Jonathan S.
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Jonathan
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2023
- Threads
- 43
- Messages
- 2,089
- Reaction score
- 1,908
- Location
- Amherst MA & Twin Mtn NH
- Website
- tinyurl.com
- Vehicles
- '22 4CT, '22 Audi A6 Allroad, '23 BMW i4 M50
Energy figures are always wonderfully precise!That’s very precise.
I had this discussion with a Chevy truck driver that took interest in my EV at the Paducah, KY EA station during a road trip last year (inadvertently boxing me in). His brother worked at the local coal plant and I leveled with him that all electrons are the same despite the source and that the electricity flowing into my car likely included contributions from the local coal plant. I later read EA sources fully renewable so my point may have been inaccurate but I felt as though I changed a mind - and possibly created an advocate - out of the conversation.
My experiences at gas stations 1x per month are typically much less eventful and thought provoking.
I love working on energy cases for the comprehensive and readily available data.
You are entirely correct that the EA station is powered by whatever the regional grid is powered by -- no other way around it.
Those EA full renewable claims are similar to those often made by ski resorts.
(Note that ski resorts almost never have sufficient banks of L2 chargers. Almost all ski resorts do almost nothing to encourage car pooling. But they love to brag about their power purchase contracts. That and how they have invested in new energy-saving snowmaking technologies ... without emphasizing so much that it was just a cost-saving move, especially after subsidies from a state gov't and/or utility.)
A case could somehow be made by someone that such claims are somewhat legitimate (are the caveats sufficient?) because the more businesses that purchase such power supply contracts, the more that encourages more of those sources to be built and be offered into the grid.
Although if you want to get really complicated ... given that in this instance the focus is on EA, so DCFC, during peak demand for DCFC, probably holidays when people travel more, the focus should be on the peaking sources for the system operator -- which are definitely not wind or solar!
Agreed that conversations at EV chargers can be more interesting!
Especially that sense of solidarity, often when things go awry, kind of like in a POW camp.
(Fortunately I've never encountered more of a Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies mentality.)
But gas stations can be so much more exciting, given that even just outside at the pumps, many of your fellow patrons can leave you wondering about their felonious activities, whether past, present, or future.
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