Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Martyn1981

Trial in London, though this article doesn't mention if HEV's/PHEV's are allowed:

London to get UK's first zero-emission street

A street in London will become Britain’s first zero-emission street, the City of London Corporation (CLC) said, as Barbican Estate’s Beech Street moves to ban petrol and diesel cars.

almillar

If you plug into a supercharger and pull 250KW from the grid you are charging from whichever power station adds 250KW to the grid to match your demand

I do understand where you're coming from, but this, again, is an extreme worst case. I don't think there are people waiting in the power plants to 'turn them up' when a Tesla turns up to a supercharger. If my Dad plugs his Leaf into his Zappi charger, connected to solar panels, do the people in the power plant need to take any action? Is his electricity green? What if the Tesla plugs in when there's too much on the grid and it actually helps even it out. What about the smart grid? You keep talking about present problems (grid not smart enough, not enough storage) and future problems (nuclear plants closing) but not present (people with solar/batteries right now) or future (smart grid for one) solutions.

You're talking about instantaneous power use, I'm talking about 'on the whole' generation mix. More EVs = more electric used. More renewable energy will be needed to keep up. And batteries, lots of batteries, instead of spinning power plants up and down.

As such expect a BEV to get only about 5% cleaner over the next ten years.
More or less insignificant to the debate

Ah, so it WILL get greener, like I said. I didn't say how much or in how long. This won't happen with ICE.

GreatApe

almillar wrote: »

I do understand where you're coming from, but this, again, is an extreme worst case. I don't think there are people waiting in the power plants to 'turn them up' when a Tesla turns up to a supercharger.

The way it works is there is a buffer in the form of the energy stored in all the rotation on the grid this is both the power stations large rotating steam/gas turbines but all the other rotation on the demand side eg the motor in your fridge

If I add 1MW demand to the grid say by plugging in 4 BEVs to super charge or just turn on some large industrial furnace or whatever. What happens is instantaneously the whole grid feels this additional demand. The coal gas and nuclear plants generators feel a greater force instantly (or well at the speed to light but you get the point)

In that instance the inertia the energy in all the rotation on the grid starts to slow down
The grid then has a little bit of time to add more fuel onto an already spinning CCGT or to fire a new gas turbine or hydro or whatever is availing up

So there isn't a guy waiting on you to turn up the gas the moment you plug in your car
When you plug in your car instantly the laws of physics make it work not some guy waiting for you

There isn't a need to complicate this further but I will add there is about 500MW leeway in the UK grid. That is to say you could in theory plug in something as powerful as 500MW into the grid and the grid shouldn't fail. It will rapidly lose inertia so the pumped hydro or spinning reserve would have to kick in rapidly or you will have to load shed

The opposite of this happened for the recent power blackouts.
A gas fired stations lost about 500MW the grid just about maintained itself then a wind farm lost about 1GW and they had to shed loads around to country to stop cascading problems

Anyway all of this is a complicated way to indeed say if I add a load onto the grid it will be supplied instantly via inertia and then a few seconds/minutes later by more fuel onto a gas or coal or hydro plant. The inertia isn't free energy either so that needs to be recovered too. It just acts like a huge buffer for instant changes in supply or demand

If my Dad plugs his Leaf into his Zappi charger, connected to solar panels, do the people in the power plant need to take any action?

No the laws of physics kick in
If however a large load is added and this isn't covered in time until the inertia gets too low then you will have software ahead loads to avoid nationwide blackouts.

Is his electricity green?

There isn't a 'his electricity' and the proximity to a particular power source is irrelevant
If he is connected to the grid he is pulling from inertia instantly and in the short term (seconds/minutes) later he is pulling from marginal output which most of the time about 98% of hours is gas or coal not wind or solar

What if the Tesla plugs in when there's too much on the grid

Then for that charge it's 100% green because plugging in during those times means one less wind turbine is curtailed

What about the smart grid

what about it?

You keep talking about present problems (grid not smart enough, not enough storage) and future problems (nuclear plants closing) but not present (people with solar/batteries right now) or future (smart grid for one) solutions.

Well what I've been talking about will be true for minimum ten more years likely 15+ more years

You're talking about instantaneous power use, I'm talking about 'on the whole' generation mix. More EVs = more electric used. More renewable energy will be needed to keep up. And batteries, lots of batteries, instead of spinning power plants up and down.

What's wrong with spinning power plants up and down?
It works it's affordable and did I mention it works?
Also it already exists
The reality is the grid doesn't change all that rapidly

Ah, so it WILL get greener, like I said. I didn't say how much or in how long. This won't happen with ICE.

Yes BEVs will get cleaner in the UK but not by much perhaps 3-5% over a decade

ABrass

Given there's an explicit thread for BEV emissions, unless there's more news about it, this might not be the right thread.

silverwhistle

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Trial in London, though this article doesn't mention if HEV's/PHEV's are allowed:

I seem to recall seeing that hybrids with over 20 miles of battery range would be exempted.


Edit: In other pollution news the inquest into the death of a kid in London will examine the role of air pollution: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/17/inquest-air-pollution-ella-kissi-debrah-death

Martyn1981

Potential massive upgrade for those like me with an ickle Leaf battery:

Canadian Shop Upgrades 2015 LEAF & Triples Range To More Than 200 Miles

V!hicules Électriques Simon Andr!, a shop in Quebec, recently put the battery pack from a LEAF Plus in an older 2015 LEAF, increasing the range to an indicated 231 miles | 371 kilometers. Originally, the 2015 LEAF came with a 24 kWh pack, and had an EPA range of 84 miles | 135 kilometers. By swapping in the 62 kWh pack, the range is almost tripled.

almillar

The way it works is there is...

Agree on all. I wasn't aware that 'turbine plants' react so quickly, with more of a strain just being put on them, I thought their reaction was much slower, necessitating rapid deployment solutions.

If however a large load is added

Right. I think we need to seperate the Tesla Owners club having a meeting at a motorway services and plugging into the superchargers all at once (I would argue this is more of a problem for the local grid, and again, can be solved at least partially with local batteries) from Joe Bloggs plugging an EV into his 7kW charger.

There isn't a 'his electricity' and the proximity to a particular power source is irrelevant

OK. He has solar panels, connected to an inverter, connected to his car. But it's not his electricity. I understand. He's on grid. That solar counts as part of the national mix. So why does he have to take ownership of the national marginal energy personally? Why can't he just take the mix of whatever the nation is using at the time? Why does his electric have to be marginal?

What's wrong with spinning power plants up and down?
It works it's affordable and did I mention it works?

It's slow, expensive and inefficient, as far as I'm aware. I thought the whole aim was for big plants to run constantly.

GreatApe

almillar wrote: »

Agree on all. I wasn't aware that 'turbine plants' react so quickly, with more of a strain just being put on them, I thought their reaction was much slower, necessitating rapid deployment solutions.

It is near instantaneous (at the speed of light)
If you add a load onto the grid all the spinning generators on the UK AC grid feel this load

If you don't 'shovel' more coal or gas into the grid the AC frequency will drop and keep dropping until you have a blackout.

Right. I think we need to seperate the Tesla Owners club having a meeting at a motorway services and plugging into the superchargers all at once (I would argue this is more of a problem for the local grid, and again, can be solved at least partially with local batteries) from Joe Bloggs plugging an EV into his 7kW charger.

Everything is felt by the grid even you toothbrush charging up
Marginal load is supplied by marginal supply
There is about 500MW leeway but this isn't free it's too complicated to explain here but This. Leeway doesn't change anything I've said

OK. He has solar panels, connected to an inverter, connected to his car. But it's not his electricity. I understand. He's on grid. That solar counts as part of the national mix. So why does he have to take ownership of the national marginal energy personally? Why can't he just take the mix of whatever the nation is using at the time? Why does his electric have to be marginal?

You can account for things how you want you can even purchase or sell carbon credits and pretend your actions have zero emmissions because you 'offset them' with some accounting tricks

However if you had a co2 meter on every power station in the country and you plugged in an EV and recorded the additional emmissions you would find what I am trying to explain to you is true.

BTW this isn't some sort of smoking gun
I personal don't care about CO2 emmissions
People are and should be free to buy BEVs
The tax support should be removed as it's far too high a cost per unit of co2 saved.
Use the same sum of money to deploy offshore wind in larger quantities

]It's slow, expensive and inefficient, as far as I'm aware. I thought the whole aim was for big plants to run constantly.

Relative to what?

A gas peaker plant is designed for that task it's small compact designed to start up rapidly and go on and off many times.

If they were as bad as you paint why are people building them. 299MW plant in UK costing £90m to build that's pretty cheap it only works out to 30p a watt and should last 30-50 years

For comparison that's >20x cheaper than a nuclear plant per MW

almillar

However if you had a co2 meter on every power station in the country and you plugged in an EV and recorded the additional emmissions you would find what I am trying to explain to you is true.

I understand that, the grid is the grid. But I want you to recognise that EV power is just, power, just like our homes and businesses. Marginal is just that slice off the top, second by second, whether I charge my car, or you turn your oven on. But that's just ingoring everything else below. When I charge my car, or you charge your phone, we are literally adding strain to the grid, and a turbine in a plant has to turn harder, and burn more fuel. You've expained that literal relationship. I'm trying to explain what I think is the more practical, holistic version, which is that it is all part of the UK's energy mix.
If my Dad (again!) generates 10kW from his solar panel in a day, and uses 5kW in his house, and puts 5kW in the car, that's 10kW produced, 10kW consumed. That's net 0kW. Not fancy accounting. You say gas was burnt on his behalf, I say his solar panels have reduced the strain on behalf of someone else.

Relative to what?

I was talking about switching big plants on and off.

GreatApe

almillar wrote: »

If my Dad (again!) generates 10kW from his solar panel in a day, and uses 5kW in his house, and puts 5kW in the car, that's 10kW produced, 10kW consumed. That's net 0kW. Not fancy accounting. You say gas was burnt on his behalf, I say his solar panels have reduced the strain on behalf of someone else

.

By this logic if I buy a 1 ton carbon offset credit for £20, my diesel car doesn't produce any co2 emmissions

I was talking about switching big plants on and off.

What are peaker plants expensive and slow relative to?
Battery pack?
Hamsters on wheels?