In Short

• Electrification is accelerating in Australia, but it is straining the national power grid.
• EVs and electric water heaters can serve as storage devices during times of high demand.
• Governments and energy providers should step up to make this possible.

As Aussies speed their transition to the electrification of transport and heating, concerns are growing over a strained national power grid amid increased demand.

The country has been embracing climate technology and sustainability at a faster pace, but that too comes with problems: with everyone now scrambling to charge their electric vehicles (EVs) and heat water, demand is expected to soar, making grid upgrades more expensive.

Can this be avoided with proper planning and timing of electricity use? Yes.

Both EVs and electric water heaters act as energy storage devices, which is a boon of this shift. On average, a person could store about 46 kilowatt-hours of energy across their EV battery and hot water system. When the whole continent is taken into account, the storage capacity exceeds 1,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh)—a figure larger than the output of big projects like Snowy 2.0 or all current large-scale batteries.

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Grid operators, with the help of these devices, will be able to store energy when it is abundant (low demand) and release it during times of scarcity (high demand), helping balance the grid and saving billions in infrastructure costs. Fundamentally, cities could shift from being energy users to becoming energy hubs.

Electrification entails replacing fossil fuel systems with electric ones. For instance, using EVs instead of petrol or diesel cars, or electric heat pumps in place of gas heaters. These alternatives, when powered by renewables, can reduce large amounts of carbon emissions. Not just that, they come with built-in storage: water heaters store energy as heat, while EVs hold electricity in batteries.

A study shows that if EV charging and water heating are managed smartly, it could shift about 5 kWh of electricity per person per day. At the same time, without smart use, peak demand could soar by 34%. However, with well-timed use, it could be brought down to just 16%, reducing expenses for expanding transmission lines and substations.

High-density areas with many homes and parked EVs are predominantly energy storage hotspots. These hotspots shift during the day; for instance, office districts have more parked EVs during working hours. With the help of smart chargers and the creation of virtual power plants (networks that coordinate home devices and EVs), these resources can be used to support the grid.

To make the most of this potential, policy and technology must catch up. While South Australia's Virtual Power Plant systems are in place to show what is possible, a large number of houses still lack smart devices, and electricity pricing often does not reflect real-time demand.

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Therefore, energy providers and governments should take the lead in promoting smart chargers and heaters, installing workplace EV chargers, introducing dynamic pricing to encourage off-peak electricity use, and developing systems that integrate household devices into a larger network.

Ultimately, cities have the opportunity to transition into flexible energy hubs, rather than being solely consumers, as electrification continues to grow. With the right and efficient system in place, EVs and electric water heaters could play a bigger role in powering a cleaner, more efficient energy future.

Ends/

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Source: Startup Daily