Electric cars

AdrianC

DELETED USER wrote:

Oh dear, another one who doesn't understand how an electricity grid works.

Glad you recognise it.

So tell me, if everyone refused to pay any coal plant for the energy it produced, do you think it would carry on generating electricity and contributing to the energy mix?

Yes, actually, they would do EXACTLY that. The UK is running consumption at damn near 100% of generation capacity.
https://www.ft.com/content/2c1f71c6-2ef7-11e6-bf8d-26294ad519fc
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-energy-bills-shortages-winter-national-grid-electricity-prices-weather-a7219491.html
Damn near all the electricity that's available is being used. Currently, about 16% renewable.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
There is no massive pile of renewable generation capacity sat unused, waiting for people to sign up to ecotricity. It does not exist.

Let's put it another way... If everybody moved their business to ecotricity on Monday morning, would everybody suddenly get bunnyhug coming down the wires, and the fossil would just be turned off?

Do you think investors would pump money into more coal fired plants?

I doubt that new coal-fire plants would get planning permission, especially since existing coal is being decommissioned rapidly, hence that shortfall getting worse. Coal plants are being converted to biomass as fast as possible.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-subsidies-britain-idUKKBN148112

Car_54

[QUOTE=AdrianC;72005403
I doubt that new coal-fire plants would get planning permission, especially since existing coal is being decommissioned rapidly, hence that shortfall getting worse. Coal plants are being converted to biomass as fast as possible.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-subsidies-britain-idUKKBN148112[/QUOTE]

And according to the current Private Eye biomass is even more polluting (Co2 and particulates) than coal.

Car_54

NigeWick wrote: »

Incorrect. The problem is storing the excesses that are made when the sun is shining and/or wind blowing. And there is quite a bit of research going on to remedy this. There is a scheme connecting battery electric cars to the national grid being trialled now.

Indeed. But there has been "quite a bit of research going on" for decades now, with little progress.

Would it not have been sensible to solve the storage problem (if indeed it is soluble) before investing squillions in windfarms etc?

AdrianC

Car_54 wrote: »

And according to the current Private Eye biomass is even more polluting (Co2 and particulates) than coal.

You've got a big difference between short- and long-term carbon cycles. Burning coal releases carbon that's been locked away for millions of years. Burning fast-grown biomass crops releases carbon that's been locked away for a couple of years.

Particulates are very dependent on how efficient the burn is - no matter what the fuel is - hence this week's outrage over wood-fired heating, and how some stove manufacturers are proposing a "scrappage" scheme (aka marketing opportunity for replacement sales).

There are perfectly valid arguments against biomass, but they're more along the lines of agricultural land use, and import of fuel.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/uk-now-burning-33-of-worlds-wood-pellet-imports

Gloomendoom

AdrianC wrote: »

You've got a big difference between short- and long-term carbon cycles. Burning coal releases carbon that's been locked away for millions of years. Burning fast-grown biomass crops releases carbon that's been locked away for a couple of years.

And it will be sucked up by the biomass crops growing over the next couple of years.

Martyn1981

AdrianC wrote: »

There is no massive pile of renewable generation capacity sat unused, waiting for people to sign up to ecotricity. It does not exist.

It's actually quite simple. As Ecotricity and Good Energy get more customers and more demand, they buy more leccy from RE, or build more RE themselves. This drives up the demand for (and supply of) RE.

RHemmings

Hyundai Ioniq forum, thread on how far people managed to drive. The 280km range seems unrealistic for normal use, but someone in Korea managed 351km by driving nonstop (and presumably flat terrain) at 50km/hr. http://www.ioniqforum.com/forum/234-hyundai-ioniq-electric-ev/1746-electric-range.html

On the SpeakEV forums, someone said that they got about 160km range driving reasonably. That's good, IMHO.

AdrianC

Martyn1981 wrote: »

It's actually quite simple. As Ecotricity and Good Energy get more customers and more demand, they buy more leccy from RE, or build more RE themselves. This drives up the demand for (and supply of) RE.

Renewables are being built as fast as permission can be granted. If Ecotricity etc don't buy that energy, it goes into the grid - it doesn't sit idle, with the blades braked or feathered.

Martyn1981

Car_54 wrote: »

Indeed. But there has been "quite a bit of research going on" for decades now, with little progress.

I'm not sure why you think that. There are umpteen kinds of storage out there, and they are being improved all the time.

CAES (compressed air energy storage)
LAES (liguid air energy storage)
Undersea airbags
Power2Gas (methane production)
Power2H2 (hydrogen production/fuel cells)
Batteries
Flow batteries
V2G (Vehicle to grid)
Flywheels
PHS (pumped hydro storage)
PHS conversion of abandoned mines, or spent opencast mining sites.

Regarding progress, the cost difference between UK PV/onshore wind v's Hinkley Point C is £19/MWh, and the cost of storage with grid scale flow batteries is £13/MWh (based on 50% of generation needing storage). [EOS Aurora 1MW/4MWh model at $160/kWh rated at 5,000+ cycles = $32/MWh.]

Small grid scale storage is being rolled out all over the world, and both scale and momentum is growing. For example PV + storage in Hawaii at lower than conventional generation costs:

Hawaii co-op signs deal for solar+storage project at 11¢/kWh

Car_54 wrote: »

Would it not have been sensible to solve the storage problem (if indeed it is soluble) before investing squillions in windfarms etc?

Nope. It isn't sensible to rollout storage until it's needed. That point comes when there is too much wind generation (at night) or too much PV generation (on a sunny summers Sunday afternoon), and we do not yet have enough generating capacity to cause that yet.

And before anyone mentions shutting down wind turbines when there is too much wind, that is not a storage issue it's down to:

1. The National Grid does not increase the capability of networks to wind farms until after they are operating. This appears odd at first, but is apparently to avoid investment in case the development falls through. So some wind farms produce too much power for their current connections during high wind, however these cases are being dealt with.

2. The National Grid (NG) operates a balancing mechanism, and sometimes that means paying generators to be ready, but not to supply (yet). This is not new news, but has been made quite famous lately by Noel Edmonds anti-wind organisation - REF. In reality wind gets a share of the money roughly in line with its proportion of national generation. Wind is popular with the NG for balancing, as it can be turned on and off very quickly, simply by feathering the turbine blades - so expect it to continue to get balancing payments (money for not generating), and to be falsely criticised for this in the Daily Mail.

Lastly, a number of DNO's (District Network Operators - they operate the local grids, sitting between us and the NG) are investing in domestic and/or commercial battery schemes/trials at this very moment to see how these can be used to allow demand side generation to help reduce peak loads and peak pricing. A forum friend of mine is currently taking part in one such trial, and I've been posting some info here.

On-grid domestic battery storage

Martyn1981

AdrianC wrote: »

Renewables are being built as fast as permission can be granted. If Ecotricity etc don't buy that energy, it goes into the grid - it doesn't sit idle, with the blades braked or feathered.

I'm not sure what that's got to do with what I wrote?

For investors to build more RE, they need to know that they can sell it. So when a RE supplier asks for more, more can be built.

In other words, the more customers that sign up to RE tariffs, the more RE we will get on the grid.

Currently the government has cut pretty much all support for on-shore wind and PV farms, despite them being incredibly popular with the UK populace. So their main opportunity for development now is under a PPA (power purchase agreements), but PPA's need two parties, a supplier and a buyer.