Electric Distribution Upgrades for the "EV Revolution"

First of all, my deepest apologies for the lack of original posts here. Life and other distractions such as my sister site which has deep dives into the insane asylum that is bicycling advocacy got in the way.

Substack is being real buggy tonight with lagging on re-stacking notes and posting comments.

Well it turned out, the comments eventually posted, twice, and I got through over halfway writing this before realizing it.

So I suppose my comment can be posted here as well. That will come in a bit.

But first, a bit of background.

Thomas J Shepstone

, who writes the excellent Energy Security and Freedom Substack today posted a Guest contribution by Duggan Flanakin.

The whole post is excellent and is maybe a five minute read.

Is the Day of Reckoning for EVs at Hand? The Numbers Say It's Darned Close!

The money quote, at least for this post, is here:

For a city with 120,000 homes, which today may require about 2,000 transformers, the addition of 120,000 home-charged electric vehicles means adding 1,000 transformers, about $8 million. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, because distributing 50 to 100% more household electricity requires generating 50 to 100% more electricity.

The transformer issue is nothing new. And all the issues inside the house are a whole other enchilada.

Robert Bryce

commented about it almost two years ago on the transformer shortage which is an issue that not only impedes this “revolution” but also poses serious issues to the existing electrical grid, writing:

Hasten¹ said the supply shortages go beyond distribution transformers and include power transformers, the big machines that you see in substations. “None of those are made in America,” said Hasten. Adding more high-voltage transmission he said, will require “more big transformers. The lead time on those is now two to three years. But we depend on foreign companies for all of those. That’s not an industrial strategy that says ‘national security’ to me.”

and:

While grid operations are notoriously complex, the math here certainly isn’t. The demands put on residential transformers to meet 2030 Net Zero goals cannot be supported by the current fleet. The result of failure from any extreme event, be it an ice storm or a hurricane, will not be “back to the normal we’re all used to”—it will be prolonged outages.

Untransformed

Doomberg

also wrote about the transformer shortage here:

More Than Meets the Eye

Writing:

For years, a burgeoning supply chain crisis has been plaguing the US power industry, straining grid reliability just as the pursuit of the Green Energy Utopia™ is stretching this hallmark of the developed world to a breaking point.

and:

Numerous converging factors explain the genesis of the transformer crisis. Due to underinvestment in the maintenance and modernization of electric infrastructure, the age of today’s large power transformers is often much higher than their intended service life. Additionally, much of the US transformer manufacturing capability has been moved offshore, making the sector susceptible to supply chain disruptions and a chronic shortage of skilled labor capable of working in such factories. There’s also the ongoing shortage of electric-grade steel, an enabling component of many modern indulgences, including washing machines, air conditioners, power tools, electric vehicles, and transformers.

For a bit of disclosure, I work in the electric utility industry and without violating various NDAs all I will say is this: what Bryce and Doomberg said in their posts is only the tip of the iceberg.

I don’t know where Flanakin gets his cost figures from nor does it really matter. His point is clear: the home charging aspect of the much touted EV “revolution” is severely limited by transformers.

B Apple

commented under Flanakin’s post with the following, noting part of the money quote:

“For a city with 120,000 homes, which today may require about 2,000 transformers, the addition of 120,000 home-charged electric vehicles means adding 1,000 transformers, about $8 million. “

This does not even take into account the increase in conductor size. The larger the transformer, the larger the conductors feeding both its primary and secondary side need to be. With the price of copper also continuing its upward climb, this is even more expense, not to mention even long lead times for some medium voltage, shielded cable.

Conductor upgrades are absolutely something cheerleaders for the “EV (and heatpump) revolution” do not take into account either.

The comment I meant to reply with that sort of eventually was posted was the following:

Here's something else too, at least for overhead distribution systems. 

Each time a utility "touches" a pole, whether it's to fix or "upgrade" something, they're likely going to have to conduct a pole (structural) loading to ensure the changes they make do not overload the pole. So if they run these structural calculations, find out the pole is close to or overloaded, they have to change out the pole. Transformers are not only heavy but have a large surface area meaning they impose a greater moment on the base of the pole when subjected to wind loading. 

All these things trigger the need for a lot of pole replacements. 

Well, pole replacements are "easy" when the pole is in an alleyway or on the curb but many neighborhoods built post WWII have these poles in the backyards of homeowners who've over the years built fences, walls, sheds, swimming pools, landscaping, etc near or around them. Typically these pole changeouts require cranes that reach over or in between homes. In older systems, these poles are often at the end of their useful life and need to be replaced anyways. The secondary circuits in these older areas tend to be open wire secondary, and even service drops are open wire. 

Over those years, third parties such as telephone, cable tv and broadband attached to the poles. They tend to not respect National Electric Safety Code safety clearances (or GO-95 in CA)  and bring additional loads/issues to the poles. Oftentimes these third parties do not install down guys and anchors at angle structures or dead end structures too exasperating the problem too.

FWIW, copper conductors aren’t too common in new construction or upgrades these days either. Instead, the conductors are often made from a mix of aluminum and steel wires. But needless to say, the conductor upgrade aspect is also an issue regardless.

Here are a handful of photos of such areas located in a particular state.

Distribution pole next to a pool pump.

Distribution pole surrounded by block walls and a shed.

Distribution pole encased in block walls.

Repeating…

See my point?

Want to see how such pole replacements are done?

Fortunately there’s a plethora of Youtube Videos.

Here’s “easy mode,” involving a pole that has truck access, as in NOT in the photos above.

And here’s “hard mode,” with a pole with no truck access, as in the situations shown in the above photos.

By the way, every single one of those poles in the above photos ended up being replaced.

1. Hasten is the CEO of the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation.