Food for thought: more than 60 percent of the electric grid is powered by burning dirty fossil fuels. Using that dirty grid to charge electric vehicles (EV) only adds pollution and greenhouses to the air everyone breathes. Thus, in order to maximize the benefits of switching over to EVs for a pollution-free future, even the charging methods must be taken into account.
On the average, an EV requires 30 kilowatt hours of electricity (kWh) to travel 160 kilometers—that’s what the average home consumes in an entire day. By 2030, if EV adoption becomes more widespread, they will consume as much electricity as 35 percent of homes or as much as 137 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year.
Moreover, it’s calculated that the grid load of a single grid-connected DC fast charger is equal to the electrical consumption of 50 homes during the charging period. Multiply that with the number of EVs hitting the road in the next couple of years, it will certainly cause a surge and wreak havoc on the energy infrastructure.
The only “clean” and sensible way to take pressure off the aging grid is to add distributed renewable power generation.
One solution that’s being proposed is this wind and solar tower (WST). It generates 61.5 kW of pollution-free electricity per operating hour for EV chargers. This is made possible by the world’s only charger powered by a combination of wind and sun. Because they don’t need a grid connection to work, they can be installed in rural or remote locations. An integral one-megawatt battery storage unit is also available to store energy at night. Plus, to keep the solar panels free from dust and other particles, these WSTs uses centrifugal force to clean its rotating solar panel using the morning dew.
Each WST is capable of charging six vehicles simultaneously at Level-4 DC Ultra-Fast charge rates of 6.333 kilowatts per minute that add 112 kilometers of driving range in just over three minutes. Over the course of a year, it produces more than 188,000-kWh of electricity—enough to charge 9,441 EVs. And by not relying on the grid, that substantial output is immune to power line resistance losses, brownouts, and blackouts.
EVs are not dirty, but the electricity that charges them is filthy. Technologies such as these wind and solar towers can help change that. By switching over to energy generation that’s not dependent on the grid, EV drivers can rejoice in the fact that they’re not dirtying the air nor harming the environment.
Thank you very much for this enlightening article :) Thus, before the actual switch to EVs, clean electricity sources must be focused on first.
ReplyDeleteH a goodstart
ReplyDeleteIt would help if you install household solar system. What would be the recommended kw of your household system?
ReplyDelete