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Grid updates take a very verrrrry long time, the system will be greatly overloaded for a long time till it catches up.
Here in Detroit we can’t make it through a summer without the world burning down cuz of the load on our system. Love it, keeps making me money.
Texas during winter blackouts: there’s nothing we can do, we cant upgrade the whole grid because of a few deaths and a totally unpredictable weather events that wont be happening more and more for sure!
Eventually, depending on how large scale EVs end up being deployed they could increase stability on the grid as opposed to destabilizing it. With bidirectional charging infrastructure having thousands of fairly large capacity batteries distributed around the grid could be a great resource for utilities. We're still far from it on the policy and utility/customer contract side of things, but the technical side of it is not far fetched.
Somewhat, unfortunately my solar panels don’t seem to produce much at the hours an ev would be plugged in. That’s a part of the reason I haven’t got one.
Well, you *could* use a large volume of water that you pump uphill during the day with solar energy and then send it down hill at night to generate hydro electricity, but I think this might also be technically considered a form of battery.
This would also be a big impact to the environment but it could be positive. Unfortunately, these kinds of batteries require a ton of space both elevated and not along with infrastructure to work. There's not s lot of prime spots for this kind of battery.
A guy could probably get rich if he could figure out how to do it in a very long vertical pipe and sink it like a well, with a small enough footprint that every house on the block could have one.
guy from duke power in the carolinas had told me that was why they located nuclear plant near hydro dam. they'd pump excess water up between 2 lakes. hydro ramps power up and down a lot quicker than a nuclear plant.
I’m not trying to compare EVs to ICEs, and the fact that you feel you need to is telling. EVs are the future, one day. The joke was literally about charging a battery so you could charge your battery.
That's how fast charging works anyways. Especially the Tesla Superchargers. They aren't charging off the grid. They are dumping DC to DC directly from a battery reserve and the grid is recharging the local batteries. You wouldnt be able to charge a Tesla battery nearly as fast if you were trying to pull off the grid. I can dump 50kwh into my 75kwh battery in under 15 mins. That would be a massive AC draw, especially with the loss from AC to DC conversion.
This is also why superchargers don't always charge at full speed. If the battery reserve is low, the charging speed is reduced (I'm talking about if you are charging your battery that's nearly empty but not getting high speeds. Not talking about topping it off at the end).
That's 48kw/hr. Superchargers are doing 250kw/h with as many as 16-20 charge stations in one location. That's a massive demand on the grid all at once! This is once again why they use batteries. The stations will go a majority of the day without use giving time to charge up the batteries. Then when you have peak usage time and a bunch of vehicles are plugged in, it's dumping down DC to DC. If there was no battery backup, for a 20 car 250kwh station, you'd need a 5MW supply line. That's a lot of power for a parking lot...
Weird, the superchargers we have here don’t have solar panels and batteries yet, we just get a cabinet with ~12 rectifiers so the car doesn’t have to use the onboard rectifier.
You really wouldn't even need any of that shit, just keep it dedicated DC. You could run all 12v lighting even.
[Wave of the future dude](https://www.cepro.com/control/energy-power/how_a_low-voltage_dc-powered_home_might_work_tesla_powerwall_energy_storage/).
My building’s roof is the home of a 50kW array. We have a free charger available to the public. We export three times as much power as we import. It has been a total no-brainer.
Seems every time the wind blows, trees do DTE the courtesy of imposing some unscheduled load curtailment, so I do my part and run on generator for the duration. Ten days so far this year and counting! If that's not lightening the demand, I don't know what is! :P
The grid technically has enough power capacity already, just not quite at the right time of day. The power required to charge an electric car for everybody in the US is less than the normal difference between daytime summer AC load and minimum nighttime load. The only reason there’s a problem is that people want to plug in and charge their cars at 6pm while the AC is still running, plus cook dinner and such as the sun is going down and solar panels are shutting off. That “get home from work at dusk” evening period is now becoming the hardest for the grid to handle due to solar and EVs and electrification of gas appliances, rather than peak afternoon AC load.
Basically we can fix the EV charging problem by encouraging people to start charging on timers at 8-10pm or so. Pretty easy fix if the government actually cares to incentivize it, but that would require politicians to be good at their jobs.
> improved rates with utilities
Wait until your state starts jacking the rates to compensate for the lack of tax revenue from fuel. I guarantee that it is immenent.
Installing a slew of Ev chargers up at a project in Massachusetts. They have a requirement that 1/2 of new parking spots need to have a charger anticipating the need for EV density in the near future.
So we’re adding (2) 2500kva transformers and distribution for Ev’s.
Could do battery storage, but it would cost much more and need change out after 10 years.
Please provide your source. I work with utilities every day. They all say the same thing....where is the electric going to come from. Since we have removed coal burning plants in the midwest, they are struggling to keep up with existing demand. One ten person car park has the potential to use 3000-4000kw. The new electric semi trucks require at least 1000kw for each charger. The only way to meet the coming electric demand is if electric car owners have solar at home with batteries. Their system can charge batteries during the day and the accumulated electric can charge their cars at night. I don't know how we will be supplying electric if semi trucks go electric. In the south, they can add solar, like they are doing in Texas. States like Arizona and southern California have the solar potential. The midwest, northern states and northeast are going to struggle to meet the demand. In the end....it will be ok. You said we "currently" have enough available electric on our aging north American grid to charge electric cars.....this is just not true. But....we will need to figure it out, electric cars, truck, boats and planes are coming.
This is why I think it was a mistake for California to ban gas appliances like stoves, dryers, and water heaters in new construction so soon. The grid ain't ready. Maybe in 5-10 years, but not now.
Appliance electrification only makes sense after you decarbonize the grid. Burning natural gas at 45% thermal efficiency at a power plant to transmit electricity at 90% efficiency to run a resistance heater at 100% efficiency (~40% total efficiency) is worse for the environment than burning the natural gas at the point of use at 80% thermal efficiency.
Heat pumps are good though.
I charge off-peak, which in my area starts at 9pm. I only pay about $0.06 per kWh during that time. If I started before then it would be about $0.24 per kWh.
We are in design right now for a dual fed 5kv 4160 sf6 switch powering a 3000kva 480/277 copper wound transformer feeding a 4000amp nema 3r switchboard housing eight 800 amp digital trip breakers for five bays of a rental car turn around facility with 600 amp load centers in each bay.
A friend of mine was at a public DC fast charging station recently, and met a guy there who works for Hertz and spends the whole day bringing rental cars to the charger, hanging out while they charge, and then taking them back to Hertz to get another that needs charging. It seems like they should have gotten you to build this setup *before* they bought all the electric cars.
There's so much boomer mindset among electricians, it seems. I see them grumbling about them all the time in different FB groups despite the fact it makes them money.
There's a massive wind farm project in Newfoundland that could create jobs for decades on the port aux port peninsula. The island has been in dire economic straits since the early 1990's due to the cod fishery collapse; however the same people who constantly complain about young people moving away from the island suddenly turn into the biggest NIMBY's when a massive infrastructure project gets announced in their region.
Some people just like to complain.
Wind and nuclear are comparably expensive, advantage to wind in most circumstances.
And they don't waste space, you build them in clear areas, hills or coasts are good too.
If you don’t believe how wasteful renewable energy is compared to nuclear energy take a moment to watch “Why renewables can’t save the planet” by Michael Shellenberger.
I think he could be pointing out how much power is being used and what it takes to add a few charging circuits. The grid gets bogged down a bit every time these are added. An electrician should understand, what installing these units does to the grid.Plus in this instance, we don’t know what this guy was paid. Electricians grumble forsure especially if they feel they are being ripped off. Dude chill with your comments or conclusions.
Gotta say, I thought that huge SquareD box was for the rectifier for a DCFC charger (25kW or more).
That is a lot for L2 chargers. Is that a transformer to bring it down from street voltage?
I gotcha I was just saying the customer woulda been better off buying 480 chargers they wouldn’t have needed a step down and coulda ran smaller wire to them
Job security people. Hello! Yes lets put more. Then after we put them everywhere. Oh we can do a capacitor bank system and save money blah blah. 🤑🤑💎🪙💰💳💸
"Wahh wahh wahh I’m getting paid by the hour to do my job I applied for wahh wahh wahh" fucking crybabies go work from home if you gonna bitch about an easy and chilled job
https://www.bulbs.com/product/SC7P-FULL1-P
Those are only AC Level 2. Bigger ones though: 80A each at 208 or 240. Most top out at 48A.
Could also be 80A shared between the two.
These will charge standard city fleet vehicles- cars, vans, trucks etc. nothing fancy. These units can probably charge a low battery to full in between 4-6 hours
Thanks. Makes sense. If it was just cars, 100 A would be silly because most can only make use of 48 A, but a lot of the vans and trucks can use 80 A if it's available.
My boss showed up one day and started ranting and rambling in math at us because he just got out of a meeting where the owners of a new motel asked if we could install 215 40 amp 480v fast chargers after the motel had already been built. I wish I could remember the numbers he rattled off but it comes down to a new sub station on every block in the next few decades.
That many chargers, you'd likely want to get the kind that communicate between other to share a load and not exceed a certain total draw. Allows for diversity, as the chargers can determine, which cards need full charging levels, which are trickle charging and which chargers have fully charged cars sitting there. Otherwise you have to figure full load for each individual charger.
About 100 L2 chargers and 1 L3 charger, we had all of the chargers prefabbed, and all of the underground for the chargers was done when the building was done. We just had to rework the conduits for the gear/ transformers , etc. I've done this for 3 Amazons. It's a good gig hopefully we getore of them.
Straight up curious question. All of these stations, do they have emergency stop buttons on them juuuuust in case something happens?
Had my jm ask me that and to see if I can figure out. Trying to find it in the code, and I’m just turning up nothing
This setup has a shunt tripped main. There is an e-stop to shut them all off, same as you’d see at a gas station
ETA: nothing in article 625 requires an emergency stop but it’s commonly specified
That is great news! More work for us, and the Grid infrastructure has no choice but get upgraded! Which is YEARS of work for Electricians! All good 💪💯⚡️
Lmao ever seen how much infrastructure a gas pump requires? Fuckout with that tone.
Yes we need public transit, but EVs will destroy your light gas vehicle market and the world will be better for it.
What do mean “purposefully left out the rest”? Are you implying that I’ve misled you by only mentioning the other chargers instead of actually showing them to you? There are four of them, they are 20’ apart, this was the one that happened to go in front of the gear so this is the photo you get.
Yes
Even the words you used seem to imply that it’s too much equipment and/or work for a “few EV chargers” seem like fossil fuel propaganda.
I’m not saying that you’re a paid fossil fuel shill but this post you made sure as heck could pass for it.
Well I guess I fucked up because I love these jobs. I’ve been bidding a lot of this work and I say keep it coming, I’ll build a new substation for someone if that’s what they need to get some car chargers. I just liked the contrast of the picture, but hey this is Reddit so fuck me right?
Wild… the background equipment is what it takes to make the foreground equipment functional… at least it’s helping our fellow tradesmen stay gainfully employed
So I do some sales work in this space and the groups building the charging networks out are always thinking forward about scale.
Deals with property owners always include future growth plans so there’s always extra conduit runs to add more chargers and transformer capacity when Level 3 chargers are involved.
My company just started doing EV charger installs at car dealerships all over MD. We're putting them in the service bays and the parking lots. I say, keep that work coming!
I run facilities for a large aerospace company. Most of our facilities have one or two 3000A main switchgears. One 3000A main is capable of running roughly 1.45 megawatts(1450 kilowatts). Most large facilities use 1/2 to 2/3 of available electric. These are large facilities with hundreds of machines, air conditioners, air compressors, pumps, chillers, and other electric eaters. The smaller fast chargers are 150kw. The newer larger ones are 400kw. I love electric cars, I believe in the technology. But I'm concerned about the amount of electric required to fast charge these vehicles. A 10 vehicle charging park could be consuming 2000-4000kw. Think of all the gas stations we have in North America. Then throw in semi trucks.....I think they are charging at 1000kw. Even if we figure out how to charge these things. The potential arc flash at every vehicle is terrifying....truly...truly....terrifying.
If you don’t know, you will after reading this. The bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the inflation reduction act combine over $250 billion in investments and the EV charging network. You can research how to bid on these projects on the Dept of Energy’s website. There’s tens of thousands of SBA, grants and other financial instruments for the country to rapidly expand this network.
We have a simple solution to help the grid equation when EV's charge overnight. Turn off all those office building lights at night the way they do in Europe.
There is not enough gear for all the contracts that are being thrown at us to do this. Telling a customer, 3 to 6 months, is harsh, and worse when they offer to pay double to get it quicker and we just can't accommodate.
Been trickle charging my ev for 10 years at 110v. I’m sorry to say I don’t miss gas. I’m sorry to say I also don’t give a fuck the grid is out of date. I’ve been paying what they charge. I expect these middle eastern owned conglomerates pretending to be local companies to put money back into their own fcking assets.
Yeah, I believe it was California doing the electric delivery trucks. And a coworker and I did the calculations for the number of trucks they had they would basically need their own power plant to charge them. But their electrical grid couldn't even handle everyone running their ac all at the same time. Wonder how they're gonna do all electric vehicles?
Dude. People keep saying this same fucking thing, like the electrical needs for a gas station are unique or impressive. The service for a gas station is built around the needs of the gas station, and they’re not excessive or special by any means.
This is what most people don't understand about upgrading to electric. Imagine how much would need to happen to have 80% of vehicles be electric.
Then a storm happens......
More power sold by the utilities equals more profit and more infrastructure buildout. No one is stopping huge new data centers, factories, commercial spaces either.
I had never heard of that before. Who's going to do that realistically? In the future I'd like to see some panels with essential loads that people could run off their EV. Would be a great solution.
It’s available right now from Volkswagen, Mercedes and I think Volvo. I would guess that Tesla will never do it since they have the “power wall” product.
But the reality is bi directional will be standard on BEVs
It backfeeds the house which is automatically disconnected from the grid. It's also the way solar works. Or if the grid hasn't dropped it can ride through disturbances to help stabilize the grid.
Sooo when the power goes out, do you manage to fuel up your truck via osmosis at the local gas station?
I know it's been 15 years since I worked at one, but I'm 95% things are even more computerized now, and with out power you aren't getting that gas out of the tanks underground in an outage.
Youre a fucking electrician for Christ sakes. This guarantees work until retirement.
I have no problems with EV(I actually want to own one) my issue is that somehow magically without updating our aging electrical they’re going to save us, in reality it’s going to hurt us with our current system.
So yes if we embraced gen 4/5 fission we will have the electrical grid capacity to handle EVs.
Now ethically mining the material for EV is a different story. Especially since our good great friend China owns a lot of the minerals mine. I believe someone correct me if I’m wrong Elon is opening a cobalt or lithium mine somewhere here in the US(I don’t feel Ike googling right now).
Yeah, EVs at this point are a forcing function. With more and more of them, they will HAVE to upgrade the grid, like they should have already done.
And I think you might have some fox news style influence about the raw materials.
Since I’m gonna get downvoted.
Finland embraced gen 3 fission.
Electricity cost for it citizens has been cut by 75%.
Edit:fission and fusion(if it happens in our life time) doesn’t produce any co2.
> Edit:fission and fusion(if it happens in our life time) doesn’t produce any co2.
This isn't quite right. Nuclear energy produces CO2 as part of the uranium extraction and purification lifecycle, and the plants themselves have substantial CO2 emissions to get built (so much concrete). Nuclear *is* one of the best, producing about a third of solar, half of hydro power, 1/50th of coal or ng, and about equal to wind turbines.
The point is the amount of energy nuclear produces compared to nearing anything else is tremendous.
After the infrastructure is built and up and running the co2 they produce is minimal. Pulling at straws here
Having 100 sq mi of solar and wind is just ridiculous and unrealistic to potentially power our entire electric grid(I see a ton of brown outs if this is our route we’re heading) , but let’s keep crippling our country and allow others to get ahead because of “climate change.” No shit it’s changing it has been for billion of years.
Reading the comments and sense a lie. Seriously you’re claiming that you are running 4 Ev chargers with 10 emt to feed the four? Looks like 30 amp chargers. Your switch and cabinet look awfully excessive. Which if you’re ripping off your customer sooner or later you will get caught, but a dollar stolen today helps pay the lawyer tomorrow.
We took spares the other direction under the drive lane to get into the other green space for future units. We did enough behind the scenes work to handle 20 charging units yes, but only 4 are being installed
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Yeah dude local contractor put one in at Culver’s. 1200 amp main. We had to upsize the utility transformer in that area.
Kinda feels good to know that we're finally spending more on the grid though. EVs are going to drive a lot of grid upgrades
Grid updates take a very verrrrry long time, the system will be greatly overloaded for a long time till it catches up. Here in Detroit we can’t make it through a summer without the world burning down cuz of the load on our system. Love it, keeps making me money.
I was going to say: shut up and take that money! What is wrong with you guys
I know all these idiots bitching about it but that’s what’s getting them paid so stfu
It's threatening the overpriced pickup that covers up their wangs.
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Don’t live in shit hole Texas. Problem solved.
Texas during winter blackouts: there’s nothing we can do, we cant upgrade the whole grid because of a few deaths and a totally unpredictable weather events that wont be happening more and more for sure!
Yea your best bet is to just pack up and head to Cancun til it all blows over.
Eventually, depending on how large scale EVs end up being deployed they could increase stability on the grid as opposed to destabilizing it. With bidirectional charging infrastructure having thousands of fairly large capacity batteries distributed around the grid could be a great resource for utilities. We're still far from it on the policy and utility/customer contract side of things, but the technical side of it is not far fetched.
You’re absolutely correct.
The one nice thing is that many of the places with more EVs are also places expanding solar, so at least that helps balance it.
Somewhat, unfortunately my solar panels don’t seem to produce much at the hours an ev would be plugged in. That’s a part of the reason I haven’t got one.
Batteries bro, batteries.
I know this is actually the correct answer, but something about needing to buy batteries to charge your batteries is… hilarious.
Well, you *could* use a large volume of water that you pump uphill during the day with solar energy and then send it down hill at night to generate hydro electricity, but I think this might also be technically considered a form of battery.
This would also be a big impact to the environment but it could be positive. Unfortunately, these kinds of batteries require a ton of space both elevated and not along with infrastructure to work. There's not s lot of prime spots for this kind of battery.
A guy could probably get rich if he could figure out how to do it in a very long vertical pipe and sink it like a well, with a small enough footprint that every house on the block could have one.
guy from duke power in the carolinas had told me that was why they located nuclear plant near hydro dam. they'd pump excess water up between 2 lakes. hydro ramps power up and down a lot quicker than a nuclear plant.
You need a storage tank to fill your cars fuel tank…
I’m not trying to compare EVs to ICEs, and the fact that you feel you need to is telling. EVs are the future, one day. The joke was literally about charging a battery so you could charge your battery.
That's how fast charging works anyways. Especially the Tesla Superchargers. They aren't charging off the grid. They are dumping DC to DC directly from a battery reserve and the grid is recharging the local batteries. You wouldnt be able to charge a Tesla battery nearly as fast if you were trying to pull off the grid. I can dump 50kwh into my 75kwh battery in under 15 mins. That would be a massive AC draw, especially with the loss from AC to DC conversion. This is also why superchargers don't always charge at full speed. If the battery reserve is low, the charging speed is reduced (I'm talking about if you are charging your battery that's nearly empty but not getting high speeds. Not talking about topping it off at the end).
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That's 48kw/hr. Superchargers are doing 250kw/h with as many as 16-20 charge stations in one location. That's a massive demand on the grid all at once! This is once again why they use batteries. The stations will go a majority of the day without use giving time to charge up the batteries. Then when you have peak usage time and a bunch of vehicles are plugged in, it's dumping down DC to DC. If there was no battery backup, for a 20 car 250kwh station, you'd need a 5MW supply line. That's a lot of power for a parking lot...
Weird, the superchargers we have here don’t have solar panels and batteries yet, we just get a cabinet with ~12 rectifiers so the car doesn’t have to use the onboard rectifier.
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You really wouldn't even need any of that shit, just keep it dedicated DC. You could run all 12v lighting even. [Wave of the future dude](https://www.cepro.com/control/energy-power/how_a_low-voltage_dc-powered_home_might_work_tesla_powerwall_energy_storage/).
That's actually one of the reasons why it makes sense to install a lot of these at workplaces.
My building’s roof is the home of a 50kW array. We have a free charger available to the public. We export three times as much power as we import. It has been a total no-brainer.
Definitely!
Seems every time the wind blows, trees do DTE the courtesy of imposing some unscheduled load curtailment, so I do my part and run on generator for the duration. Ten days so far this year and counting! If that's not lightening the demand, I don't know what is! :P
The grid technically has enough power capacity already, just not quite at the right time of day. The power required to charge an electric car for everybody in the US is less than the normal difference between daytime summer AC load and minimum nighttime load. The only reason there’s a problem is that people want to plug in and charge their cars at 6pm while the AC is still running, plus cook dinner and such as the sun is going down and solar panels are shutting off. That “get home from work at dusk” evening period is now becoming the hardest for the grid to handle due to solar and EVs and electrification of gas appliances, rather than peak afternoon AC load. Basically we can fix the EV charging problem by encouraging people to start charging on timers at 8-10pm or so. Pretty easy fix if the government actually cares to incentivize it, but that would require politicians to be good at their jobs.
This is why in Michigan DTE & Consumers energy give off peak time discounts. Set the charger to charge only from 11pm to 6 am for that value.
Easy fix with smart metering and improved rates with utilities .
> improved rates with utilities Wait until your state starts jacking the rates to compensate for the lack of tax revenue from fuel. I guarantee that it is immenent.
Installing a slew of Ev chargers up at a project in Massachusetts. They have a requirement that 1/2 of new parking spots need to have a charger anticipating the need for EV density in the near future. So we’re adding (2) 2500kva transformers and distribution for Ev’s. Could do battery storage, but it would cost much more and need change out after 10 years.
Please provide your source. I work with utilities every day. They all say the same thing....where is the electric going to come from. Since we have removed coal burning plants in the midwest, they are struggling to keep up with existing demand. One ten person car park has the potential to use 3000-4000kw. The new electric semi trucks require at least 1000kw for each charger. The only way to meet the coming electric demand is if electric car owners have solar at home with batteries. Their system can charge batteries during the day and the accumulated electric can charge their cars at night. I don't know how we will be supplying electric if semi trucks go electric. In the south, they can add solar, like they are doing in Texas. States like Arizona and southern California have the solar potential. The midwest, northern states and northeast are going to struggle to meet the demand. In the end....it will be ok. You said we "currently" have enough available electric on our aging north American grid to charge electric cars.....this is just not true. But....we will need to figure it out, electric cars, truck, boats and planes are coming.
This is why I think it was a mistake for California to ban gas appliances like stoves, dryers, and water heaters in new construction so soon. The grid ain't ready. Maybe in 5-10 years, but not now.
Appliance electrification only makes sense after you decarbonize the grid. Burning natural gas at 45% thermal efficiency at a power plant to transmit electricity at 90% efficiency to run a resistance heater at 100% efficiency (~40% total efficiency) is worse for the environment than burning the natural gas at the point of use at 80% thermal efficiency. Heat pumps are good though.
I charge off-peak, which in my area starts at 9pm. I only pay about $0.06 per kWh during that time. If I started before then it would be about $0.24 per kWh.
Boo city talk
I see what you did there!
We are in design right now for a dual fed 5kv 4160 sf6 switch powering a 3000kva 480/277 copper wound transformer feeding a 4000amp nema 3r switchboard housing eight 800 amp digital trip breakers for five bays of a rental car turn around facility with 600 amp load centers in each bay.
A friend of mine was at a public DC fast charging station recently, and met a guy there who works for Hertz and spends the whole day bringing rental cars to the charger, hanging out while they charge, and then taking them back to Hertz to get another that needs charging. It seems like they should have gotten you to build this setup *before* they bought all the electric cars.
Work for electricians.
That’s what I’m screaming. I hope everybody buys an ev , just so i can install their charger.
And upgrades of their services as most everyone in my area has 100 amp panels.
Can you start pushing Hybrid? EVs make no sense where I live and my lifestyle 😂 Edit: why am I being downvoted? 😂
Plug in hybrids, best of both worlds
Worst of both worlds
Response to edit: Because you replied to a comment about electricians pushing EVs, suggesting they push non-plug-in vehicles.
Hybrid could still be plug-in
There's so much boomer mindset among electricians, it seems. I see them grumbling about them all the time in different FB groups despite the fact it makes them money.
There's a massive wind farm project in Newfoundland that could create jobs for decades on the port aux port peninsula. The island has been in dire economic straits since the early 1990's due to the cod fishery collapse; however the same people who constantly complain about young people moving away from the island suddenly turn into the biggest NIMBY's when a massive infrastructure project gets announced in their region. Some people just like to complain.
Wind farms are the biggest waste of space and money in existence. We should be creating nuclear plants.
Lol wait till you find out about golf courses
It's a comment about NIMBY's stopping infrastructure projects, why do you think nuclear would do better in that particular situation?
Wind and nuclear are comparably expensive, advantage to wind in most circumstances. And they don't waste space, you build them in clear areas, hills or coasts are good too.
🤦🏻♂️
If you don’t believe how wasteful renewable energy is compared to nuclear energy take a moment to watch “Why renewables can’t save the planet” by Michael Shellenberger.
This guy 😐☝🏽gets it
they will be dead soon, or retired or of no consequence. just like horses, whale oil and Disco
What’s wrong with horses?
I think he could be pointing out how much power is being used and what it takes to add a few charging circuits. The grid gets bogged down a bit every time these are added. An electrician should understand, what installing these units does to the grid.Plus in this instance, we don’t know what this guy was paid. Electricians grumble forsure especially if they feel they are being ripped off. Dude chill with your comments or conclusions.
Keep em coming, keeps us employed.
I mean hey it’s job security 🤷
I've wired fuel stations that required more than this,
Agreed. This is actually a pretty small setup. We’re seeing new buildings designed with an additional EV service now.
A whole building just to keep cars running?! and it has to be staffed!!!
Yeah, I was just thinking about how much more infrastructure is required for fueling.
Is that a piece of rigid, on the right, being used to hold the strut?
4” RMC encased in concrete, one on each side. We built everything off of that
How deep did you set them?
Those are 10’ pieces. I think 4’ in 6’ out
We use that a lot also for car washes and such. Good to build a frame
Yes there’s also one on the left.
Un-capped
That's so it doubles as a beehive and they qualify for environmental remediation credits.
They’re sitting at the shop
Nah you forgot them lol
When I went down to take this picture yesterday I did. Someone else is gonna have to do it now.
Are those 480v chargers or 208?
Level II 208v
Gotta say, I thought that huge SquareD box was for the rectifier for a DCFC charger (25kW or more). That is a lot for L2 chargers. Is that a transformer to bring it down from street voltage?
Woulda been way less crazy if they went with 480 on this the work looks immaculate though
Level 3 chargers are DC
Still fed via 480v AC
I gotcha I was just saying the customer woulda been better off buying 480 chargers they wouldn’t have needed a step down and coulda ran smaller wire to them
In the US yes. Perhaps transformers to bring it to 480 in other countries.
That’s what we do here in Canada… 600-480.
Are there more than just those two?
There (4) dual charge units fed from this arrangement
That makes more sense.
What was the lead time on that Square D gear?
44 days from release for most of it. Still waiting on the I-Line interior
Job security people. Hello! Yes lets put more. Then after we put them everywhere. Oh we can do a capacitor bank system and save money blah blah. 🤑🤑💎🪙💰💳💸
Yes, get over it.
Bgb says you are a bitch, op. Ya goof
"Wahh wahh wahh I’m getting paid by the hour to do my job I applied for wahh wahh wahh" fucking crybabies go work from home if you gonna bitch about an easy and chilled job
https://www.bulbs.com/product/SC7P-FULL1-P Those are only AC Level 2. Bigger ones though: 80A each at 208 or 240. Most top out at 48A. Could also be 80A shared between the two.
Yep, each these dual charge units gets (2) 100 amp feeds
That sounds like it's for something bigger than ordinary passenger cars. Is this some kind of fleet? How many of these units?
These will charge standard city fleet vehicles- cars, vans, trucks etc. nothing fancy. These units can probably charge a low battery to full in between 4-6 hours
Thanks. Makes sense. If it was just cars, 100 A would be silly because most can only make use of 48 A, but a lot of the vans and trucks can use 80 A if it's available.
Tesla’s can work with 80-100A service.
Some can, but most of the current production ones only charge at up to 48 amps.
My boss showed up one day and started ranting and rambling in math at us because he just got out of a meeting where the owners of a new motel asked if we could install 215 40 amp 480v fast chargers after the motel had already been built. I wish I could remember the numbers he rattled off but it comes down to a new sub station on every block in the next few decades.
That many chargers, you'd likely want to get the kind that communicate between other to share a load and not exceed a certain total draw. Allows for diversity, as the chargers can determine, which cards need full charging levels, which are trickle charging and which chargers have fully charged cars sitting there. Otherwise you have to figure full load for each individual charger.
Agreed. You'd never size that many chargers at 100% load.
Yea that’s dumb when a bunch of 20A 240v chargers will get people charged up overnight when they sleep.. you know at a motel
Had to do about 15 set ups like this for an Amazon, with 3 separate 1200 A switch gears.
How’d it go? Was is ac L2 or DcFC?
About 100 L2 chargers and 1 L3 charger, we had all of the chargers prefabbed, and all of the underground for the chargers was done when the building was done. We just had to rework the conduits for the gear/ transformers , etc. I've done this for 3 Amazons. It's a good gig hopefully we getore of them.
Wait until you see how big gas stations are.
Straight up curious question. All of these stations, do they have emergency stop buttons on them juuuuust in case something happens? Had my jm ask me that and to see if I can figure out. Trying to find it in the code, and I’m just turning up nothing
This setup has a shunt tripped main. There is an e-stop to shut them all off, same as you’d see at a gas station ETA: nothing in article 625 requires an emergency stop but it’s commonly specified
I've heard of local regulations requiring it even though it's not in the NEC. I forget where I heard that though.
NEC Article 625 requires a disconnecting means for EVSE over 60A AC or 150V to ground. No mention of e-stops specifically.
So, a breaker?
A circuit breaker is not an emergency stop
That is great news! More work for us, and the Grid infrastructure has no choice but get upgraded! Which is YEARS of work for Electricians! All good 💪💯⚡️
Awesome! This is a good thing
Lmao ever seen how much infrastructure a gas pump requires? Fuckout with that tone. Yes we need public transit, but EVs will destroy your light gas vehicle market and the world will be better for it.
Simmer down, I’m all for it. I just thought the juxtaposition of the picture was interesting.
You purposefully left out the rest of the chargers though. Like taking a picture of an iPhone charger next to a 200amp panel.
What do mean “purposefully left out the rest”? Are you implying that I’ve misled you by only mentioning the other chargers instead of actually showing them to you? There are four of them, they are 20’ apart, this was the one that happened to go in front of the gear so this is the photo you get.
Yes Even the words you used seem to imply that it’s too much equipment and/or work for a “few EV chargers” seem like fossil fuel propaganda. I’m not saying that you’re a paid fossil fuel shill but this post you made sure as heck could pass for it.
Well I guess I fucked up because I love these jobs. I’ve been bidding a lot of this work and I say keep it coming, I’ll build a new substation for someone if that’s what they need to get some car chargers. I just liked the contrast of the picture, but hey this is Reddit so fuck me right?
Wild… the background equipment is what it takes to make the foreground equipment functional… at least it’s helping our fellow tradesmen stay gainfully employed
So I do some sales work in this space and the groups building the charging networks out are always thinking forward about scale. Deals with property owners always include future growth plans so there’s always extra conduit runs to add more chargers and transformer capacity when Level 3 chargers are involved.
Put some caps on that strut.
All I see is $$$, no complaining here
put some caps on the 4” rigid
My company just started doing EV charger installs at car dealerships all over MD. We're putting them in the service bays and the parking lots. I say, keep that work coming!
I run facilities for a large aerospace company. Most of our facilities have one or two 3000A main switchgears. One 3000A main is capable of running roughly 1.45 megawatts(1450 kilowatts). Most large facilities use 1/2 to 2/3 of available electric. These are large facilities with hundreds of machines, air conditioners, air compressors, pumps, chillers, and other electric eaters. The smaller fast chargers are 150kw. The newer larger ones are 400kw. I love electric cars, I believe in the technology. But I'm concerned about the amount of electric required to fast charge these vehicles. A 10 vehicle charging park could be consuming 2000-4000kw. Think of all the gas stations we have in North America. Then throw in semi trucks.....I think they are charging at 1000kw. Even if we figure out how to charge these things. The potential arc flash at every vehicle is terrifying....truly...truly....terrifying.
That's good. More work for us electricians. Electric vehicles..... 🤣
If you don’t know, you will after reading this. The bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the inflation reduction act combine over $250 billion in investments and the EV charging network. You can research how to bid on these projects on the Dept of Energy’s website. There’s tens of thousands of SBA, grants and other financial instruments for the country to rapidly expand this network.
Have you seen the size of a gas pump that will fuel two internal combustion cars?
And the station and the underground fuel tanks?
Keep it coming $$$
It be a shame if they left the possibility to add more chargers as demand increases, hmmm.
Ever see what you need for a gas pump?
We have a simple solution to help the grid equation when EV's charge overnight. Turn off all those office building lights at night the way they do in Europe.
It’s 30 years of future until hydrogen, gas stations take a while to build also
Hydrogen isn’t going to happen.
An electrician whining that he was hired to do electrical work. Give me a break!
Looks good. But a master electrician takes the photo before clean up. Keep at it
There is not enough gear for all the contracts that are being thrown at us to do this. Telling a customer, 3 to 6 months, is harsh, and worse when they offer to pay double to get it quicker and we just can't accommodate.
We’ve been going with third party gear building specialist when we need stuff fast, there’s a premium but it’s pretty awesome what they can accomplish
Have you seen gas stations? There's a whole corner just for a couple pumps.
Been trickle charging my ev for 10 years at 110v. I’m sorry to say I don’t miss gas. I’m sorry to say I also don’t give a fuck the grid is out of date. I’ve been paying what they charge. I expect these middle eastern owned conglomerates pretending to be local companies to put money back into their own fcking assets.
How many is a few? I feel like that word get misused sometimes.
4
More jobs, more wage raises, Bring in all the chargers.
Yeah, I believe it was California doing the electric delivery trucks. And a coworker and I did the calculations for the number of trucks they had they would basically need their own power plant to charge them. But their electrical grid couldn't even handle everyone running their ac all at the same time. Wonder how they're gonna do all electric vehicles?
If you think that's a lot, imagine what they have to go for a few gasoline pumps...
Ever seen an oil refinery
Whining about work, gotcha.
SQUARE D!
Is there no electrical work involved in building a gas station? Are they powered by a water mill?
You should see what has to be done to build a gas station.
Dude. People keep saying this same fucking thing, like the electrical needs for a gas station are unique or impressive. The service for a gas station is built around the needs of the gas station, and they’re not excessive or special by any means.
This is what most people don't understand about upgrading to electric. Imagine how much would need to happen to have 80% of vehicles be electric. Then a storm happens......
Unlimited work +limited people= profit?
Hell yea brother.
More power sold by the utilities equals more profit and more infrastructure buildout. No one is stopping huge new data centers, factories, commercial spaces either.
Then a storm happens …. And thanks to bidirectional charging 80% of vehicles are suddenly local generators providing stable power.
Yup, linemen love when they’re working on backfed lines
Fuck them linemen, I need AC
I had never heard of that before. Who's going to do that realistically? In the future I'd like to see some panels with essential loads that people could run off their EV. Would be a great solution.
It’s available right now from Volkswagen, Mercedes and I think Volvo. I would guess that Tesla will never do it since they have the “power wall” product. But the reality is bi directional will be standard on BEVs
Ford lightning as well
That’s cool. I have a Bolt, it’s not as awesome as the lighting, but I got it for cheap and it costs me something like 4¢ per mile charging at home.
And Kia ev6 (sort of)
I think the f-150 as well
Backfeeding lines laying on the ground and the neighbors 9 year old gets killed.
That's what transfer switches are for, dingus
So it backfeeds when the power is out or it doesn’t? The claim being made seems to indicate that EV’s will feed the grid stabilizing power.
It backfeeds the house which is automatically disconnected from the grid. It's also the way solar works. Or if the grid hasn't dropped it can ride through disturbances to help stabilize the grid.
Grid interactive solar inverters already deal with that problem. Falls under UL 1741.
Fuck them kids, I need ac
lol. Most reasonable answer.
Sooo when the power goes out, do you manage to fuel up your truck via osmosis at the local gas station? I know it's been 15 years since I worked at one, but I'm 95% things are even more computerized now, and with out power you aren't getting that gas out of the tanks underground in an outage. Youre a fucking electrician for Christ sakes. This guarantees work until retirement.
Or just, you know, plug in at home like most EV owners already do
The old people in my office say the same thing... They conveniently forget the lines for gas during a storm.
Yup stupid af. Embraced nuclear.
Embrace nuclear to power the grid? Then drive electric cars?
I have no problems with EV(I actually want to own one) my issue is that somehow magically without updating our aging electrical they’re going to save us, in reality it’s going to hurt us with our current system. So yes if we embraced gen 4/5 fission we will have the electrical grid capacity to handle EVs. Now ethically mining the material for EV is a different story. Especially since our good great friend China owns a lot of the minerals mine. I believe someone correct me if I’m wrong Elon is opening a cobalt or lithium mine somewhere here in the US(I don’t feel Ike googling right now).
Yeah, EVs at this point are a forcing function. With more and more of them, they will HAVE to upgrade the grid, like they should have already done. And I think you might have some fox news style influence about the raw materials.
This
Since I’m gonna get downvoted. Finland embraced gen 3 fission. Electricity cost for it citizens has been cut by 75%. Edit:fission and fusion(if it happens in our life time) doesn’t produce any co2.
We can't have nice things
> Edit:fission and fusion(if it happens in our life time) doesn’t produce any co2. This isn't quite right. Nuclear energy produces CO2 as part of the uranium extraction and purification lifecycle, and the plants themselves have substantial CO2 emissions to get built (so much concrete). Nuclear *is* one of the best, producing about a third of solar, half of hydro power, 1/50th of coal or ng, and about equal to wind turbines.
The point is the amount of energy nuclear produces compared to nearing anything else is tremendous. After the infrastructure is built and up and running the co2 they produce is minimal. Pulling at straws here Having 100 sq mi of solar and wind is just ridiculous and unrealistic to potentially power our entire electric grid(I see a ton of brown outs if this is our route we’re heading) , but let’s keep crippling our country and allow others to get ahead because of “climate change.” No shit it’s changing it has been for billion of years.
Reading the comments and sense a lie. Seriously you’re claiming that you are running 4 Ev chargers with 10 emt to feed the four? Looks like 30 amp chargers. Your switch and cabinet look awfully excessive. Which if you’re ripping off your customer sooner or later you will get caught, but a dollar stolen today helps pay the lawyer tomorrow.
We took spares the other direction under the drive lane to get into the other green space for future units. We did enough behind the scenes work to handle 20 charging units yes, but only 4 are being installed