Charging as Employment Benefit - Value?

[rcc]

I think workplace charging won't be sustainable in the long run. But it's a nice perk for early adopters and it shows that a company cares about the environment, especially if the charging is free.

People are going to make the long commutes regardless of charging. They'll just do it in an ICE instead. So workplace charging encourages the adoption of EVs. It makes the lower cost (and therefore lower ranged) EVs more usable. This is a good thing.

But free/low-cost charging won't last.

Your typical J1772 charger draws 6.6KW. That's a lot of power but the power draw of a few chargers pales in comparison to the power consumed by all the people in the buildings.

Now fast-forward 30 years when EV's are common. If everyone charged at work, that's 3.3KW draw per car per workday (1 charger per 2 spaces) when >80% of the cars are EVs. That's a problem. At that point, the cars are drawing way more power than the people.

So when EVs are common, charging at night will be the rule. People will charge during the day only if they need power to get home and daytime charging will cost real money. Otherwise, the chargers won't be available for those who really need it.

Until then, enjoy the free charging while it lasts.

 

[rlang59]

I ran in to some "politics" around charging at work that I raised in this thread a while back. While it may be a perk, there can be downsides.

I thought of that very thread as soon as I saw this one.

 

[VolkerP]

Now fast-forward 30 years when EV's are common. If everyone charged at work, that's 3.3KW draw per car per workday (1 charger per 2 spaces) when >80% of the cars are EVs. That's a problem. At that point, the cars are drawing way more power than the people.

3.3kW amounts to 26.4kWh for an 8h workday. That would cover the distance for an 80 mile commute (one way) at 300Wh/mi plus a little cabin preconditioning (2kWh).
Under no circumstances a company's lot will be filled with more than 80% long distance commuters!

I'd say a 40 mi commute is a long shot and an average of 20 miles is to be expected, resulting to 6+2=8kWh energy demand per car, or an average power demand of 1kW.

But your case illustrates the need for a smart charging infrastructure, that balances electric load.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

In a not too distant future I can envision a world where everyone plugs in their EVs at home at night to charge up, and optionally plugs in at the office during the day to supply grid-tied storage back to offset peak demand load. In this world we would no longer need to rely on peaker plants, reducing CO2 and particulate emissions considerably.

 

[Chipper]

In a not too distant future I can envision a world where everyone plugs in their EVs at home at night to charge up, and optionally plugs in at the office during the day to supply grid-tied storage back to offset peak demand load. In this world we would no longer need to rely on peaker plants, reducing CO2 and particulate emissions considerably.

Call me more than a little near-sighted but honestly, I can't see that far into the future.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Actually, it's worth pointing out that in some markets there's *so much distributed solar power* going online that it's more environmentally conscious to charge during the day. Peak demand from the grid is now evening just after the sun sets. You don't want to contribute to that peak, do you? Charge at noon instead!

This is specific to places with truly massive solar power deployment.

I'd suggest that people would generally charge backwards from departure, so naturally be charging in the middle of the night when electricity is cheapest, rather than charging as soon as they get home.

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Call me more than a little near-sighted but honestly, I can't see that far into the future.

I ca 't see it at all. If there will be lots of plug-in cars, batteries will be cheap and rather than a suboptimal unpredictable solution using automotive batteries, complex metering and depending on employers installing charging points, utilities and users will both have distributed solar and static storage using new and old batteries.

 

[Gizmotoy]

I'd suggest that people would generally charge backwards from departure, so naturally be charging in the middle of the night when electricity is cheapest, rather than charging as soon as they get home.

I agree. And that would actually be a nice charging mode. Sometimes I try to do this calculation in my head as it is to minimize the time the battery spends at high SOC. Instead of a scheduled start time, it'd be cool to say "Car, charge at 30A, I need you to be done at 6am" and then it just starts whenever it needs to in order to finish in time.

Better still, enter your electricity rate tables and just tell it you need it at 6am and let it sort out when to start and how much current to draw.

 

[cwerdna]

In a not too distant future I can envision a world where everyone plugs in their EVs at home at night to charge up, and optionally plugs in at the office during the day to supply grid-tied storage back to offset peak demand load.

Good luck with that! Provided the cars and infrastructure could do it, very few people would do that. (AFAIK, you can't currently do that at all via J1772. There are V2G/V2H solutions over CHAdeMO, but not in the US.)

I sure as heck wouldn't! My car would stay parked at work, not plugged into anything sucking energy out of it.

Besides me making my home electricity bills skyrocket (see my earlier posts w/PG&E's lousy electricity rates and tiers), why would I want to have even less range to go home/trips after work and put extra unnecessary cycles on my battery? No thanks.

 

[Dave EV]

Actually, it's worth pointing out that in some markets there's *so much distributed solar power* going online that it's more environmentally conscious to charge during the day. Peak demand from the grid is now evening just after the sun sets. You don't want to contribute to that peak, do you? Charge at noon instead!

This is specific to places with truly massive solar power deployment.

That would mainly be Hawaii and Germany right now.

California won't be too far behind. Right now the midday peak is already much flatter than it used to be. And if you account for all the utility scale solar which currently peaks at over 4 GW and holds that from 11AM-4PM right now, it won't be long before there are fewer fossil fuels being burned during the day than there are at night (at least when the wind is blowing). When you really want to avoid charging right now is between 7-8AM and 5-9PM. Summer time will shift that somewhat.

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