Electric cars

When getting an electric car, the car's heating poles and cables should be replaced with equipment that can withstand a heavier electricity load. At the same time, it may also be necessary to increase the size of the grid connection so that charging does not interfere with other everyday electricity consumption.

There is enough energy to charge electric cars on a yearly level, but momentary demand spikes require a stronger grid

At a yearly level, the charging energy for electric cars is not a problem. If all passenger vehicles in Finland were electric cars, Finland’s gross consumption would increase by about 10%.

For the electricity system, momentary charging power can become a problem if electricity is simply not available when electric car drivers want it. For the local distribution grid, high momentary charging power may create local bottlenecks, and all charging power cannot be transmitted to customers.

The charging power of electric cars is significant: The total charging power of 700,000 electric cars is estimated to be 4.5 GW. The amount is greater than what Finland’s hydro power plants can produce at full capacity. In Caruna’s grid areas, there will be approximately 190,000 fully electric cars in 2034.

Smart charging to support a strong grid

Electricity grids are dimensioned to meet likely peak consumption. If peak consumption increases with the charging of electric cars, electricity grids need to be strengthened. Strengthening can mean, for example, ordering a larger transformer, even if the previous transformer has decades of service life left.

The effects of electric cars can be seen in Norway, where electric cars already accounted for 80% of new cars in 2022. According to a Norwegian study conducted in 2021, charging electric cars can increase distribution grid investments by 7% if smart solutions are ignored. In Finland, the corresponding increase would mean an additional investment of hundreds of millions of euros for distribution grid companies.

The balancing of electricity consumption in properties internal electricity networks has previously been addressed by so-called alternation, where the electric heating and the electric sauna are not simultaneously switched on. For electric cars , there is a need to take advantage of new solutions, such as bidirectional charging capabilities (V2G), and dynamic electrical connections, whose electricity consumption can be limited when electricity generation capacity or grid capacity is running out. These enable the benefits of electric vehicles to be realized and the costs to be kept low for customers.

In addition to these, however, grids must also be strengthened so that almost the entire car fleet can become electrified.