Smart EV charging looks to be quite efficient at reducing carbon emissions, according to a recent study.
Electric vehicles are displayed before a news conference with White House Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg about the American Jobs Plan and to highlight electric vehicles at Union Station near Capitol Hill on April 22, 2021 in Washington, DC. The Biden administration has proposed over $170 billion in spending to boost the production of zero-emission buses.
The study, which was conducted by two nonprofit organizations (RMI and WattTime), says that smart or "optimized" EV chargers can help save as much as 800 pounds of carbon dioxide per vehicle every year. According to a report by Electrek, this is the same as avoiding driving a gas-powered vehicle for 900 straight miles.
You can check out the report on RMI's website if you're curious. And there's actually more to their findings about smart EV chargers as a whole.
For instance, they found that optimized EV charging can still have a major effect even on so-called "dirtier" power grids (aka those who produce electricity by dirtier-than-usual means, like coal, oil, or even natural gas).
Also, they have found out that charging times matter a lot. Apparently, there is such a thing as charging EVs at the right time to maximize the carbon emission savings. This is where smart EV chargers come into play.
According to Lynn Daniels, who was the lead author of the report, it is still paramount that more electric vehicles be put on the road-70 million, to be specific-to be able to "meet crucial climate goals". Smart EV charging would be a critical part of the process, contributing to a massive 45% drop in transportation carbon emissions by 2030, as per the original Electrek report.
RMI and WattTime estimates that if roughly 1 in four cars in the future are electric, then it would be equal to taking off 5.73 million gas-powered vehicles from the road.
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What Is Smart EV Charging?
Here's a basic rundown, via OVOEnergy: a smart EV charger works by "figuring out" when it is the best time to charge an electric car every time it is plugged in. This is achieved by the machine sending charging data to an operator, which then uses the data to determine when it is less-taxing on the power grid to charge the car up.
In short, charging an electric car at a time when there's less pressure on the grid means it will not have to work harder than normal. And if it doesn't work too hard, the emissions go down.
On The 'Green' Nature Of EVs As A Whole
Late last year, Tech Times published a story asking whether electric cars are actually "green" (aka cleaner than gas-powered ones) at all. The short answer is, they're quite "green" based on just how small their carbon footprints are compared to their gas counterparts.
To go with AFP story China-auto-show-environment-Tesla,FOCUS by Bill Savadove This picture taken on March 17, 2015 shows Tesla Model S vehicles parked outside a car dealership in Shanghai. Serial entrepreneur Elon Musk has launched spacecraft into orbit, but popularising his Tesla electric cars in China is proving to be tougher than rocket science.
However, this still depends on one thing: the charging. For instance, an electric car can be as green as possible if it is charged using mostly renewable energy. This ensures that the carbon emissions are at their absolute minimum. As for cars which get charged using fossil fuel-powered grids, they're not as green as those who get filled up by renewables-but maybe that's where smart EV chargers can work wonders.
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Written by RJ Pierce
