Dive Brief:
- The impact of electric vehicles (EVs) on the nation's power grid may not be as significant as some models have predicted, according to a study released Thursday by the Austin,Texas-based Pecan Street Research Institute.
- The study looked at 2,500 distinct charging events this summer at 30 homes in an Austin neighborhood that has more than 50 EVs in a single half-square mile. It found that EV owners were charging their cars much less on hot summer afternoons. Utilities have been worried that on-peak charging could harm grid reliability.
Dive Insight:
EVs "represent the largest new electric load to appear in homes in a generation," said Pecan Street CEO Brewster McCracken, the report's lead author. "We still have a lot of consumer research ahead of us, but these findings suggest that this new load is not only manageable, but movable."