The US Added 1.2 Million EVs To The Grid Final Yr, & Electrical energy Use Went Down

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2023 set one other document for EV gross sales in the US. About 1.2 million automobiles, or 7.6% of all gross sales, had been electrical in keeping with Kelley Blue E-book.

With over 1 million new EVs plugging into storage shops, residence charging stations, and Superchargers, you’d suppose our electrical energy utilization would have shot up dramatically. You’d be incorrect.

Via November 2023 (the most recent information obtainable from the Power Info Administration), electrical energy era was down by 1.1%.

It is a nice piece of reports we needs to be speaking about extra. Electrical energy use has been flat for the final 20 years, hovering between 3,800 and 4,000 billion kWh yearly despite the fact that the inhabitants has elevated by 30 million individuals, our houses have gotten larger, we’ve added over 5,000 information facilities, and we now have 2.5 million EVs plugging into the grid.

How is that this potential? One phrase — effectivity. Our electrical home equipment have gotten a lot extra environment friendly. Thanks know-how enhancements and equipment requirements! There was a 50% enchancment in US vitality depth (vitality use in comparison with GDP) from 1980 to 2014, for instance. (Additionally, in case you had been curious, electrical energy use hasn’t stayed flat as a result of individuals switched to gasoline. Residential gasoline use has been flat because the Seventies.)

The magic of effectivity might and hopefully will proceed this 20-year miracle of preserving electrical energy consumption flat even whereas we add plenty of new hundreds, as there’s a lot extra low hanging fruit to be picked. LEDs nonetheless want to complete their market domination, and warmth pumps are solely simply getting began and can save oodles of vitality for area and water heating and even garments drying. Constructing codes are repeatedly bettering, as are equipment requirements, that means our houses and buildings and every thing that makes use of vitality in them, are always changing into extra environment friendly (with no compromise in efficiency).

This all provides up. With the 1% that electrical energy manufacturing declined in 2023, we might have added one thing like one other 10 million EVs to the grid final 12 months and our total electrical energy use would nonetheless have remained the identical.

How’s that for some excellent news? Subsequent time you hear that we gained’t have sufficient energy to impress every thing, speak concerning the magic of effectivity that has made total electrical energy use go down whilst electrical automobiles start to scale.