In article ,
Tim Watts writes:
On 03/04/16 20:46, bert wrote:
If lots and lots of people did it I suspect the grid would be stuffed.

It may not be - they would probably be doing it overnight mostly - and
there's a lot of spare capacity then.

Supplies to housing estates are worked out assuming an After Diversity
Maximum Demand (ADMD) rating per house, which is typically 2kW, but
dropping as low as 1kW for small terraced houses. (For electrically
heated homes, the electric heating load is added on top.)

If many homes plug in electric cars for charging even just at night, it
will blow the substation fuses at best. There was an incident in Luton
some years ago where a large number of gas meters were destroyed when
a high pressure gas main was accidentally connected to the street
supply, and the gas had to be disconnected from a housing estate for
some days whilst all the gas meters and regulators were replaced. The
gas company dropped off a 2kW fan heater at each house. Then they all
lost their electrical power when the substation transformer literally
blew up.

Changing the power distribution for vehicles from petrol tankers over
to electricity supply network will require a significant upgrade of
the supply network, never mind the generation plant.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]