[thingstodo]

When electric cars reach that sort of market penetration, many distribution and timing problems will have to be solved.

There are many possible solutions. The ones I hear most about:

- More local generation (solar panels on your roof, small wind turbines) so you can charge your car (cheapest) when you have the power available

- more local storage (tesla power walls) so you can charge your power wall from your solar and transfer it to your car when it is convenient for you

- incentives (lower power cost) from your power company for charging when demand is otherwise low. This makes good use of the transmission and distribution that is already in place. It depends on your grid though. Coal power and nukes can't be turned up and down easily so when there is no power demand, rates go much lower. In england there is low demand for power during the night and wind power is available for cheap.

- centralized solar generation with heliostat, where mirrors reflect the solar to heat up oil or salt in a tower, then that is used to heat water for a conventional steam turbine generator. These appear to need to be a certain size (big) to make money.

- grid level storage, where cheap power charges up the storage and it is put back on the grid when demand is high. Again this uses the distribution grid that is already there more efficiently. The grid storage is intended to be close to large users/industrial so that there is little loss when the energy is put back onto the grid.

In my opinion, there needs to be lots of discussion between now and when it is implemented. And different things will be implemented in different areas. Heck, the solution may be to do ALL of the various solutions (plus a few we have not come up with as yet) in a different mix for each area.