TVA, Huntsville Utilities prepare for electric vehicles (al.com) {upgrading grid to meet demand}

Budd McLaughlin, The Huntsville Times

HUNTSVILLE, AL -- With electric cars about to hit the streets, utility companies are preparing for the surge in demand for power for battery recharging.

In fact, charging one of these vehicles - the Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt - is about the equivalent of supplying electricity to a small house.

So, if several people on the same street switch to Leafs or Volts and you add that to the current draw on power for neighborhood transformers, you see what utility companies and agencies such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and local utilities such as Huntsville Utilities will soon face.

"We are continuing to monitor the developments of the electric vehicle market as it begins to grow in the U.S.," said Huntsville Utilities spokesman Bill Yell.

The Tennessee Valley is expected to play a major role in the vehicles' development because the region between Knoxville, Chattanooga and Nashville is a test area for the Leaf, which is made in Smyrna, just southeast of Nashville.
***
more: http://blog.al.com/huntsville-times-business/2010/11/tva_huntsville_utilities_prepa.html




The strategy seems to be to require users to pay for new equipment ...

and its a fair question if that should be the entire customer base or those requiring the additional power.

If you simply plug it in overnight when you're sleeping, you can get a full charge during off-peak hours, when there's relatively little demand.