Building industry favours net-zero energy homes

EV Grid Capacity Management shows how smart charging, load balancing, and off-peak pricing align with utility demand response, DC fast charging networks, and renewable integration to keep national electricity infrastructure reliable as EV adoption scales

Key Points

EV Grid Capacity Management schedules charging and balances load to keep EV demand within utility capacity.

✅ Off-peak pricing and time-of-use tariffs shift charging demand.

✅ Smart chargers enable demand response and local load balancing.

✅ Gradual EV adoption allows utilities to plan upgrades efficiently.

One of the most frequent concerns you will see from electric vehicle haters is that the electricity grid can’t possibly cope with all cars becoming EVs, or that EVs will crash the grid entirely. However, they haven’t done the math properly. The grids in most developed nations will be just fine, so long as the demand is properly management. Here’s how.

The biggest mistake the social media keyboard warriors make is the very strange assumption that all cars could be charging at once. In the UK, there are currently 32,697,408 cars according to the UK Department of Transport. The UK national grid had a capacity of 75.8GW in 2020. If all the cars in the UK were EVs and charging at the same time at 7kW (the typical home charger rate), they would need 229GW – three times the UK grid capacity. If they were all charging at 50kW (a common public DC charger rate), they would need 1.6TW – 21.5 times the UK grid capacity. That sounds unworkable, and this is usually the kind of thinking behind those who claim the UK grid can't cope with EVs.

What they don’t seem to realize is that the chances of every single car charging all at once are infinitesimally low. Their arguments seem to assume that nobody ever drives their car, and just charges it all the time. If you look at averages, the absurdity of this position becomes particularly clear. The distance each UK car travels per year has been slowly dropping, and was 7,400 miles on average in 2019, again according to the UK Department of Transport. An EV will do somewhere between 2.5 and 4.5 miles per kWh on average, so let’s go in the middle and say 3.5 miles. In other words, each car will consume an average of 2,114kWh per year. Multiply that by the number of cars, and you get 69.1TWh. But the UK national grid produced 323TWh of power in 2019, so that is only 21.4% of the energy it produced for the year. Before you argue that’s still a problem, the UK grid produced 402TWh in 2005, which is more than the 2019 figure plus charging all the EVs in the UK put together. The capacity is there, and energy storage can help manage EV-driven peaks as well.

Let’s do the same calculation for the USA, where an EV boom is about to begin and planning matters. In 2020, there were 286.9 million cars registered in America. In 2020, while the US grid had 1,117.5TW of utility electricity capacity and 27.7GW of solar, according to the US Energy Information Administration. If all the cars were EVs charging at 7kW, they would need 2,008.3TW – nearly twice the grid capacity. If they charged at 50kW, they would need 14,345TW – 12.8 times the capacity.

However, in 2020, the US grid generated 4,007TWh of electricity. Americans drive further on average than Brits – 13,500 miles per year, according to the US Department of Transport’s Federal Highway Administration. That means an American car, if it were an EV, would need 3,857kWh per year, assuming the average efficiency figures above. If all US cars were EVs, they would need a total of 1,106.6TWh, which is 27.6% of what the American grid produced in 2020. US electricity consumption hasn’t shrunk in the same way since 2005 as it has in the UK, but it is clearly not unfeasible for all American cars to be EVs. The US grid could cope too, even as state power grids face challenges during the transition.

After all, the transition to electric isn’t going to happen overnight. The sales of EVs are growing fast, with for example more plug-ins sold in the UK in 2021 so far than the whole of the previous decade (2010-19) put together. Battery-electric vehicles are closing in on 10% of the market in the UK, and they were already 77.5% of new cars sold in Norway in September 2021. But that is new cars, leaving the vast majority of cars on the road fossil fuel powered. A gradual introduction is essential, too, because an overnight switchover would require a massive ramp up in charge point installation, particularly devices for people who don’t have the luxury of home charging. This will require considerable investment, but could be served by lots of chargers on street lamps, which allegedly only cost £1,000 ($1,300) each to install, usually with no need for extra wiring.

This would be a perfectly viable way to provide charging for most people. For example, as I write this article, my own EV is attached to a lamppost down the street from my house. It is receiving 5.5kW costing 24p (32 cents) per kWh through SimpleSocket, a service run by Ubitricity (now owned by Shell) and installed by my local London council, Barnet. I plugged in at 11am and by 7.30pm, my car (which was on about 28% when I started) will have around 275 miles of range – enough for a couple more weeks. It will have cost me around £12 ($16) – way less than a tank of fossil fuel. It was a super-easy process involving the scanning of a QR code and entering of a credit card, very similar to many parking systems nowadays. If most lampposts had one of these charging plugs, not having off-street parking would be no problem at all for owning an EV.

With most EVs having a range of at least 200 miles these days, and the average mileage per day being 20 miles in the UK (the 7,400-mile annual figure divided by 365 days) or 37 miles in the USA, EVs won’t need charging more than once a week or even every week or two. On average, therefore, the grids in most developed nations will be fine. The important consideration is to balance the load, because if too many EVs are charging at once, there could be a problem, and some regions like California are looking to EVs for grid stability as part of the solution. This will be a matter of incentivizing charging during off-peak times such as at night, or making peak charging more expensive. It might also be necessary to have the option to reduce charging power rates locally, while providing the ability to prioritize where necessary – such as emergency services workers. But the problem is one of logistics, not impossibility.

There will be grids around the world that are not in such a good place for an EV revolution, at least not yet, and some critics argue that policies like Canada's 2035 EV mandate are unrealistic. But to argue that widespread EV adoption will be an insurmountable catastrophe for electricity supply in developed nations is just plain wrong. So long as the supply is managed correctly to make use of spare capacity when it’s available as much as possible, the grids will cope just fine.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• EV Infrastructure News

Canada 2035 Clean Electricity Target faces a 48.4GW shortfall as renewable capacity lags; accelerating wind, solar PV, grid upgrades, and coherent federal-provincial policy is vital to reach zero-emissions power and strengthen transmission and distribution.

Key Points

Canada's plan to supply nearly 100% of electricity from zero-emitting sources by 2035, requiring renewable buildout.

✅ Average adds 2.6GW; shortfall totals 48.4GW by 2035

✅ Expand wind, solar PV, storage, and grid modernization

✅ Align federal-province policy; retire or convert thermal plants

GlobalData’s latest report, ‘Canada Power Market Size and Trends by Installed Capacity, Generation, Transmission, Distribution and Technology, Regulations, Key Players and Forecast, 2022-2035’, discusses the power market structure of Canada and, amid looming power challenges, provides historical and forecast numbers for capacity, generation and consumption up to 2035. Detailed analysis of the country’s power market regulatory structure, competitive landscape and a list of major power plants are provided. The report also gives a snapshot of the power sector in the country on broad parameters of macroeconomics, supply security, generation infrastructure, transmission and distribution infrastructure, electricity import and export scenario, degree of competition, regulatory scenario, and future potential. An analysis of the deals in the country’s power sector is also included in the report.

Canada is expected to fall short of its 2035 clean electricity target after reviewing the country’s current renewable capacity activity. The country has targeted to produce nearly 100% of its electricity from zero-emitting sources by 2035, while electricity associations' net-zero goals extend to 2050; however, the country is adding only 2.6GW of annual renewable capacity additions on average every year, which would mean a cumulative shortfall of 48.4GW.

Canada has good governmental support, but it is not doing enough to ensure its targets are met. If the country is to meet its target to produce nearly 100% of electricity from zero-emitting sources by 2035, the country should both increase the capacity and efficiency of renewable power plants, as well as provide comprehensive end-to-end policies at both the federal and provincial levels, as debates over whether Ontario is embracing clean power continue across provinces. It should also involve communities and businesses in raising awareness of the benefits of adopting renewable energy.

The country has a large amount of proven natural gas and oil reserves that are proving too tempting an opportunity, and the Canadian Government is planning to increase the capacity of its gas-based plants under net-zero regulations permit some gas in the power mix, to secure real-time demand and supply. However, the country’s dependency on gas-based plants creates a major challenge to achieve its 2035 clean electricity target.

If the Canadian Government is to meet its 2035 targets, it should draw on examples from its European counterparts and add renewable capacity at a rapid pace, while balancing demand and emissions in key provinces. One advantage for Canada here is that it does not have land constraints, which is common in other major renewable power-generating countries. This could give the country an estimated 6.1GW of renewable capacity every year on average during the 2021-2035 period: enough capacity to meet its target. Most of these installations are expected to be for wind and solar PV.

Changing provincial governments are not helpful when it comes to implementing long-term projects, especially as Ontario faces looming electricity shortfalls that heighten planning risks, and continued stopping and starting of projects like this will only be damaging to renewable goals. Another way the country can achieve its target is by converting thermal power plants into clean energy plants and providing a roadmap or timeline for provinces to retire thermal power plants completely, even as scrapping coal can be costly for some systems.

Canada’s GDP (at constant prices) increased from $1,617.3bn in 2010 to $1,924.5bn in 2021, at a CAGR of 1.6%. The GDP (at constant prices) of the country declined sharply from $1,943.8bn in 2019 to $1,840.5bn in 2020 because of Covid-19 pandemic. After the recommencement of regular industrial and trade activities, the GDP grew by 4.6% in 2021 from 2020. The GDP is expected to cross pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Power Generation News

COVID-19 Impact on U.S. Wind Industry: disrupting wind power projects, tax credits, and construction timelines, risking rural revenues, jobs, and $35B investments; AWEA seeks Congressional flexibility as OEM shutdowns like Siemens Gamesa intensify delays.

Key Points

Pandemic disruptions threaten 25 GW of projects, $35B investment, rural revenues, jobs, and tax-credit timelines.

✅ 25 GW at risk; $35B investment jeopardized

✅ Rural taxes and land-lease payments may drop $8B

✅ AWEA seeks Congressional flexibility on tax-credit deadlines

In one of the latest examples of the havoc that the novel coronavirus is wreaking on the U.S. economy and the crisis hitting solar and wind sector alike, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) -- the national trade association for the U.S. wind industry -- yesterday stated its concerns that COVID-19 will "pose significant challenges to the American wind power industry." According to AWEA's calculations, the disease is jeopardizing the development of approximately 25 gigawatts of wind projects, representing $35 billion in investments, even as wind additions persist in some markets amid the pandemic.

Rural communities, where about 99% of wind projects are located, in particular, face considerable risk. The AWEA estimates that rural communities stand to lose about $8 billion in state and local tax payments and land-lease payments to private landowners. In addition, it's estimated that the pandemic threatens the loss of over 35,000 jobs, and the U.S. wind jobs outlook underscores the stakes, including wind turbine technicians, construction workers, and factory workers.

The development of wind projects is heavily reliant on the earning of tax credits, and debates over a Solar ITC extension highlight potential impacts on wind. However, in order to qualify for the current credits, project developers are bound to begin construction before Dec. 31, 2020. With local and state governments implementing various measures to stop the spread of the virus, the success of project developers' meeting this deadline is dubious, as utility-scale solar construction slows nationwide due to COVID-19. Addressing this and other challenges, the AWEA is turning to the government for help. In the trade association's press release, it states that "to protect the industry and these workers, AWEA is asking Congress for flexibility in allowing existing policies to continue working for the industry through this period of uncertainty."

Illustrating one of the ways in which COVID-19 is affecting the industry, Siemens Gamesa, a global leader in the manufacturing of wind turbines, closed a second Spanish factory this week after learning that a second of its employees had tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Renewable Energy News

Lebanon Power Barge Controversy spotlights Karadeniz Energy's Esra Sultan, Lebanon's electricity crisis, prolonged blackouts, and sectarian politics as Amal and Hezbollah clash over Zahrani vs Jiyeh docking and allocation across regions.

Key Points

A political dispute over the Esra Sultan power ship, its docking, and power allocation amid Lebanon's chronic blackouts.

✅ Karadeniz Energy lent a third barge at below-market rates.

✅ Docking disputes: Zahrani refused; Jiyeh limited; Zouq connected.

✅ Amal vs Hezbollah split exposes sectarian energy politics.

It was supposed to be a goodwill gesture from an energy company in Turkey.

This summer, the Karadeniz Energy Group lent Lebanon a floating power station to generate electricity at below-market rates to help ease the strain on the country's woefully undermaintained power sector.

Instead, the barge's arrival opened a Pandora's box of partisan mudslinging in a country hobbled by political sectarianism and dysfunction.

There have been rows over where it should dock, how to allocate its 235 megawatts of power, and even what to call the barge, echoing controversies like the Maine electric line debate that pit local politics against energy needs.

It has even driven a wedge between Lebanon's two dominant parties among Shiite Muslims: Amal and the militant group Hezbollah.

Amal, which has held the parliament speaker's seat since 1992, revealed sensationally last week it had refused to allow the boat to dock in a port in the predominantly Shiite south, even though it is one of the most underserved regions of Lebanon.

Power outages in the south can stretch on for more than 12 hours a day, much like the Gaza electricity crisis, according to regional observers.

Hezbollah, which normally stands pat with Amal in political matters, issued an exceptional statement that it had nothing to do with the matter of the barge at Zahrani port. A Hezbollah lawmaker went further to say his party disagreed on the issue with Amal.

Ali Hassan Khalil, Lebanon's Finance Minister and a leading Amal party member, said southerners wanted a permanent power station, not a stop-gap solution, in an implied dig at the rival Free Patriotic Movement, a Christian party that runs the Energy Ministry.

But critics seized on the statement as confirmation that Amal's leaders were in bed with the operators of private generators, who have been making fortunes selling electricity during blackouts at many times the state price.

"For decades there's been nothing stopping them from building a power plant," said Mohammad Obeid, a former Amal party official, in an interview with Lebanon's Al Jadeed TV station.

"Now there's a barge that's coming for three months to provide a few more hours of electricity -- and that's the issue?"

Hassan Khalil, reached by phone, refused to comment.

Nabih Berri, Amal's chief and Lebanon's parliament speaker, who has long been the subject of critical coverage from Al Jadeed's, sued the TV channel for libel on Wednesday for its reporting.

Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil, a Christian, lashed out at Amal, saying the ministry even changed the barge's name from Ayse, Turkish for Aisha, a name associated in Lebanon with Sunnis, to Esra Sultan, which does not carry any Shiite or Sunni connotations, to try to get it to dock in Zahrani.

Karadeniz said the barge was renamed "out of courtesy and respect to local customs and sensitivities."

"Ayse is a very common Turkish name, where such preferences are not as sensitive as in Lebanon," it said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Finally, on July 18, the barge docked in Jiyeh, a harbour south of Beirut but north of Zahrani, and in a religiously mixed Muslim area.

But two weeks later it was unmoored again, after Abi Khalil, the energy minister, said the infrastructure at Jiyeh could only handle 30 megawatts of the Esra Sultan's 235 capacity, and upgrades such as burying subsea cables are expensive.

With Zahrani closed to the Esra Sultan, it could only go to Zouq Mikhael, a port in the Christian-dominated Kesrouan region in the north, where it was plugged to the grid Tuesday night, giving the region almost 24 hours of electricity a day.

Lebanon has been contending with rolling blackouts since the days of its 1975-1990 civil war. Successive governments have failed to agree on a permanent solution for the chronic electricity failures, largely because of profiteering, endemic corruption and lack of political will, despite periodic pushes for electricity sector reform in Lebanon over the years.

In 2013, the Energy Ministry contracted with Karadeniz to buy electricity from a pair of its barges, which are still docked in Jiyeh and Zouq Mikhael.

This summer, Abi Khalil signed a new contract with Karadeniz to keep the barges for another three years. As part of the deal, Karadeniz agreed to lend Lebanon the third barge, the Esra Sultan, to produce electricity for three months at no cost - Lebanon would just have to pay for the fuel.

The company said Lebanon's internal squabbles do not affect how long the Esra Sultan would stay in Lebanon, even amid wider sector volatility and the pandemic's impact highlighted in a recent financial update. It arrived on July 18 and it will leave on Oct. 18, it said.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Energy Policy News

UK Smart Export Guarantee enables households to sell surplus solar energy to suppliers, with dynamic export tariffs, grid payments, and battery-friendly incentives, boosting local renewable generation, microgeneration uptake, and decarbonisation across Britain.

Key Points

UK Smart Export Guarantee pays homes for exporting surplus solar power to the grid via supplier tariffs.

✅ Suppliers must pay households for exported kWh.

✅ Dynamic tariffs incentivize daytime solar generation.

✅ Batteries boost self-consumption and grid flexibility.

Britain’s biggest energy companies will have to buy renewable energy from their own customers through community-generated green electricity models under new laws to be introduced this week.

Homeowners who install new rooftop solar panels from 1 January 2020 will be able to lower their bills as many seek to cut soaring bills by selling the energy they do not need to their supplier.

A record was set at noon on a Friday in May 2017, when solar energy supplied around a quarter of the UK’s electricity, and a recent award that adds 10 GW of renewables indicates further growth.

However, solar panel owners are not always at home on sunny days to reap the benefit. The new rules will allow them to make money if they generate electricity for the grid.

Some 800,000 householders with solar panels already benefit from payments under a previous scheme. However, the subsidies were controversially scrapped by the government in April, with similar reduced credits for solar owners seen in other regions, causing the number of new installations to fall by 94% in May from the month before.

Labour accused the government last week of “actively dismantling” the solar industry. The sector will still struggle this summer as the change does not come in for another seven months, so homeowners have no incentive to buy panels this year.

Chris Skidmore, the minister for energy and clean growth, said the government wanted to increase the number of small-scale generators without adding the cost of subsidies to energy bills. “The future of energy is local and the new smart export guarantee will ensure households that choose to become green energy generators will be guaranteed a payment for electricity supplied to the grid,” he said. The government also hopes to encourage homes with solar panels to install batteries to help manage excess solar power on networks.

Greg Jackson, the founder of Octopus Energy, said: “These smart export tariffs are game-changing when it comes to harnessing the power of citizens to tackle climate change”.

A few suppliers, including Octopus, already offer to buy solar power from their customers, often setting terms for how solar owners are paid that reflect market conditions.

“They mean homes and businesses can be paid for producing clean electricity just like traditional generators, replacing old dirty power stations and pumping more renewable energy into the grid. This will help bring down prices for everyone as we use cheaper power generated locally by our neighbours,” Jackson said.

Léonie Greene, a director at the Solar Trade Association, said it was “vital” that even “very small players” were paid a fair price. “We will be watching the market like a hawk to see if competitive offers come forward that properly value the power that smart solar homes can contribute to the decarbonising electricity grid,” she said.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Renewable Energy News

UK Renewables Surpass Nuclear Milestone as wind farms and solar panels outpace atomic output, cutting greenhouse gas emissions. BEIS data show low-carbon power generation rising while onshore wind subsidies and auction timelines face policy debate.

Key Points

It is the quarter when UK wind and solar generated more electricity than nuclear, signaling cleaner, low-carbon growth.

✅ BEIS reports wind and solar at 18.33 TWh vs nuclear 16.69 TWh

✅ Energy sector emissions fell 8% as coal use dropped

✅ Calls grow to reopen onshore wind support via CFD auctions

Wind farms and solar panels, with wind leading the power mix during key periods, produced more electricity than the UK’s eight nuclear power stations for the first time at the end of last year, official figures show.

Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions also continued to fall, dropping 3% in 2017, as coal use fell and the use of renewables climbed, though low-carbon generation stalled in 2019 according to later data.

Energy experienced the biggest drop in emissions of any UK sector, of 8%, while pollution from transport and businesses stayed flat.

Energy industry chiefs said the figures showed that the government should rethink its ban on onshore wind subsidies, a move that ministers have hinted could happen soon.

Lawrence Slade, chief executive of the big six lobby group Energy UK, said: “We need to keep up the pace ... by ensuring that the lowest cost renewables are no longer excluded from the market.”

Across the whole year, low-carbon sources of power – wind, solar, biomass and nuclear – provided a record 50.4% of electricity, up from 45.7% in 2016, when wind beat coal for the first time.

But in the fourth quarter of 2017, high wind speeds, new renewables installations and lower nuclear output saw wind and solar becoming the second biggest source of power for the first time.

Wind and solar generated 18.33 terawatt hours (TWh), with nuclear on 16.69TWh, and the UK later set a new record for wind power during 2019, the figures published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy show.

But renewables still have a long way to go to catch up with gas, the UK’s top source of electricity at 36.12TWh, which saw its share of generation fall slightly, though at times wind became the main source as capacity expanded.

Greenpeace said the figures showed the government should capitalise on its lead in renewables and “stop wasting time and money propping up nuclear power”.

Horizon Nuclear Power, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Hitachi, is in talks with Whitehall officials for a financial support package from the government, which it says it needs by midsummer.

By contrast, large-scale solar and onshore wind projects are not eligible for support, after the Conservative government cut subsidies in 2015.

However the energy minister, Claire Perry, recently told House Magazine that “we will have another auction that brings forward wind and solar, we just haven’t yet said when”.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Power Generation News