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https://theconversation.com/how-evs-and-electric-water-heaters-are-turning-cities-into-giant-batteries-261369>
"As the electrification of transport and heating accelerates, many worry the
increased demand could overload national power grids. In Australia, electricity
consumption is expected to double by 2050.
If everyone charges their car and heats water using electric systems at the
same time, peak demand could rise sharply, forcing costly grid upgrades. But
this would only happen if there’s no planning done.
The shift to electric vehicles (EVs) and electric water heating has a huge
silver lining. As more Australians make the switch, they’re quietly expanding a
vast network of distributed energy storage. In a fully electrified future, each
person could have on average about 46 kilowatt hours worth of energy storage –
both in EV batteries and hot water systems.
Scaled up, that’s a huge resource. If all cars and water heaters run on
electricity, their combined flexible energy storage could reach over 1,000
gigawatt-hours (GWh) across Australia. That’s far beyond the 350 GWh capacity
of the Snowy 2.0 hydroelectric project and all existing grid-scale batteries
put together.
Authorities can use these devices to help operate the grid more efficiently and
slash infrastructure costs. In fact, our new research shows that with the right
coordination, cities can transform from energy consumers into flexible energy
hubs able to store energy and release it as necessary. This would make it
possible to avoid billions of dollars worth of grid upgrades."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
