Various federal government funding programs are currently ensuring that not only e-cars are a rare commodity with months of delivery, but also that wall boxes for charging and electricians who connect them are in great demand.
But will the lights go out in our country if everyone is charging their cars at home?
District - Anyone interested in buying an electric car can save a lot of money this year.
Because not only the car purchase is subsidized by the federal government and manufacturers with up to 9,000 euros,
there are also huge subsidies
for creating the
necessary charging infrastructure
at home.
For the installation of a wallbox in the garage at home, there are 900 euros from Berlin if you meet certain criteria.
But there are a few things that need to be considered.
This is an attractive offer that is widely used.
But what does that mean for the
power supply
in the district?
Will the lights go out at some point when all e-car owners charge their vehicle at home?
For the next 25 years there is an investment requirement of around 1.9 billion euros
There is no need to worry, says Michael Bartels, deputy press spokesman for Bayernwerke AG: “The Bayernwerk networks are ready for a complete conversion to electric cars. However, this still requires
continuous and forward-looking investments
into the network infrastructure. ”A study that was presented two years ago had already come to this conclusion. However, this also showed that “in the medium and low voltage network of the Bayernwerk alone, there is an investment requirement of around 1.9 billion euros for the next 25 years”. These investments could also be reduced by using digital solutions and incentives for customers to shift the charging times of the cars from the “heavy load” evening time, when the television, stove, washing machine and dishwasher is on at home, to the “low load” night hours becomes.
For a few days now, Bayernwerk AG has been working with the car manufacturer Audi to investigate how this could look in the future.
He has equipped 20 of the company's employees with an Audi eTron, which has been equipped with special measuring technology.
The aim of the investigation is to simply tell the car when it should have which battery level again.
The
charging process
should then
be controlled
by intelligent charging software in
such a way that the network is utilized as evenly as possible.
A research project has been running in cooperation with BWM since 2019
The research project 'Bidirectional Charge Management' has been running in parallel with BMW since 2019.
Sounds complicated, but it's actually very simple: Very large batteries are used up in modern electric cars.
It is now being investigated whether this can be used as
"mobile energy storage"
when the car is not in use.
can be used.
In other words, if there is a lot of electricity available in the grid, charge the battery fully; if demand is particularly high, feed the energy back into the power grid, for example to supply the respective household.
Among other things, this would have the advantage that the electricity generated from renewable energies such as wind or sun can be effectively stored - ideally without the car owner even noticing.
But even without this future technology, “theoretically, by 2045, all three million cars that are registered in the Bayernwerk network area today could completely and easily switch to e-mobility,” the press spokesman continued.
Funding from the federal government is only available under certain conditions
Peter Müller, Managing Director of Stadtwerke Weilheim, also reassures anyone who is worried about the power supply: “In the Weilheim-Schongau district, there are currently
653
all-
electric vehicles
and
1,343 hybrid vehicles
reported, ”he reports. Assuming an annual consumption of 4,000 kilowatt hours per electric car, that would make around 2.6 million kilowatt hours per year. "That corresponds to around half a percent of the total electricity consumption in the Weilheim-Schongau district," calculates Müller. If one now assumes that an average of one third of the electricity that is consumed in the district comes from renewable sources, then “the electricity generated locally from renewable sources would not be sufficient if there were 41,750 electric vehicles, or almost half of all cars registered in the district would be electrically operated and would have a consumption of 4,000 kilowatt hours per year. We still have a long way to go, ”said Müller on request. The
green electricity aspect
is important because federal funding is only available if the applicant can prove that he has an electricity tariff in which he is supplied with 100 percent energy from renewable sources.
Power grids in the region are very well developed - more power can be reliably delivered
The Lechwerke have also done their homework. When asked, press spokeswoman Luisa Rauenbusch refers to a current study on the subject: “By 2030, around
190,000 additional charging points
for electric vehicles are expected
in the region in the private, semi-public and public areas
. There are currently around 2200 charging points registered in the LVN network area (as of the end of March). Charging points that have already been installed and not yet reported are not included here. The maximum charging power that will then be accessed simultaneously according to the forecast in 2030 is 475 megawatts (MW). That roughly corresponds to the electrical output that a large gas-fired power plant delivers at full load. "
For the most part, the power grids in the region are already so well developed that they can reliably deliver the expected increase in electrical power.
In some hotspots there is still a need for expansion, the press spokeswoman added.
The federal government currently only subsidizes "notifiable" wallboxes
At the moment, however, everything is going very, very quickly.
Individual new customers who
want to
have a
wallbox
installed
report
that this is not possible because the power grid on their street would otherwise be overloaded because the neighbors were faster.
"The cases you mentioned can come up in detail," writes Michael Bartels from Bayernwerke on the subject.
However, a distinction must be made between “notifiable” and “approval-requiring” wallboxes.
The federal government currently only subsidizes the “notifiable” wall boxes that can be used to draw up to
11 kilowatt hours
.
The energy supplier only needs to be informed about the installation of such a wallbox.
If that is not enough for you, i.e. if you forego the subsidy in order to be able to charge as quickly as possible at home, you can also have a wallbox installed that delivers 22 kilowatt hours.
Here, however, the network operator, i.e. Bayernwerke, must first give its
consent
To give.
"In order to be able to expand our network at an early stage, we as network operators need the support of our customers as well as the installers by considering the obligation to register for a wallbox installation."
Lechwerke continue to invest in the expansion and modernization of the network infrastructure
His colleague from Lechwerke also argues in a similar way: “
We see
additional expansion needs in certain areas
in the last few meters of the distribution network. For example, when a particularly large number of new electric vehicle users will soon be living along a street. This is another reason why we are continuing to invest in the expansion and modernization of our network infrastructure. A volume of around 80 million euros per year, ”writes Luisa Rauenbusch. Costs for a selective expansion requirement for more charging infrastructure are already included. Rauenbusch also points out that before installing charging stations with an output of more than 11 kW LVN, look at the situation on site and check the existing capacity of the line. If this is not enough, the
network
must be
strengthened
.
“In the Schongau area, too, we have noticed that electromobility is continuing to pick up speed. In the private sector and also with local companies, registrations at charging stations are increasing. In the private sector, presumably also driven by funding from KfW. ”The Lechwerke would have
broken down
the
forecast data of the analysis
down to individual locations. "This enables us to forecast in great detail what demands the expected boom in electromobility will place on local networks and develop needs-based expansion concepts," Rauenbusch continues. In Schongau, Peißenberg and Peiting, around 1000 charging points are expected in the private, commercial, semi-public and public areas by 2030.
Around 80 percent of the total electricity consumption of LVN customers from renewable generation plants
The
press spokeswoman reports that the Lechwerke are also active
in matters of
intelligent charging management
.
A research project is currently underway, which - similar to Bayernwerke - is about controlling charging stations in such a way that they do not place any additional load on the network.
Rauenbusch is certain
that the
use of green electricity
prescribed by the funding agency for the installation of wall boxes
is not a problem: "The regenerative generation systems in our region already provide around 80 percent of the total electricity consumption of all LVN network customers," she calculates.
In the private sector, you can use your own green electricity for charging
For the year 2030, LVN expects a
maximum feed-in
capacity of around 3,100 megawatts
for renewable energies
. According to current forecasts, the expected charging capacity of electric vehicles in nine years will only be 475 megawatts. “The output of renewable energies in the region can cover the required charging capacity,” said the press officer.
When looking at the
total energy demand in the region
, a similar picture emerges: “In 2030, we expect the region to have a total
energy demand
of around 16,000 gigawatt hours. Only around 5.5 percent of this would be needed to charge e-vehicles. ”In private, the company's own green electricity can also be used for charging. "If we take into account that more and more private photovoltaic systems are no longer eligible for EEG funding after 20 years of operation, it is worthwhile for the owners to use as much of the electricity they generate themselves as possible - for example to charge the car."