small nit: per the Mercury News, small sections of Palo Alto and Alameda experienced outages. (something having to do with the fact that both cities own their Elec company, but it wasn’t explained.)
Fair enough. Was going by what the Governor tweeted.
The central point is that there were no major outages of any sort in the great state of CA, putting aside the ones you mentioned.
The warnings here had nothing to do with a catastrophic failure of the CA grid and any alleged incompetency of CA in announing the ban of new ICE vehicles in 2035.
It was just hot as hell here! Thankfully, it will get a bit cooler later in the week.
ETA: There were NO ROLLING OUTAGES. However, there were heat-related outages sporadically in the State.
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Holy JP Morgan, it hit 113 degrees in the city where my husband’s HQ are located!
Yikes.
Balmy 68 degrees here as we speak. Wallbox will start charging the car in a couple of hours even though we do not have peak rates. Just practicing responsible EV ownership.
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That may work when it’s 90 outside but does not when it’s 114. Most California homes are also very poorly insulated so I would question the efficacy of this method of cooling.
One of my friends lives in Livermore, which is in Alameda county, and they had no power for a long time last night, maybe 12 hours. She was scrambling to find refrigeration for her son’s insulin in the wee hours of the morning. It was 113F out there today. Other cities in Alameda county also had problems with loss of power. I’m not sure why and I hope that all people have options to cool down in this heat wave. It’s a bad one.
This is one of the pros with some EVs. They can be used as a power source for other things. It won’t work for anyone who doesn’t have their car at their house, but would work for others. It’s one reason I really like the thought of getting one. We have a gas generator here because that’s what most rural folks have done for eons, but it’s loud and requires gas.
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Do you have any info on how to use an EV to power stuff around the house? I did a quick search online and it seems that using the Tesla as a power source might void the car warranty.
Some EVs, like at least some versions of the F-150 Lightning, are designed to be set up to be usable as home backup batteries. But that is relatively new compared to people attaching third party inverters to their EVs.
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I’m just glad I live somewhere without power grid issues, rolling blackouts and differing electricity rates by time of day. What a PITA.
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citivas, I think you miss the point. Obviously, there are problems with CA’s grid if the state is advising people not to use any high-draw appliances during peak hours. Yes, people can program their EVs to charge at night when the loads on the grid are lower, but what happens in 2035 when CA bans the sale of gasoline cars? What happens when the market penetration of EVs reaches meaningful levels, say 25% (in 2021 it was just 2.2% nationwide, and in 2019 it was 5.2% in CA). Can the CA grid handle 10M EVs charging, regardless of time of day?
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I’m worried about the loss of life. I’ve lived through bad heat waves in Europe that killed so many vulnerable people, and then some. We don’t realize how deadly heat can be until it’s too late. We’ve got at least three more days. I know I’m off topic, so I’ll leave it at that.
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Utilities are upgrading their systems all the time. I know where we are in NC new people are moving here in droves and they are building new houses and apartments like crazy. That all puts more strain on the electric grid than some EVs.
Please remember it’s not like in 2035 all the cars in California will magically turn into EVs. The vast majority will still be 2034 and earlier gas vehicles. Look around the next time you are out on the street and see how many brand new 2022 vehicles of any kind you can see. That’s a rough estimate of how many new EVs will be on the road in 2035.
As for using your EV to run your appliances at home, yes this is a thing. In fact I just read a piece about a doctor performing a vasectomy during a power outage using power from his Rivian truck because the patient didn’t want to reschedule the appointment. Texas doctor uses his Rivian truck to power a vasectomy | WGLT
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What if you live in an apartment? California is big on high density living right now. Can you hook up your EV to your apartment? I don’t understand how that is possible.
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There are Peltier or even compressor coolers that can be plugged into a 12V outlet. A charged EV can power such cooler for a long time.
(We left the car in “dog mode” once because we had a load of nursery plants in the trunk and went for a nice walk. The AC on full drained the mileage by less than 3 miles in one hour while we were enjoying nature).
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She can’t afford an EV. But thanks for the recommendation. I’ll pass it along.
At a typical home charging rate of 7kW, that means that 10 million EVs charging at home at the same time would be 7GW of power.
California ISO - Today's Outlook indicates that current night time (midnight to 8am) demand plus 7GW is well below the peak that gets the grid operator and utilities concerned (whether you look at total demand or demand net of renewables).
Peak hours are mostly about the air conditioning. If you have air conditioning, turn it off during peak hours (pre-cool your house before peak hours so that the temperature rise does not end up too hot by the end of peak hours).
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I think you missed the point. The temperatures here were the highest ever recorded. And they didn’t have to do rolling outages.
I trust you understand that 2035 is 13 years away?
What point are you trying to make?
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There are battery-powered coolers out there, too. It might be worth looking into getting one as an insurance policy of sorts - I would if I had to refrigerate expensive medications.
ETA: here are some mentioned:
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I am very interested in Toyota’s thinking these days because of two stories I’ve recently read.
First were the swarm of articles last week decrying the shortage of EV battery materials. Lithium, nickel, now graphite are all looking like problems in the coming 3-5 years, to the point where world-wide production won’t cover American needs much less those of China, Europe and India. Expanding mining operations in order to be more environmentally clean is not how most people expected things to go, and that doesn’t even open the lid on the idea of building more nuke plants.
Next was the story of Toyota increasing their investment in EV batteries in North Carolina despite their doubts that that’s the only way to reach zero emissions targets.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/31/business/toyota-ev-battery-plant/index.html
This says that Toyota (and BMW) are still very committed to their hydrogen cell technology, and are spending on the same batteries as everyone else as a hedge. Frankly I think hydrogen cell tech looks like a great alternative to EV, and I think having more than one tech is an important thing as we charge into this new world. You may need a new hydrogen infrastructure to power these vehicles, but for fleet vehicles or people in remote places soon it might almost be as easy to crank up a hydrogen still as a high power energy source. It’s just a matter of maturing the tech. Speaking of which, they recently released this story too:
Lots going on, so I’m kind of curious to see where Toyota and BMW are in 2035 when the dust settles and the ICE cars are out of California showrooms.
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Do you live somewhere where it gets to 114 and have you tried this method? In a 5th story apartment, for example. It doesn’t work. And I’m a little annoyed at politicians pushing this technique for everyone.
ETA: it would be safer to send people to cooling stations (the library etc.) than to ask them to shut off their AC between 4 and 9 and stay at home. I hope I’m wrong and we don’t see lots of deaths related to this heat wave.
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About three years ago, I seriously looked at a hydrogen car. I think it was the Hyundai Ioniq. They were giving away free fuel for a number of years. The only problem was, at that time, the only hydrogen filling stations were in CA.
I totally agree: if possible, it would be good to have alternatives to EVs that are more environmentally friendly than fossil fuel cars.