That’s why the utilities are now charging “demand charges” for the peak amount of usage during that month for 15 minutes. It’s essentially a penalty that could be anywhere from $18 to $20 per kilowatt. So, if you have a large number of EVs coming in at the same time every morning, that’s going to be a big spike, especially since that’s when all of your other machinery will start kicking in. The problem is that if we want to achieve the 2035 regulations, we will need more and better infrastructure to handle the huge load. The user can install a power management system in order to spread the load evenly, so that not everything will come on at the same time. You can do the same with your EV charging to reduce the demand charge, and we are already doing that here at Cyber Switching, Inc. We have several patents on rotational charging systems. We currently have eight EV chargers in front of our building and it’s on one circuit that is staggered, which enables us to avoid paying the demand penalties. If you have
a power management system like the ones we have patents on, outages won’t ever happen. Most people don’t realize that there are many alternatives when it comes to power management. With so many EVs on the roads within the next few years, people will be charging their vehicles all at the same time, in many cases. There will be some pretty significant spikes and that puts a strain on the grid in that area. The worst thing that can happen is when you trip a breaker. That tells you you’re overloading the grid. I think that’s going to be the No. 1 problem that we can potentially encounter with large-scale EV charging.
home. With many of these homes that have been built starting in the 1970s, the utility company never anticipated this demand when everything comes on at the same time. It will be the same scenario, but in reverse. People will come home from work and plug-in all at the same time and it’s going to be a big load. It’s not like turning on a lightbulb― even with the small charges, it’s still going to be a 120V load, 1,400 watts or more. Even if you’re using one of the smaller chargers, turning it on is comparable to 14 100-watt lightbulbs simultaneously. The grid wasn’t set up for this originally, so it will have to change and adapt to handle these larger loads.
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Will EV owners have to adapt in order to get their vehicles charged when needed?
Yes, people are always going to want to charge their cars at work, and by 2035 that will mean large parking lots full of EVs that are waiting to be charged. It will also be a problem at
38 JULY 2021 AUTOBODY NEWS / autobodynews.com
Will people be forced to charge primarily during the day to accommodate the huge spike in usage?
Yes, I think that is what will eventually happen. You want to charge when that power is available, so that’s why the utility companies are pushing from 4 to 9 p.m.
If you don’t have solar on your house to supplement your power, you might be in trouble. With many of those tract home developments built in the 1970s, there is not a lot of excess power there. So, that is where you’re going to have to spend the money―in infrastructure. Power management is a better alternative for companies on many levels. To meet their growing needs, they will have to upgrade their service to allow for more charging. But, that’s a large expense. With our system, you can use the power that’s available, and for most companies, they won’t have to change their electrical service and their employees will still get a charge for their vehicle. To avoid people moving their cars, we install what we call ‘dumb units’ that don’t have all of the bells and whistles, but they save time because employees won’t have to move their vehicles. This means that the ROI on these chargers is very fast because they don’t realize how much it can cost them in lost productivity when you have EVs in the picture.
