I think this is underestimating just how much 1MW is, even allowing for the fractional duty cycle of time spent changing over who's using the charging station. 1MW of 500W solar panels is 2000 panels, for example. It's probably going to be reserved for highway stations that are also conveniently located near substations.

Although you're now making me wonder at what point it becomes more economical to ship electricity in batteries rather than do lengthy, expensive, and annoyingly controversial grid upgrades.

▲

adrian_b 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The 1-MW chargers have internal batteries, so they can pull a much lower average power from the electrical grid.

The connection to the electrical grid of a charging station is not dimensioned based on the charging times. It is dimensioned based on the number of cars that must be charged during a given time interval at that location (assuming a certain average charging energy).

So regardless if fast chargers or slow chargers are used, what matters is how many electric cars are used in a region and how much they travel each day.

Fast chargers can matter only indirectly, if their presence will convince more of the car users to switch to EVs, requiring the electrical power suppliers to take into account this increased consumption.

	▲	close04 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> The 1-MW chargers have internal batteries, so they can pull a much lower average power from the electrical grid. We go back to what I was saying earlier [0], you'll need a lot of local storage to keep that charger running at full speed without breaking the back of the distribution grid. That comes on top of the solid grid capacity at every one of those many small parking lots. One stall alone needs 1MW maybe equally split between the grid and the local battery, for probably 50-70kWh per car. Just 3-4 of these cars charging in a parking lot would mean a constant multi-MW pull from the grid on top of the battery that also needs to be recharged from somewhere. To guarantee that you lower that average you need to have enough local storage. The technology exists, it works really well for large dedicated charging spots. The problem is the cost of scaling when you have to deal with lots of small plots (what OP proposed). A 1kW installation with 2-3kWh battery storage is the size of a small container and we've had them for years. Why do you think every small parking lot hasn't been equipped with one? > requiring the electrical power suppliers to take into account this increased consumption This doesn't scale like software. Adding production is comparatively easy, adding distribution capacity isn't. It needs a lot of equipment that's not really available [1], and a lot of construction work to expand the grid capacity. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47932115 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47604887

▲

rstuart4133 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> 1MW of 500W solar panels is 2000 panels, for example.

Or conservatively 100m x 100m of panels. About 1/5 of the roof area of a big-box store.

▲

maxglute 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I posted math in another comment, maybe wildly off. It's 1500 kWh of battery from 30 old blade1s / upcycled byd packs, + 600kWh of grid power (typical industrial i.e. no need for major grid changes) + 30 kWh of solar roof (i.e. minor contribution). Scaled for 3300kWh for 2-3 hour morning/afternoon rush, about 100kwH per car. 100-150 cars per day like typical gas pump. The key point is the battery storage with upcycled old batteries (i.e. 0 capex) is CHEAP and space efficient, and since storage basically free, they can simply stack more packs in future to grow buffer if required. Of course assuming long term proven safety, i.e. no laws mandating burial. Otherwise storage is couple parking spots big x 2m high. Can stack to 4-6m... but I think regulatory will probably prevent it from any higher. TLDR basically system scaled/designed to use typical grid power + size battery buffer + charging speed for gas station parity.

▲

yetihehe 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Hmm, "Never underestimate a shipping container sized battery hauling down a highway"?