No, the electric grid is not constantly adding power capacity. In fact, capacity expansions are planned on the timescale of decades. the previous comment is accurate - everyone switching to EVs even on a single, 80 home street can cause havoc for which we are unprepared.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link
https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/09/worlds-larg...
It's not even a "our society can't orchestrate this", but the opinion is usually "it's impossible for people to organize that way".
Hardly disagrees with the "timescale of decades" remark parent is making.
If there is a ten year pipeline, design decisions are made years in advance. Hence my claim that even a single street switching to EVs will cause havoc.
My strongest interpretation of this was you were saying that no capacity was being added. Any other interpretation doesn’t make sense. Everyone already knows that grids don’t have new capacity added on a constant basis, so nobody would say it. Even if it went through a growth phase, that would stop at some point for any number of reasons.
I’ve done some calculations elsewhere in the thread that ( I think ) show that a 25% uptake of EVs in the UK all charged during the same 6 hour off-peak period would still not meet peak day demand. Even without those calculations I don’t see how you can claim a streets worth of EVs would cause havoc.
The average home car charger is the largest consumer of power in a household, often by as much as 2x - 3x the next largest device. That next largest device is often a heat pump, radiant heat or electric stove. Calculations for the grid as a whole ignore the fact that there are local and regional capacity bottlenecks, where meeting demand becomes a problem and the solution requires years of planning.
The feeder running along my street assumes a maximum power at each house of 10 kW and that 33% of houses consume that peak power at the same time. Imagine now if all houses added a 7 kW car charger, all charging during the night, every night. That is the havoc i refer to.
Both the UK and US have this already.
https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/ele...
> Through smart charging EVs can in fact help to balance the system, helping consumers use green power when it’s plentiful (and often cheaper) and avoid times when there’s more load on the network. Vehicle-to-grid technology could even send that power back to the grid when needed.
> With this in mind, the UK Government has introduced Electric Vehicle Smart Charge Points Regulations, which ensure that EV charge points will have this smart functionality.
> Similarly in the US, Smart Chargers and Time of Use Rate programmes will support balancing the load throughout the day.