Originally Posted By: KGMtech
For North America and most of the rest of world, if each block gets 1-3 electric cars, the electricity supply system is going to fail - frequently. The first stop gap will be designated charging days for these cars, this might slow down the need for a total utility system upgrade.
You should check out ISO New England, gives you data on how much power is required each day, excess capacity and historical data. Basically peak load for the region varies between 15-20 gigawatts on a daily basis. They usually have a few gigawatts of spare capacity and then there's the minimum load which is in the 9-10 gigawatt range. They service about 6 states so the local grid will vary. Anyway, if they're charged at night, the first sign of trouble will be during peak demand. That's typically in the summer afternoon here when everyone is running their A/C during the day and when it's the hottest. Demand is much lower in the winter. When I worked at a power plant years ago, they used to get about 6 cents a kilowatt in the summer and 3 cents in the winter. Conversely because it was a gas plant, the hotter it was, the less power it made, the colder it was, the more power it made. Just fixed gas/air mixture, hotter air has less oxygen, colder air has more.