Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Grumpy_chap

QrizB said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Then I looked at the linked articles which says " A total of 181 Taycans were delivered in January, with just 175 gas- and diesel-powered vehicles sold collectively in the same period".  So, how come so few cars were sold in total in a month?  356 cars for the whole country of 5 million people - how many cars would be sold in a typical month?

That isn't the story.

"175 gas- and diesel-powered vehicles" wer sold in the period, but "83.7% of all new vehicles sold in the country were electric".

Almost 8000 vehicles were sold that month.

https://insideevs.com/news/565428/norway-plugin-car-sales-january2022/

Ah, yes, thank you. 

I see now that I read the initial article with an aggressive skim so reached the odd and incorrect interpretation of 181 Taycans and 175 ICE but ignored the possibility of any other EVs also being sold.

Martyn1981

thevilla said:

Norway's reported electricity supply issues will be faced across Europe and they are well placed to learn the lessons we will all benefit from.

Don't know if this is interesting, but Norway is sitting pretty with RE, since they have that massive backbone of Hydro, and so far, relatively little wind and PV (in comparison) so loads of potential. The beauty of wind power in Norway, is that it can be absorbed easily onto the grid, simply by dialling down hydropower. Essentially hydro storage without the PHS (pumped hydro storage) part, since the other RE displaces/offsets the use of hydropower.

This link has lots of info on them:

Energy Facts Norway 

ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION

In 2020, Norway set a new electricity production record of 154,2 TWh. This is about 10 TWh more than the average over the last 5 years. Good access to water in the reservoirs and increased wind power capacity were among the reasons for the record high production.

Norway is now developing more renewable power production capacity than it has for decades. Wind power currently accounts for 10 % of the production capacity, and is now dominating investments.

Also Norway has massive pumped hydro potential, ~20GW's worth if they want to go down that route, since their current hydro is large enough to operate purely as fill up and drain, but modifying some of the existing larger plants with catchment lagoons operating as PHS using excess RE generation could make Norway 'Europe's Battery'.

I like this article because I first posted it about 7yrs ago, and it suggests that this idea might take around 7yrs to rollout, if it was needed/economical.

Norway Could Provide 20,000MW of Energy Storage to Europe

Vereide is not alone in thinking Norway could become a vast green battery for Europe. The Centre for Environmental Design of Renewable Energy has concluded that there are four realistic scenarios for pumped hydro energy storage in the country, ranging from a Nordics-only scenario, where Norway only looks after its own needs, plus some of those of its Scandinavian neighbors; to a so-called ‘big storage’ scenario, which, it says, would see “Norwegian hydropower play an important role in integrating variable renewable sources into the European power system by providing large volumes of balancing over various time horizons to the North Sea countries through highly integrated grids and power markets.”

It’s this "big storage" scenario -- with Norway becoming "the green battery of Europe" -- that Vereide has in mind.

A nationwide 20-gigawatt pumped hydro energy storage project sounds expensive, requiring a massive amount of new infrastructure. But that's not necessarily so, says Vereide and his colleagues, because the 20 gigawatts of storage could be created by simply modifying existing plants whose reservoirs currently fill up and drain slowly over time, depending on ice melt, rainfall and other seasonal factors. These upgrades would allow them to be filled and drained much more rapidly, in order to meet the needs of commercially viable energy storage.

JKenH

Martyn1981 said:

thevilla said:

Norway's reported electricity supply issues will be faced across Europe and they are well placed to learn the lessons we will all benefit from.

Don't know if this is interesting, but Norway is sitting pretty with RE, since they have that massive backbone of Hydro, and so far, relatively little wind and PV (in comparison) so loads of potential. The beauty of wind power in Norway, is that it can be absorbed easily onto the grid, simply by dialling down hydropower. Essentially hydro storage without the PHS (pumped hydro storage) part, since the other RE displaces/offsets the use of hydropower.

This link has lots of info on them:

Energy Facts Norway 

ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION

In 2020, Norway set a new electricity production record of 154,2 TWh. This is about 10 TWh more than the average over the last 5 years. Good access to water in the reservoirs and increased wind power capacity were among the reasons for the record high production.

Norway is now developing more renewable power production capacity than it has for decades. Wind power currently accounts for 10 % of the production capacity, and is now dominating investments.

Also Norway has massive pumped hydro potential, ~20GW's worth if they want to go down that route, since their current hydro is large enough to operate purely as fill up and drain, but modifying some of the existing larger plants with catchment lagoons operating as PHS using excess RE generation could make Norway 'Europe's Battery'.

I like this article because I first posted it about 7yrs ago, and it suggests that this idea might take around 7yrs to rollout, if it was needed/economical.

Norway Could Provide 20,000MW of Energy Storage to Europe

Vereide is not alone in thinking Norway could become a vast green battery for Europe. The Centre for Environmental Design of Renewable Energy has concluded that there are four realistic scenarios for pumped hydro energy storage in the country, ranging from a Nordics-only scenario, where Norway only looks after its own needs, plus some of those of its Scandinavian neighbors; to a so-called ‘big storage’ scenario, which, it says, would see “Norwegian hydropower play an important role in integrating variable renewable sources into the European power system by providing large volumes of balancing over various time horizons to the North Sea countries through highly integrated grids and power markets.”

It’s this "big storage" scenario -- with Norway becoming "the green battery of Europe" -- that Vereide has in mind.

A nationwide 20-gigawatt pumped hydro energy storage project sounds expensive, requiring a massive amount of new infrastructure. But that's not necessarily so, says Vereide and his colleagues, because the 20 gigawatts of storage could be created by simply modifying existing plants whose reservoirs currently fill up and drain slowly over time, depending on ice melt, rainfall and other seasonal factors. These upgrades would allow them to be filled and drained much more rapidly, in order to meet the needs of commercially viable energy storage.

I noticed one of the articles quoted above dated back to 2015 but I couldn’t see a date on the other (although it referred to 2020). These 3 articles below (from 2017, 2021 and 2022) suggest Norway is unlikely to be the battery of Europe and the most recent (previously posted on another thread) explains the pressures on the Norwegian grid. 

Norway’s per capita electricity consumption is around 5 times that of the UK.

Why Norway Can't Become Europe's Battery Pack | Greentech Media

Why Norway as a Green Battery for Europe Is Still to Happen, and Probably Will Not | Request PDF

Can Norway be the battery of Europe? - Watt-Logic

Verdigris

Norway’s per capita electricity consumption is around 5 times that of the UK.

That's because we burn gas, in lieu of electricity. If you take the Ofegem "average" household it uses 3000E/12000G, in kWh terms, ie 5 times the electricity consumption. Norway burns very little gas, domestically, they export most of it.

JKenH

thevilla said:

JKenH said:

Porsche Taycan Just Outsold Every ICE Car Combined In Norway

I’m not sure what to make of this story. Undeniably it is a success story that Norway is in touching distance of what it set out to achieve (zero non PEV sales by 2025) but at what cost? To achieve so much so quickly has necessitated a massive distortion of market forces which economically and politically may not be sustainable.

Many will argue that as the TCO of PEVs is less or better than ICEs (in Norway’s case with incentives that might well be true for most) the car buying public is benefiting. But someone has to pick up the tab. Perhaps Norway can afford it (because it is funded by their vast oil wealth) or perhaps not. Was that the best use of resources and was the timing right?

Was it worth pushing this policy so hard before price parity was achieved between PEVs and ICEs? Norway is such a small market that sales there have not contributed to economies of scale for many ICE car manufacturers (except perhaps Tesla). Norway has picked up the tab for a lot of TMSs that in real terms are much cheaper now (kWh for kWh) and for which a cheaper car such as the TM3 (once available) would have been the better choice for most. Could incentives have been better targeted at smaller and cheaper EVs that were on the horizon?

Is this level of subsidy sustainable? Once 2025 has been reached will Norway row back on the incentives and create a political storm? Already in the UK there is talk of road charging to claw back revenue lost from ICEs. Norway presumably will have to consider similar measures. 

Can Norway’s electricity system support an EV fleet once all the ICE vehicles work their way out of the system? (It is already creaking at the seams with very few, if any, new sites available for hydro electricity.) What then? Norway becomes a significant importer of electricity, perhaps dirty electricity at that. 

So what is the net benefit to Norway of this success?

https://carbuzz.com/news/porsche-taycan-just-outsold-every-ice-car-combined-in-norway

You're expressing your desire to delay and prevaricate again! 

Best not to speculate about what I desire - you might get a surprise.  From reading my posts you wouldn’t guess that I had an electric car that I am very happy with, solar panels that, although having reduced output, I really like and a couple of ASHPs which when coupled with the solar panels are one of the best investments I have made.

I like to look at both sides of a discussion and get my material from across the media, (Telegraph, Guardian and Al Jazeera all quoted in the last couple of days as well as online sources). There are plenty of posts on here from cheerleading green tech sites telling us how wonderful solar and wind are but they need balancing with more objective media from sources such as Watt-Logic which aren’t pushing or putting down any particular tech. 

I try to post articles which look at the economics of where we are going with EVs and RE, not just unadulterated fanboy material. Although I own and enjoy an EV myself I can see that they do not suit everyone. I don’t believe in one size fits all, preferring to let people make their own minds up about what they want. I have on numerous occasions pointed out that if you have access to a salary sacrifice scheme it doesn’t make sense to even consider getting anything other than an EV. I also take the view though that everything has to be paid for by someone and the money has to come from other taxpayers’ pockets to subsidise such schemes.

I post articles on both the good and bad points of Tesla and its cars. I also stand up for the likes of Toyota which get a bad press on here because they are looking at alternative modes of green transport including, hydrogen, HFCs and solid state batteries. I don’t accept that Tesla are 5 or 10 years ahead of the competition in batteries or rolling out robotaxis. I am though invested in Tesla and suggested a while back when the shares were around $350 they were a bargain. I also suggested an investment in Orsted where I put some of my own money. 

I like the Toyota idea that, with limited battery supply, it is better to put as many small batteries in as many cars as possible than stick a few big batteries in a few big cars.

And finally, I don’t believe oil companies are the devil incarnate. I have been around long enough to enjoy the benefits of living in a world enriched by the technology that oil and before that coal made possible.

JKenH

Verdigris said:

Norway’s per capita electricity consumption is around 5 times that of the UK.

That's because we burn gas, in lieu of electricity. If you take the Ofegem "average" household it uses 3000E/12000G, in kWh terms, ie 5 times the electricity consumption. Norway burns very little gas, domestically, they export most of it.

Norway 35.52 cubic feet/capita
UK 38.62 

https://www.worldometers.info/gas/gas-consumption-by-country/

michaels

JKenH said:

Verdigris said:

Norway’s per capita electricity consumption is around 5 times that of the UK.

That's because we burn gas, in lieu of electricity. If you take the Ofegem "average" household it uses 3000E/12000G, in kWh terms, ie 5 times the electricity consumption. Norway burns very little gas, domestically, they export most of it.

Norway 35.52 cubic feet/capita
UK 38.62 

https://www.worldometers.info/gas/gas-consumption-by-country/

Does that include electricity generation, industry etc or purely domestic?

Verdigris

I am talking about gas used for home heating. Electricity first, biofuel second, district heating third.

Energy use by sector - Energifakta Norge

Norway's electricity is almost exclusively from hydro-electric generation.

JKenH

Germany admits carbon neutrality targets not possible without hybrids, reverses EV goals

Germany’s Transport Minister Volker Wissing has confirmed that Germany is redefining its electric vehicle (EV) goals to now include hybrids (HEVs), reports Reuters. Previously, Germany had set a goal of putting out 15 million battery electric vehicles (BEVs) on the road by 2030.

https://www.wapcar.my/news/germany-admits-carbon-neutrality-targets-not-possible-without-hybrids-reverses-ev-goals-39939

JKenH

michaels said:

JKenH said:

Verdigris said:

Norway’s per capita electricity consumption is around 5 times that of the UK.

That's because we burn gas, in lieu of electricity. If you take the Ofegem "average" household it uses 3000E/12000G, in kWh terms, ie 5 times the electricity consumption. Norway burns very little gas, domestically, they export most of it.

Norway 35.52 cubic feet/capita
UK 38.62 

https://www.worldometers.info/gas/gas-consumption-by-country/

Does that include electricity generation, industry etc or purely domestic?

Presumably all gas use. Either way the figures are a straight comparison.