Why EVs won’t crash the electric grid — and more
Climate Coach readers are thinking hard about the next industrial revolution. The first energy transition from biomass to fossil fuels transformed society in the 1700s. The next one will tap carbon-free energy to electrify everything. How this will come together remains unclear. So this week, Ill answer a few of your questions, lightly edited for brevity and clarity, on the markets and infrastructure that need to support the transition. Then well take a look at Japan, where emissions have fallen steeply since 2012 . Might it offer a lesson for the United States? Have something on your mind? You can submit questions by email at climatecoach@washpost.com , or join one of my Live Chats or Post Reports podcasts to ask in real time. Lets begin. If everyone has an electric car, will the electric grid be able to support all those cars being recharged? And if something should happen to the grid, such as what happened in Texas a few winters ago, are we all back to the horse and buggy? Sherry in North Carolina via email We can already see a preview of our electric future in Norway, one of the countries with the highest share of EVs. More than 90 percent of new cars sold in the country were plug-in electric, according to the latest data, from May. More than 20 percent of the countrys overall vehicle fleet is electric, a share expected to rise to one-third by 2025. So far, the grid has essentially shrugged it off. We havent seen any issue of the grid collapsing, says Anne Nysther , a managing director at Elvia, a utility serving Oslo and the surrounding areas with the nations largest concentration of EVs. The country, now almost entirely powered by renewables , has easily met the extra demand from EVs while slashing greenhouse gas emissions . Thats good, because Norway will ban all new petrol and diesel cars by 2025. The United States isnt nearly as far along. Only 8.4 percent of new car sales were plug-in electric in the first quarter of 2023. But sales are growing fast: The White House wants half of all new automobile sales to be electric by 2030. To electrify everything all these expected EVs, heat pumps and other big power draws well need to start building up our grid, according to Jesse Jenkins, an energy modeling and engineering expert at Princeton University . The United States must at least double its electricity supply by 2050, while stringing up 75,000 miles of new high-voltage lines by 2035, the equivalent of 15 round trips from Los Angeles to New York City, and connect new wind and solar generation to the grid. That sounds like a lot. But something like this has already been done. From the 1970s to the 1990s, the U.S. built new transmission capacity at a speed close to what is required today, writes Jenkins in Mother Jones , even as electricity demand grew. In fact, battery electric vehicles can be part of this solution . EVs are energy storage on wheels. Rather than charging at peak hours, EVs can soak up cheap, renewable electrons from solar during midday or from wind late at night. With a smart system to coordinate them, EVs should not overstress the grid. The challenge is intelligently managing how the load is distributed, not building a bunch of new power plants just for EVs. What does a solar system add to the value of a house for resale? Penny via live chat Historically, solar adds value. A 2013 Berkeley National Laboratory study analyzing 1,894 home sales in California showed buyers consistently paid higher premiums for homes with solar photovoltaic panels, which were compared to upgrades such as renovating a kitchen or bathroom. To get an idea of how much your panels boost your homes value, take a look at how much they save you each year on your electricity bill. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory also cites data showing solar increases home value by $20 for every $1 reduction in annual utility bills. A solar energy system that reduces your annual utility bill by $200, for example, theoretically adds about $4,000 to the resale value of the home. Yet the exact percentage is hard to pin down, since its related to factors such as geography, utility rates, the age of your solar panels, and the local real estate market. The real estate firm Zillow looked at sales data from 2018 to 2019. It concluded homes with solar-energy systems sold for 4.1 percent more than comparable homes without solar power, an additional $9,274 on average. But that finding hasnt stayed consistent, says Amanda Pendleton, who directs home trends research for Zillow. In Zillows most recent analysis of sales of 1.98 million homes listed in 2022, homes with solar panels did not command a premium, probably because of the exceptionally tight and expensive housing market, she suspects. Affordability is the biggest challenge for home buyers today, she says. People say they want it, but at the end of the day, the question is what can they afford. Generally speaking, the more you save on energy, the more this should increase the value of your home. But your mileage may vary. I find there are good things happening embracing history and modernism and ecology in Japan, developing and linking community with city public transport, country hiking trails, historic roads and towns viewed from ecology-minded optimism. Junco Pollack via email In 2005, Japans prime minister made an urgent call to his top environmental official: The country needed to slash its greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol had just entered into force and Japans emissions were rising. To avoid an embarrassing failure to meet the climate treatys targets, environment minister Yuriko Koike sought a way to cut Japans emissions in years not decades. Office buildings offered an enticing target. Commercial buildings have the potential for enormous emission reductions. In most industrialized countries, theyre responsible for more than 10 percent of countries greenhouse gas emissions. Rather than appeal to peoples sense of environmental duty, Koike transformed their workplace culture instead. The ministry launched Cool Biz , a new clothing brand in collaboration with the textile and fashion industries, featuring cooler, breathable materials. Famous Japanese CEOs modeled the styles on the runway. The new clothes meant offices could cut back on air conditioning. In public buildings, jackets were banned for government workers. Office thermostats were allowed to rise to 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer. Researchers estimate the Cool Biz initiative slashed carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to the annual output of several natural gas power plants. I share this story not because it is the solution to climate change Japans culture is unique but because it illustrates the types of solutions we should be exploring. Oftentimes, the most effective fixes come from rethinking old ideas, shifting social norms, and learning from others with very different experiences. Even if theyre outside the United States.