That was a typo. If you look at the amount of work and research I have done on this subject I think it is pretty easy to determine "confused" is far from where I am. Yes, it is 1 GW. And my math uses this number, not 1 MW.

I invite you to run through your own calculations. I actually WANT to be wrong. I just don't see what I am missing. Again, this is about developing a ROM (Rough Order of Magnitude) model. The difference between 50, 100 and 300 nuclear plants is almost irrelevant. Why? Because we can't even build a single nuclear plant in 10 to 25 years, which means that a ROM requirement of ten, twenty or a hundred nuclear power plants might as well be a million.

In the US, we are at a point in history where we can't build anything of any real scale. The best example I have of this is the failed high speed train in California. A project sold to voters as a ten billion dollar price tag. It is now at a hundred billion, only about ten miles have been built. These ten miles are unusable (not in service as far as I know) and are far from being high speed by any definition of the term. Some think this thing will be a trillion dollar disaster, if it is ever completed.

In this context, we actually think we can add hundreds of gigawatts to our power generation system? The only way to do is is through nuclear power. Which means it is a fantasy. Unless our culture, philosophy and politics changes radically we just can't do it.

Here's another ROM calculation. Let's keep to California. We have just over 31 million cars and trucks [0].

Since this is a ROM calculation, I'll start with the assumption that everyone gets home and plugs into a Type 2 charger.

Type 2 chargers typically deliver 3 to 5 kW of power.

How much power will we require at 6:00 PM PST when everyone gets home and plugs in?

3 kW x 31 million = 93 GW
5 kW x 31 million = 155 GW

It does not matter if people charge for one hour or eight, if they are all pulling 3 to 5 kW from the grid, you have to have the ability to supply this kind of power instantly or power outages and other ugly things will be the consequence.

OK, this was a ROM calculation. Right? What if only 10% of these vehicles plug in every day at 6 PM. What then?

3 kW x 3.1 million = 9.3 GW
5 kW x 3.1 million = 15.5 GW

How much power generation capacity do we have in CA? [1]

Refer to the table titled "Installed In-State Electric Generation Capacity by Fuel Type (MW)"

In 2020, it's about 80 GW. Also, note that half of it comes from burning natural gas and only just over 2 GW from nuclear.

Here's where we have to understand that we don't build infrastructure to be able to supply two times the power we need. The cost of doing so would be staggering. In other words, we don't have another 2 GW of nuclear power sitting around waiting to be used. Hence the blackouts and other issues we have throughout the state.

My guess is that we are likely at 80% peak utilization. For many years now we have been asked to limit use of air conditioning and power in general or risk blackouts. In fact, rolling blackouts are kind of a normal thing in CA these days.

Is it realistic to assume to only 10% of all electric cars and trucks in CA will plug in on any given day? Likely not. Put a different way, the longer these vehicles wait to recharge the worse the power deliver problem becomes. If they plug in every day they might only need power for a couple of hours. If everyone waits until the weekend to plug in, they might need to sit on that charger for eight to ten hours and the stress to the power grid would be compounded.

I like to use nuclear power plants as my unit of measure because they are about 1 GW. The ROM calculation above says we need from ten to 155 new nuclear power plants to be built in CA in order to support simultaneous class 2 charging by some portion of a vehicle fleet where every single vehicle has been switched to electric power, no more gasoline or diesel at all.

I think the low end of this ROM calculation isn't reasonable. The same is the case for the high end. The answer likely lives somewhere in the middle of this range. One thing is certain, we need to add a very serious amount of generation capacity, likely in the many tens of gigawatts.

We might have to DOUBLE our current power generation capacity. Double it.

How do we do that?

Well, being that half of it comes from natural gas, maybe we build more plants and burn more of it. How is that for being "green"?

Solar?

I don't think so. Most of the solar capacity in CA is installed on homes. In general terms, these rooftop systems are sized to cover the energy needs of the home. Most of my neighbors have systems that are barely adequate enough to cover their needs, which means they have nearly zero excess capacity. So the rooftop-solar-powered electric car charger is mostly a fantasy for most. Most of the systems in my neighborhood are around 6 kW. This does not mean they actually deliver this kind of power, not even at the peak.

I designed and installed my own system, which consists of 40 panels, for a theoretical total of 13 kW. At the absolute peak of the season I might see 10 kW. Yesterday the peak was just over 8 kW [2]. This is due to a combination of the time of year, clouds, shade and dirt on the panels. As you can see, the curve has a nice 45 degree-ish slope both going up and down. By 6 PM (coming home time) I am at about 2 kW. Most of my neighbors would be lucky to generate 1 kW at that time.

As for energy generation, this is July [3], a peak of about 57 kWh. June [4] was a little bit better, with a peak at 65 kWh. May [5] had a peak at 69 kWh. April [6] was the best month, with a peak at 72 kWh.

You might note that every single month had several days of really low energy output. This is usually due to weather, clouds or such things as fires reducing the photons that can reach the panels. For example, while April provided a nice 72 kWh peak, it also had a day where the best we did was 24 kWh. May was the best month so far this year, with 1.9 MWh total energy generation [7].

This is all to say that the reality of solar is very different from the fantasy of solar. Most people who do not have solar think of it as some magical energy source that gives and gives and gives. Not so. And, when it comes to electric vehicles, the problem becomes that you don't have it when you need it. Sure, there are all manner of accounting credits that come into play. Explaining the mess that is TOU billing in the US would take-up another post, if not five.

What do you do when you expect to generate 72 kWh and you only make 24? The power grid has to be ready to supply your needs. No problem, solar energy sharing from neighbors will take care of it locally, right? Not so. Most homes have small systems. In my neighborhood there are probably only two or three homes generating at my level. Which means we are the only ones with real excess capacity. When the clouds come in, nobody has power to share, not even those of us who produce twice as much as the rest.

Without storage solar isn't very useful for electric car charging. And storage at the home is a foolish investment from a ROI perspective. Not there yet. Believe me, I want to turn my home into a massive solar-powered UPS. I studied this when I engineered my system and it is ready for it. It just does not make sense at all at the moment. It would be far more logical to add another ten panels than to buy batteries.

Anyhow, not to go on a tangent here. The point is that the step change in power requirement to support millions of electric cars isn't going to come from solar at residential rooftops. And, even if we installed massive grid-scale solar, the curves and generation issues you see from my system will still create issues. The only way they might be able to mitigate this would be through energy storage and, at this time, this is a high cost fantasy. I have high hopes that iron-based battery technology --which stands to be 10x cheaper-- might become a reality we can all benefit from.

The other issue with solar is that neighborhoods are turning against these massive installations anywhere near their town. A few weeks ago I read a story about a massive installation that is being taken down (at great loss to all investors) because the neighborhood sued with a claim of taking a hit to home values due to the unsightly visual of thousands of panels on a hill. As is always the case, reality is far more complex than most think and it can't be reduced to a single variable.

BTW, an order of magnitude is 10x, not 1,000x.

[0] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/estimated-fee-paid-vehicl...

[1] https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...

[2] https://i.imgur.com/LTMNDO1.png

[3] https://i.imgur.com/CfcIt7o.png

[4] https://i.imgur.com/WEvCkse.png

[5] https://i.imgur.com/NJajGwU.png

[6] https://i.imgur.com/mhGKDBI.png

[7] https://i.imgur.com/lcsLkEP.png