The industry can easily cope with anticipated EV power demands, he told Utility Week after addressing a sustainable transport seminar at the All-Energy Exhibition in Aberdeen this week. But he said home-charging behaviour will need to be carefully managed.
“Energy consumption has been falling since 2005 so there’s something like 20 terawatt hours less electricity being consumed this year compared to 2005,” he said. “That’s equivalent to the power needed to run something like 10 million electric vehicles, so we can clearly meet total demand.
“What we need to make sure, however, is that this power isn’t extracted at peak times. That’s what the challenge is, creating a longer term requirement for smart grids to manage the times when EVs are charged.
“Without the necessary controls, people will tend to drive home from work and plug their cars in immediately, exactly hitting the peak demand point on the system, according to current patterns. We’ve been carrying out trials, however, which illustrate that if you set up a default situation so that the charger comes on at 11 o’clock at night, linked to an off-peak tariff, drivers are still happy to plug the car in when they come home, knowing it won’t come on until the off-peak time. That would clearly be the best for the network and the best for drivers in terms of cheaper electricity.”
Seminar delegates were told there are currently 315 EV charging points in Scotland with a further 170 planned by the end of 2013.
For more discussion on electric vehicles and their implications for our electricity supply and delivery systems join us at Plugging Into EV in London on 30 May.