ᐅ Planned Throttling of Electric Vehicle Chargers and Heat Pumps
Created on: 15 Mar 2023 10:16
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sub-xero
Hello dear photovoltaic enthusiasts,
Like many others, I had my new build equipped one year ago with a photovoltaic system, battery storage, heat pump, and electric vehicle charger. Everything is running to my highest satisfaction, and on average over the year, I am about 75% self-sufficient (including electricity for the heat pump).
Now, the politicians in our so-called banana republic Germany have come up with the brilliant idea to throttle the power supply for heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers starting in 2024. The reason is that our power grids would be completely overloaded with the expected development (electric cars and heat pumps). I understand that the promotion of electric vehicles and heat pumps does not fit well with the unplanned and poorly thought-out implementation of renewable energy, and therefore, shortages are likely to occur.
In this context, I am interested in how this throttling would actually be implemented in practice. Here are a few questions for open discussion:
The electricity I draw from the grid cannot be divided into "electricity for the EV charger," "electricity for the heat pump," "electricity for the household," etc. It is a total amount of X kW. Statements like:
According to the concept of the Federal Network Agency, if a shortage threatens, for example, EV chargers or heat pumps should be throttled down to a power of 3.7 kilowatts to prevent an overload.
are, in my view, completely unrealistic. The devices are not supplied individually from the grid. In a worst-case scenario, there would then be no electricity left for the freezer or the computer. That is obviously not acceptable.
Grid operators want to be able to "unilaterally and indefinitely" throttle devices in case of an impending grid overload. The planned regulation applies only to households that have installed, for example, an EV charger or a heat pump. The household itself would remain unaffected by a possible short-term dimming. The refrigerator, washing machine, and internet would continue to operate as usual.
How is this supposed to work technically?
In any case, the usefulness of installing heat pumps in houses without photovoltaic systems is questionable.
If private EV chargers are throttled, the trend toward e-mobility in Germany will definitely be further hindered. (Charging at 3.7 kW is possible and sufficient in many cases, but firstly, the power loss is relatively high, and secondly, in some situations, one wants to be able to charge faster with 11 kW.)
Like many others, I had my new build equipped one year ago with a photovoltaic system, battery storage, heat pump, and electric vehicle charger. Everything is running to my highest satisfaction, and on average over the year, I am about 75% self-sufficient (including electricity for the heat pump).
Now, the politicians in our so-called banana republic Germany have come up with the brilliant idea to throttle the power supply for heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers starting in 2024. The reason is that our power grids would be completely overloaded with the expected development (electric cars and heat pumps). I understand that the promotion of electric vehicles and heat pumps does not fit well with the unplanned and poorly thought-out implementation of renewable energy, and therefore, shortages are likely to occur.
In this context, I am interested in how this throttling would actually be implemented in practice. Here are a few questions for open discussion:
The electricity I draw from the grid cannot be divided into "electricity for the EV charger," "electricity for the heat pump," "electricity for the household," etc. It is a total amount of X kW. Statements like:
According to the concept of the Federal Network Agency, if a shortage threatens, for example, EV chargers or heat pumps should be throttled down to a power of 3.7 kilowatts to prevent an overload.
are, in my view, completely unrealistic. The devices are not supplied individually from the grid. In a worst-case scenario, there would then be no electricity left for the freezer or the computer. That is obviously not acceptable.
Grid operators want to be able to "unilaterally and indefinitely" throttle devices in case of an impending grid overload. The planned regulation applies only to households that have installed, for example, an EV charger or a heat pump. The household itself would remain unaffected by a possible short-term dimming. The refrigerator, washing machine, and internet would continue to operate as usual.
How is this supposed to work technically?
In any case, the usefulness of installing heat pumps in houses without photovoltaic systems is questionable.
If private EV chargers are throttled, the trend toward e-mobility in Germany will definitely be further hindered. (Charging at 3.7 kW is possible and sufficient in many cases, but firstly, the power loss is relatively high, and secondly, in some situations, one wants to be able to charge faster with 11 kW.)
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RotorMotor18 Mar 2023 13:40Scout** schrieb:
are you talking about the city of Erlangen or Buxtehude here – definitely not about the FRG… 🙄 Thanks!
The post would have been even more helpful if you had mentioned right away that it’s GWh instead of MWh.
And I think it still became clear that there are fluctuations of 100% throughout the day.
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WilderSueden18 Mar 2023 14:03Allthewayup schrieb:
Supply and demand – the market adapts very quickly to these consumption patterns as well. I have my doubts about that. You need to heat when it’s cold. Of course, you can pause heating for a couple of hours, but during a prolonged lull in winter (which automatically means a period of low solar and wind generation), you will have to buy electricity at high prices. This could easily wipe out the savings of an entire year within just half a week. Otherwise, electricity consumption can only be controlled to a limited extent. Sure, you can run the dishwasher at midday, but that doesn’t add up to large amounts of power. The only fairly flexible load is the electric car, although in winter most electric vehicles need to be charged after dark.
In any case, private electricity consumption is minor compared to the demand growth from industrial electrification.
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xMisterDx18 Mar 2023 21:15May I ask why you decided to install a heat pump if you are convinced that the power grid will collapse and that we are all doomed once we stop burning coal?
PS:
If it helps, my house connection provides 35kW. At most, I need 15. The rest can gladly go to the neighbors. That way, no cable in the ground starts to overheat.
PS:
If it helps, my house connection provides 35kW. At most, I need 15. The rest can gladly go to the neighbors. That way, no cable in the ground starts to overheat.
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Bausparfuchs18 Mar 2023 22:45Standard house connections do not have a capacity of 35 kW but rather 16 kW. Your consumption is 15 kW. You would already be at the limit with a standardized house connection.
A 22 kW charging point for an electric vehicle is unrealistic. Even 11 kW becomes tight when a heat pump is added. And if this affects 10 households on one street, the network capacity becomes critical. That is why all wall boxes must be reported to the grid operator. It is not without reason.
Another limitation is the power output of the electricity meter. This should also be checked.
Higher connection capacities come at a significant cost from grid operators, if they are available at all. If you want to install a photovoltaic system larger than 30 kW peak, you have to pay for the connection yourself. Possibly even for a transformer substation.
A 22 kW charging point for an electric vehicle is unrealistic. Even 11 kW becomes tight when a heat pump is added. And if this affects 10 households on one street, the network capacity becomes critical. That is why all wall boxes must be reported to the grid operator. It is not without reason.
Another limitation is the power output of the electricity meter. This should also be checked.
Higher connection capacities come at a significant cost from grid operators, if they are available at all. If you want to install a photovoltaic system larger than 30 kW peak, you have to pay for the connection yourself. Possibly even for a transformer substation.
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WilderSueden19 Mar 2023 12:12xMisterDx schrieb:
May I ask why you decided to get a heat pump if you believe the power grid will collapse and that we are all doomed as soon as we stop burning coal? It won’t collapse. We just buy Czech nuclear power and Polish coal power, and cover the rest with gas 😉
A variable tariff is not cost-effective though.
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Allthewayup19 Mar 2023 12:33RotorMotor schrieb:
It seems to be your area of interest after all.
And many others are now worried because they don’t understand the connections and have the feeling that something is being taken away from them. It’s not just my topic; it concerns all of us, doesn’t it?
I’m happy to have the context explained to me; after all, learning is a lifelong process I certainly don’t want to close myself off from.
How do you come to the conclusion that I feel something is being taken away from me? I just don’t like being patronized. But who does?
RotorMotor schrieb:
I once tried to find statistics on satisfaction with government performance.
Not so easy, but most show a positive trend. How do you come to the assumption that we are currently at a low point? I took some time before replying to your post to review some studies. As you have surely noticed yourself, the results strongly depend on who commissioned the study, when it was commissioned (and its relation to current political events), and how precisely the study’s questions were formulated. So, in summary, the studies are of moderate to low reliability on this topic. Some studies lean clearly “pro,” others strongly “con.”
What is noticeable—and on which my statement mainly relies—is the current government’s drive to regulate, but that was announced in advance. I tend to prefer a rewards-based system rather than a “punishment system,” which partly explains my attitude toward how the current government interacts with the population, of which I am a part. Generally, I’m the type who prefers to do things voluntarily rather than being forced into them.
RotorMotor schrieb:
I already explained that.
Grid and power plants don’t have to be designed for peak loads if we succeed in reducing those peaks.
That was already the case “before the energy transition.” That’s why there are off-peak tariffs and so on.
You can see on Energy-Charts how consumption fluctuates strongly during working hours, cooking, and so forth.
It varies over the day between 40 and 80 MW.
So if you simply reduce car charging and heating a bit while cooking, or in the future, if a cloud passes over solar panels, that saves a lot of grid and generator peak power. If only “if” were a reality. I worked for the local utility for five years during school, doing meter readings every September. Of about 500 households I visited each year, only about 10 had a peak (day) tariff and an off-peak (night) meter. This shows that people simply don’t like getting up at night to cook, iron, or do anything else. So, rather than trying to stabilize the grid through more incentive systems, the approach is to impose more regulation due to this “lack of willingness.”
I simply doubt that, once the last coal plant, the last gas plant, and other fossil energy suppliers are off the grid, it will be enough to keep the grid stable by briefly disconnecting cars and heat pumps—assuming we continue to expand renewables at the pace we are used to, or not at all.
RotorMotor schrieb:
That is basically correct, but the arguments above remain fully valid.
The better and smarter the regulation, the less costly the expansion will be for all of us.
If you understand how important it is to avoid any CO2 emissions, it should be obvious that it’s a minor issue if the heat pump stops for two hours, causing the room temperature to fluctuate by maybe 0.1 degrees. Then let’s just turn it off 24/7 🙂 Joking aside...
As the owner of a passive house, we agree that the best energy is energy you don’t need in the first place. But what use is it to relentlessly focus only on our own CO2 emissions when nearly the rest of the world doesn’t care and actually produces much more every year? I don’t understand this single-minded, isolated German debate about it.
In summary, we agree on most points; only the way it is implemented is a matter for discussion.
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