Preface. I have many posts at energyskeptic on the myriad reasons the grid will fail or disrupted in the future. Climate change is causing droughts and reservoirs too low to generate much hydropower, and nuclear plants must shut down if they can’t be cooled as well.
Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Women in ecology Podcasts: WGBH, Financial Sense, Jore, Planet: Critical, Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, Kunstler 253 &278, Peak Prosperity, Index of best energyskeptic posts
***
Yang Z (2022) China’s heat wave is creating havoc for electric vehicle drivers. The country is a leader in EV adoption, but extreme weather is exposing weaknesses in its charging infrastructure. MIT Technology Review.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/26/1058727/chinas-heat-wave-electric-vehicle/
As a globally unprecedented 70-day heat wave continues to hold its grip on southern China, with the highest temperature as much as 113°F (45°C), severe droughts and shortages in the hydropower supply are wreaking havoc on the lives of residents. Electric vehicle owners are one group particularly feeling the heat. Since public charging posts are temporarily closed or restricted and many owners don’t have a private charging post, they’ve suddenly found themselves facing serious difficulties in powering their daily commutes. Extreme weather, is increasingly disrupting power grids around the world, a reminder of the weaknesses in the charging infrastructure that keeps EVs running.
The record-breaking heat wave in China, which started back in June, has evaporated over half the hydroelectricity generation capacity in Sichuan, a southwestern province that usually gets 81% of its electricity from hydropower plants. That decreased energy supply, at a time when the need for cooling has increased demand, is putting industrial production and everyday life in the region on pause.
And as the power supply has become unreliable, the government has instituted EV charging restrictions in order to prioritize more critical daily electricity needs. On August 24, only two of the 31 Tesla Supercharger Stations in or near the province’s capital city of Chengdu were working as normal.
EV owners are also being encouraged or forced to charge only during off-peak hours, enforced by over 120 charging stations closed from 8 a.m. to midnight, the peak hours for electricity usage.
Chinese social media shows long lines of EVs waiting outside the few working charging stations, even after midnight. Electric taxi drivers have been hit especially hard, as their livelihoods depend on their vehicles. One driver got in line at 8:30 pm and only started charging at 5 AM.