RE: At the end of the day....8 Dec 2019 12:19
From the UK governments EV driving change policy document.
54. Rather than increases to peak demand, the most problematic impacts of EVs on the electricity grid are likely to be experienced on distribution networks,118 where the majority of charge points are expected to be connected.119 If clusters of EV charge points emerge without sufficient planning and mitigation measures, then charging could overload local, low voltage networks, leading to power outages or ‘brown-outs’.120 The ‘My Electric Avenue’ EV trials found that that over 300,000 UK networks could be at risk of overloading from EV charging, with some local networks overloading when as little as 30–40% of customers charge their vehicle.121 Separate analysis by the Green Alliance has found that “as few as 6–8 cars charging in a small cluster, at peak time through dumb chargers, could result in significant disruptions to the local electricity distribution system.”122 The risk of overloading will vary according to local conditions–particularly the amount of ‘spare capacity’ that is available to deal with additional loads.123 Rural networks may be particularly at risk, since they typically have lower resilience (being connected to fewer neighbouring networks), and because motorists in rural areas are likely to rely heavily on home charging.