Shell Is Immediately Closing All Of Its California Hydrogen Stations | The oil giant is one of the big players in hydrogen globally, but even it can’t make its operations work here.::The oil giant is one of the big players in hydrogen globally, but even it can’t make its operations work here. All seven of its California stations will close immediately.
I’m not sure I buy that. Yes, their electrical grid is a mismatched nightmare, that they should have taken the hit on decades ago. However I see that small chargers for things like phones can adjust to pretty much any electrical grid: why shouldn’t we expect the charger in the car to be equally flexible? Either way, it’s converting to DC
Edit: the article didn’t talk about the differences, except frequency: if the only difference is 50Hz vs 60Hz, most analog electrical stuff probably also works on both. The real problem is they don’t have interconnects nor do they have a regulatory structure allowing separate generating oroviders
My main point was about capacity, and how the separate grid(s?) hinder attempts to add the capacity needed for EVs. I wasn’t really clear on that though. mb
I thought auto ranging power supplies were typically for voltage but not frequency.
Every one I’ve seen gives ranges like 100-240v ac, at 50-60 Hz.
Then electrical grids are large complex systems defined in analog days and subject to variances for weather, usage, distances, etc, so they also need to support that variability
Even larger appliances like refrigerators, ovens/ranges, etc? Some of these might be 10+ years old.