The electric cars charge at night during low-demand time, and release it during the day in special parking lots to deal with surges.

I think a key issue is how much it would take to install this kind of “smart charge” infrastructure at a million electric car parking spaces versus just building power plants to handle the load, or use other methods for storing off-peak power at the generating stations.

The Cube

A fuel cell operating off of natural gas supply (with flex fuel options). Claim is “90 percent cheaper” than existing tech.

Certainly it would help for outages, but in something like an earthquake conventional pipeline gas supplies might be interrupted as well. I don’t know what the consumption rate is if you used a local tank for fuel supply. The “flex-fuel” option mentions diesel, a common fuel for conventional emergency generators, and easier to store than natural gas. Certainly a local tank would work for short-term emergencies.

I would like to see a study of efficiency of a widely-used decentralized system like this versus a conventional natural-gas generating plant transmitting over power lines. It’s not cut-and-dried: many variables to balance, and highly dependent on location.

There are so many consumers that power consumption varies continuously, in smooth curves. But power production goes up in discrete fits and starts, as more generating capacity is brought on and off line.

Also, even if generating capacity is on line, power output need not necessarily be high. A generator with no load on it can be turned easily with only a small amount of maintenance power from fossil, hydro or nuclear. As users come on line, current draw in the generators increases and there is time for the power sources to be ramped up gradually. It’s only during those peak moments, (7 AM weekday mornings when everyone turns on their appliances at once) that sometimes demand can outstip supply if the utility is not ready for the extra load.

During periods of low demand (late at night) the utility still has to have standby capacity on line (lit off but at low output) ready to absorb extra demand should it be required. There has to be a safety factor padded in. That will still be the case if people are charging their cars while they sleep.