is needed ? Around here they have shut down 3 coal fired power plants and a NG Plant is mining bit coin (or something like that, seems like a waste to me). So build the generation and improve the supporting grid after things are chaotic and dysfunctional ?

Public transportation (Transit Buses) are starting to go (mostly) Electric. Apparently China is way ahead on the Electric Transit Buses.

It will be fine, just have low expectations.

HVACNUT

@Larry Weingarten, any chance you have a description, pics, video of what you've done to be more efficient? It seems like you went full throttle and sounds awesome. Is it a realistic (for us common folk) investment to become the norm in the U.S.? Or is it more like something my great grandkids might see? Pssst, I don't even have grandchildren yet.

Hot_water_fan

I think, when are they going to build all the needed generation ? Is wind and solar going to provide what is needed ? Around here they have shut down 3 coal fired power plants and a NG Plant is mining bit coin (or something like that, seems like a waste to me). So build the generation and improve the supporting grid after things are chaotic and dysfunctional ?

Maybe I’m the optimist, but I think this will not be chaotic and dysfunctional. It seems like the pace has been slow and manageable to date. The grid has grown by leaps and bounds in only 100 years or so, so why can’t it grow a bit more? AC market penetration went from 0% to 90% of homes in America without chaos. Peak loads from electric vehicles and electric heating aren’t going to be that much higher and unlike AC, will contribute more money to grid improvements. 

hot_rod

I think the additional generation will be quicker than infrastructure and distribution upgrades. NG power plants can be built in a fraction of the time of coal. And with all the fracking we have a glut of NG. So they say?

How is Gate's TerraPower plant in the old coal town of Kemmerer Wyoming coming along? A fast reactor with salt based energy storage feature.

I doubt we go all electric quickly, maybe not even in most of our lifetimes.

Talking with an EV owner in NJ last week. $15 bucks to plug into some of the chargers around there.


NJ has a $4,000 vehicle perk, $1500 for a charging station, no sales tax on the vehicle purchase, off peak rates for charging 9 PM to 6 AM. Plus use of the HOV lanes, regardless of the number of occupants.

Service contractors need to take notice, a small EV van should provide a days worth of travel for in city service trips. Compared to 6 bucks a gallon diesel, hmmmm.

ChrisJ

Jamie Hall said:

Got it. I think. If I pushed the right button this time...

No sir.

Not yet. 

jumper

Regarding transportation. Gasoline & Diesel fuel taxes fund roads. When enough motorists go electric they'll have to pay somehow.

Jamie Hall

I agree that natural gas power plants can be up and running in a matter of months -- after all the permits are issued, which can take years. However... natural gas is not green, and is subject to a variety of frankly political problems. The result of that is that you are unlikely to find anyone who is willing to put up the capital for building them. This also applies, of course, to why can't we build more refineries, or enlarge the ones we have.

Coupled with the as yet unsolved problems relating to grid capacity storage facilities, I personally think that it is inevitable that there will be a period of significant disruption just from the power sourcing alone.

With regard to the grid itself, I expect that some of the permitting problems may be overcome, and that adequate grid connections will become available -- for the urban areas. For more rural areas? No. Someone mentioned going to 90% of the homes in America without chaos. More or less true. However there are homes in my parish which only got electricity within my lifetime, and pretty marginal electricity at that. Certainly not enough to convert them to all electric, to this day. The same thing is true to varying extents of the more rural coops in the midwest and mountain west. This may be only 10% of the population -- but it's the 10% that feeds the 90%, and perhaps some thought needs to be taken for these people.

fentonc

@jumper - Gas taxes aren't a great way to fund road maintenance even if the nominal goal is to shift the burden onto the people damaging the roads. Road damage caused by vehicles scales with something like the vehicle weight to the 4th power (so doubling the weight can cause 16x more damage). You could apply a mileage tax scaled by vehicle weight if you wanted it to apply it more fairly (and electric cars are typically heavier, but still nothing compared to heavy trucks), or you could just consider it a general good and fund it out of the general tax pool (raising taxes accordingly).

Re: electrification - every system relies on a very elaborate supply chain to make it work. Oil and gas prices are currently going crazy (and subject to geopolitics as well as global commodity markets), gas infrastructure can freeze, pipelines can be hacked, an oil truck might not be able to drive to your house in inclement weather (happened to my parents after an ice storm and only their heat pump still worked). Electricity has the benefit of being able to be generated from a variety of sources and transmitted long distances nearly instantaneously and, as others have pointed out, electrification will let the power companies amortize their costs over a much larger and more consistent number of kilowatt-hours.

You also shouldn't discount demand-side management - I have a PHEV and the power company gives me half-rate electricity if I charge it between midnight and 8AM. It took me 5 minutes to program my car to wait to charge after I plugged it in, and it cut my household's peak electric demand in half. Home batteries, solar panels, electric cars (with enormous batteries), smarter heating/AC controls, better weather/sunlight/wind forecasts, etc. can all have a big impact on smoothing out loads (or having them follow the available supply). It's not crazy to imagine a heat pump that heats up a big buffer tank (or dries out some salt like an article someone posted here a while ago) based on pricing forecasts from the utility company. Especially given the rate people are actually transitioning their infrastructure (how many people here are still installing 80%-efficient boilers they expect to last 40 years?), I'm not particularly worried the utility companies won't really be able to keep up with change.

HomerJSmith

Ed is right about the ability to charge EVs. If all the cars suddenly transformed into EVs, the lines to access a charger would be longer than the gas lines in 1974.

People don't realize that there has to be a structure behind every coal burning EV aside from just the manufacturing end. That just doesn't occur by happenstance. A tremendous amount of investment is required. Those that think, my $60K Tesla is all that is required to be a happy motorist, hasn't thought the problem thru.

Didn't your Mom tell you there no such thing as a 'free lunch'? Life's a tradeoff with the possibilities narrowing with every choice one makes. With greater demand for electricity the price will go up, way up. Then you can nostalgically look back to a better time when gasoline was $6 a gallon. And...think... those were the 'good ole days'.

Jamie Hall

ChrisJ said:

Jamie Hall said:

Got it. I think. If I pushed the right button this time...

No sir.

Not yet. 



I have no idea. Here' what I'm trying to send you!

Nice collection of little crystals there! The brown probably is some ferric iron compound -- perhaps with a carbonate ion. Greenish blue is almost always copper. Whitish? Lord only knows. calcium or magnesium carbonate are as llikely as anything. Without looking at the crystals under a microscope, one really can't tell the symmetry, which is the only really reliable way of puzzling them out (and a method which I never all that good at, I might add).

11.5 years on a water heater isn't bad at all.
Jamie

Jamie Hall

Isn't part of the problem and the muddle above that we need to recognise that there is no one single solution? What works well for a suburban household in ... well, let's say the Beltway, where decisions are made, or Sacramento and the Bay Area ... may not work quite so well in Harlem on Manhattan Island, or the flats in Oakland, CA, never mind on a farm near Sabethe, Kansas, or a ranch in central Montana. And any program or programs which is fed from the top needs to have the flexibility and imagination to be of value to all the people. But I've said that before.

On heat pumps feeding storage tanks -- that does nothing to decrease the total load. While there are times when storage is feeding the system, that storage has to be powered at some point along the way by something. It is true that it might transfer the instantaneous demand from one time to another, but not the average power demand.

A weight based road tax has come merit, particularly since, as pointed out, EVs are heavier -- and pay no gasoline or diesel tax at all. However, if it were scaled -- even linearly, never mind proportinally -- to weight, it would dramatically increase the cost of moving goods. While railroads, which are private, do provide upwards of 70% of the ton-miles in this country, and pay a property tax but receive little or no subsidy, trucks still do that last 30% -- and almost all of the last mile. Somebody is going to have to pay that tax, and the impact has to be carefully thought out.

Solutions do exist, and they exist without demanding a reduction in living standards. However, unfortunately much of the debate has gotten reduced to feel good measures and tweet length slogans and dogmatic positions.

In_New_England

Jamie Hall said:

This may be only 10% of the population -- but it's the 10% that feeds the 90%, and perhaps some thought needs to be taken for these people.

Would solar/wind/mini-hydro work?

Hot_water_fan

Ed is right about the ability to charge EVs. If all the cars suddenly transformed into EVs, the lines to access a charger would be longer than the gas lines in 1974.

Ha! There better not be a line outside my garage. Most people are going to charge at home while asleep I reckon. Just like a cell phone. 

Hot_water_fan

 The same thing is true to varying extents of the more rural coops in the midwest and mountain west. This may be only 10% of the population -- but it's the 10% that feeds the 90%, and perhaps some thought needs to be taken for these people. 

@Jamie Hall isn’t this the purpose of the senate? Giving the less dense states overrepresentation precisely to ensure they’re not overlooked?  

ChrisJ

Hot_water_fan said:

Ed is right about the ability to charge EVs. If all the cars suddenly transformed into EVs, the lines to access a charger would be longer than the gas lines in 1974.

Ha! There better not be a line outside my garage. Most people are going to charge at home while asleep I reckon. Just like a cell phone. 

Not to mention most people would be doing slow charging at home most likely a little each night.

If you're slow charging you only need a 15A 240v circuit for many cars no?

Hot_water_fan

If you're slow charging you only need a 15A 240v circuit for many cars no?

Yeah at 3-5 miles per kwh, covering the average daily mileage isn’t a huge feat. My dryer is significantly more of a burden than charging would be for me. 

ratio

OP here. My point was that the power company turned my power back off after they fixed the problem, presumably so someone else could have their AC.

Now, I understand that some people actually do need power more than I do, but if I plot the median income vs area shed, what do you think I'll find?

ChrisJ

ratio said:

OP here. My point was that the power company turned my power back off after they fixed the problem, presumably so someone else could have their AC.

Now, I understand that some people actually do need power more than I do, but if I plot the median income vs area shed, what do you think I'll find?

Nothing?

Jamie Hall

Hot_water_fan said:

 The same thing is true to varying extents of the more rural coops in the midwest and mountain west. This may be only 10% of the population -- but it's the 10% that feeds the 90%, and perhaps some thought needs to be taken for these people. 

@Jamie Hall isn’t this the purpose of the senate? Giving the less dense states overrepresentation precisely to ensure they’re not overlooked?  

Yes, that is the purpose of the Senate. And the Electoral College. Some folks want to get rid of them -- they've already been eliminated at the State level -- but that is a political matter which has no place on The Wall.

Hot_water_fan said:

Ed is right about the ability to charge EVs. If all the cars suddenly transformed into EVs, the lines to access a charger would be longer than the gas lines in 1974.

Ha! There better not be a line outside my garage. Most people are going to charge at home while asleep I reckon. Just like a cell phone. 

If they live in a suburban or rural house that's fine. If they live in an apartment building? Or in an urban area? Maybe not quite so practical? But that's exactly the kind of thing to which I was referring when I said that there is no one solution which fits all -- or, indeed, probably even a majority.

Larry Weingarten

Hi @HVACNUT , Yes, I did put together a two hour DVD on it. PM me your mailing address and I'll get it to you. The gist of it is I made a very well insulated and tight shell of "too thick" SIP panels. The house faces north to avoid solar gain, which can be hard to control. Solar thermal heats a large tank below the living spaces and gravity pushes warm water through the walls as needed for space heating. I'm up to 1500 watts of PV as I've gotten rid of all gas appliances except water heater and that's going soon. Paying attention to even the smallest electrical loads, like GFI outlets, keeps the standby loss under fifteen watts. It took eight years to get a permit, so there was time to work out the many little details

Yours, Larry

JakeCK

Just going to leave this here. 

Today's solar production numbers and usage numbers for my house. I kept it at 70 all day long in my drafty almost 100 year old house with little to no insulation too.