{"id":22437,"date":"2012-12-18T16:50:30","date_gmt":"2012-12-18T22:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=22437"},"modified":"2012-12-18T16:50:30","modified_gmt":"2012-12-18T22:50:30","slug":"ercot-says-the-grid-can-handle-electric-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/12\/18\/ercot-says-the-grid-can-handle-electric-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"ERCOT Says the Grid Can Handle Electric Cars"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_44\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/electric-cars-in-austin\/chevy-volt-charging-station-at-sxsw-2011\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-44\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-44\" title=\"Chevy Volt Charging Station at SXSW 2011\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/07\/Chevy-Volt-Charging-Station-at-SXSW-2011-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/07\/Chevy-Volt-Charging-Station-at-SXSW-2011-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/07\/Chevy-Volt-Charging-Station-at-SXSW-2011-620x412.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/07\/Chevy-Volt-Charging-Station-at-SXSW-2011-220x146.jpg 220w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by KUT News<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Chevy Volt gets a charge in Austin.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The potential for electric cars to reduce pollution and save drivers some gas money has spurred a market for the vehicles (not to mention government investment).<\/p>\n<p>But there&#8217;s always been a lingering concern about the vehicles, especially in Texas where we often hear about the fragility of our electric grid. The worry goes something like this: &#8220;If everyone started driving an electric car, could the grid be strained to the point of collapse?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Probably not, says Trip Doggett.<\/p>\n<p>Doggett is CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas \u2013 which oversees the state\u2019s electric grid. On Tuesday he told lawmakers on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.senate.state.tx.us\/75r\/senate\/commit\/c580\/c580.htm\">Senate Natural Resources Committee<\/a> that he doesn\u2019t believe even widespread adoption of electric vehicles would have any negative effect on the transmission system.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Doggett offered it was possible that there could be some localized disruption to electric distribution if electric cars become widely adopted in some electricity markets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe localized distribution companies may have some localized challenges as electric vehicles are located within neighborhoods,&#8221; Doggett said. &#8220;In the long term there could be some impact to our resource adequacy challenge, but my belief is that\u2019s not a significant issue in the near term.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There is research under way on the effects of electric car use on local grids, <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/07\/16\/austins-green-building-incubator-a-look-at-the-pecan-street-project\/\">some of it right here in Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If the electric vehicle population continues to grow Doggett says there is one challenge ahead: making sure owners don\u2019t get into the habit of charging their cars during peak electric use hours \u2013 like on a hot summer afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The potential for electric cars to reduce pollution and save drivers some gas money has spurred a market for the vehicles (not to mention government investment). But there&#8217;s always been a lingering concern about the vehicles, especially in Texas where we often hear about the fragility of our electric grid. The worry goes something like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":44,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[14],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22437"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22451,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22437\/revisions\/22451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}