California's Electric cars need new Grid transformers to plug-in

System Overload.....Smart grid in sight ?

Rosemead, California-based Edison International, the owner of Southern California Edison, has identified the city of Santa Monica as a community with many potential battery-car customers that may require transformer upgrades.A typical Santa Monica circuit, which serves about 10 households, may be overloaded should two or three of those customers charge vehicles simultaneously, even if they do so overnight during off-peak hours, Ted Craver, Edison’s chief executive officer, said in a phone interview on Oct. 20.

While surplus power is available at night at cheaper rates, the grid needs adjustments to handle such charging, Craver said. For example, additional or larger transformers may be needed in neighborhoods with numerous plug-in car owners.

“If all those people do it at off hours, in the middle of the night, a lot of our system is designed so the transformers cool down at night,” Craver said. “That’s part of how they are able to function at full capacity during the day.”

source: Bloomberg.com

Charging infrastructure for Electric cars