I hate to defend PG&E, but their statement has some merit. There is a big difference between the load that an electric dryer would draw through that 30A outlet and the load that your L2 charger could impose. It could be 24A continuously for several hours. If there are multiple homes with EVs on the same transformer that might all be charging at midnight, you could cook the transformer. I've done it, twice.
Once when a group of us met at a friend's house in Napa on a hot day. The home had connections for two EVs to charge, plus A/C going full blast. Then some appetizers went into the broiler. Not long after everything went dark, but no breakers on the home panel had tripped. The transformer had overheated and popped its protection circuit.
The second time was in 2010 when five of us with Roadsters took a drive to Yosemite with a stay at an RV campground. We had three or four cars charging during an afternoon with moderate temperature, but by 9pm we had cooked the main transformer feeding the campground. Even though the campground had about 25 spaces where all the RVs could be running their A/C on a hot summer day, the different load pattern of our EV chargers caused too much heat to build up in the transformer.
OK. First, I don't live in CA, so I don't have a decent feel for how the Public Utilities Commission or equivalent runs things out there.
Second: I happen to work in Telecom. Not on the, "Run the stuff and take in money from subscribers" end, but rather the, "Build it and They Will Come" end.
There is this thing: Nobody designs a POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service, as in twisted wire pairs, 48V, and ringers that really ring) network so that if every subscriber picks up the handset, everybody gets dial tone. Admittedly, everything is TCP/IP based these days and everybody's streaming videos all the time, so stuff has changed. But, still: I'd imagine even a VOIP server is going to choke and die (or at least, not respond to new requests) if every single subscriber tries to dial a number at the same time.
The reason: The Telcos would have to spend serious money on hardware, money on electricity to run that hardware, and the people ending up paying for all that would be the Public. And, while waiting for that Event where Everybody Picks Up Their Phones At The Same Time, all that gear would be mainly sitting idle. And it wouldn't be just the phones - sizing the fiber optic lines and such for that Event would mean buying, burying, and maintaining all the cross-country infrastructure that would make handling the Event possible.
So, this is where the FCC and the Public Utility Commissions do studies and set up a Level of Service that gets published and, presumably, the Public Is Happy With, and doesn't have to pay an arm and a leg for. (Did a quick search, found
this.)
So, let's talk about Power. There are Similarities. Yup, one can have a thousands homes in a nifty subdivision all of which have 200A service. Throwing in the NEC requirement that Thou Shalt Not Draw More than 80% of Max Load, that means that all those home could, theoretically, pull down 160A at 240VAC, or about 38.4 kW. Multiply that by a thousand homes and we're talking 38.4 MW. What do all you want to bet that the network isn't sized for that kind of power?
And I'd argue that this isn't some kind of mistake by the power company. They likely have worked with the PUC, which, mind you, represents the Public, to come up with similar levels of service re Overload that doesn't break the Public's Bank.
So, just like with telecom and TCP/IP, things have Changed on the Demand side. With everybody and their brother-in-laws buying electric cars and charging same for Hours, the Utilities and the PUC may have been caught out. Yeah, cheap electricity is a desirable goal, and that means (to some extent) limiting the money going into infrastructure to reasonable values, but, if people want electric cars, Stuff Has To Change. Unless one
wants to have rotating blackouts.
Now, I've heard of Serious Evil in California. I've heard that NIMBY is Really Strong, so attempting to get a new high-tension line in, base load generation getting built, or indeed, building infrastructure of any type has been, shall we say, curtailed by mobs of NIMBY types. Resulting in some of the highest electric costs in the nation. (We got our own NIMBYs in NJ, thank you, but it hasn't seemed to be at the level of virulence that living on the Left Coast seems to engender.) And, of course, there's always regulatory capture, where short-sighted business critters try to cut costs by lobbying the PUC. (Answer: Vote the B**** Out, and get the PUC changed.. but I don't know the situation with that in CA.)
And sometimes it's just the company and the corporate culture. We got two big utilities out this way (and the usual collection of dwarfs), PSE&G and JCP&L. JCP&L is run by a bunch of greedheads based in Ohio, somewhere, and, you can bet if a hurricane comes through, it'll be JCP&L that will be Surprised By This Oh-So-Unusual-Event and will be weeks getting the last customer back on line.
PSE&G may have its foibles, but, when Disaster Strikes, They Are Ready And Out There, Working. Heck, when Solar first showed up, it was PSE&G out there handing out low-cost loans, payable in SRECs, for people to install solar systems with. The idea being that PSE&G was dead tired of fighting NIMBYs all over while trying to site peaker plants for the inevitable air conditioning overload events, and they figured that every house that had solar was not just one less load on the network, but it also powered up a couple of the neighbors as well. Mind you, PSE&G didn't have to get forced into this - they did that on their own.
Their shtick's been so good that New York.. Yeah, that state, across the Hudson from here.. dismantled the Long Island Power Authority and begged PSE&G to come and take the place over. Which (and I never thought I'd be saying this about a Power Utility) PSE&G did, with good will. By all reports the Long Islanders are much happier now.
So, going back on track: Any of you out there going to dig into Service Levels for the Utilities? And find out what they've actually agreed to do, with the force of (administrative) law behind it? How about writing a letter to the PUC? (Around here, that gets utilities excited and start running around like chickens with their heads cut off. But we have a PUC that kinda works.)
Oh, yeah. One last thing. Regarding NIMBYs and their ilk running amok, I'm curious. I heard a report somewhere that, if a California homeowner with Solar on the roof generated more power than they used, the utility had to pay the homeowner
retail rates for the electricity so generated. Which, if true, is bat-*** nuts. Utilities buy their electric energy wholesale, sell it retail, and the difference pays for infrastructure, salaries, and the occasional office party. Not to mention bond holders. Did California
really set it up so that consumers got paid retail rates for excess energy?