Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

JKenH

1961Nick said:

I believe the majority of EV charging is done overnight when renewables are typically a high proportion of the energy mix.

There is no solar overnight so you are solely relying on wind to provide the renewables element. For a week or so we had less than 1GW of wind when overnight demand was around 23 GW. We can’t all claim that 1 GW is charging our cars. Even when it is blowing, whatever wind generation there is  is all being used before our cars collectively switch on on Octopus Go at 01.30hrs. Rarely are we curtailing wind at that point and wind doesn’t magically up its output to compensate. 

The average wind output over the last 12 months was 7.6GW.  During the day we might have 3GW of commercial solar and about 3GW of domestic rooftop solar which does not appear in the stats. We probably have less renewables overnight than during the day.

ABrass

JKenH said:

1961Nick said:

I believe the majority of EV charging is done overnight when renewables are typically a high proportion of the energy mix.

There is no solar overnight so you are solely relying on wind to provide the renewables element. For a week or so we had less than 1GW of wind when overnight demand was around 23 GW. We can’t all claim that 1 GW is charging our cars. Even when it is blowing, whatever wind generation there is  is all being used before our cars collectively switch on on Octopus Go at 01.30hrs. Rarely are we curtailing wind at that point and wind doesn’t magically up its output to compensate. 

The average wind output over the last 12 months was 7.6GW.  During the day we might have 3GW of commercial solar and about 3GW of domestic rooftop solar which does not appear in the stats. We probably have less renewables overnight than during the day.

Onshore wind is higher during the day, offshore at night.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/we.2685

orrery

JKenH said:

It is not inadvertent or an isolated day that EVs contribute to CO2 emissions, they do that every single time we charge them. 

"... every single time ..." ?

You must come over and meet my solar panels, and my car charger, that can charge the car from solar only, then explain that to me again.

orrery

And, if you are going to have this discussion you need to look at the whole life cycle of oil to make the comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk-LnUYEXuM

JKenH

orrery said:

JKenH said:

It is not inadvertent or an isolated day that EVs contribute to CO2 emissions, they do that every single time we charge them. 

"... every single time ..." ?

You must come over and meet my solar panels, and my car charger, that can charge the car from solar only, then explain that to me again.

Quite simple really. Your panels are sending electricity to the grid for everyone to use to boil their kettles, charge their cars run their ASHPs, light their schools offices and factories. Once you plug your car in that electricity that your panels had been providing has to come from somewhere else. Until we have a totally renewables fuelled grid the generation of the electricity that is now fuelling those devices will be producing CO2.

I can understand why you might not want to believe it but that is how it is - unless of course you are off grid.

Martyn1981

orrery said:

JKenH said:

It is not inadvertent or an isolated day that EVs contribute to CO2 emissions, they do that every single time we charge them. 

"... every single time ..." ?

You must come over and meet my solar panels, and my car charger, that can charge the car from solar only, then explain that to me again.

Yeah, every time a PV system is installed, it displaces more FF generation off the grid by providing new additional RE. Hard to believe just how 'new' this stuff was to us 10(ish) years ago, but now we are using domestic powerstations to provide some of the home leccy, home space heating and transport miles, and additionally help green up our neighbours too when we export.

I have to admit I do enjoy the summer miles in the BEV, the thought of driving on sunshine is great.

JKenH

orrery said:

And, if you are going to have this discussion you need to look at the whole life cycle of oil to make the comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk-LnUYEXuM

I was not arguing EVs are dirtier than ICE cars over their lifetime so I don’t understand the relevance of you citing that cartoon as some sort of rebuttal of my comment “ It is not inadvertent or an isolated day that EVs contribute to CO2 emissions, they do that every single time we charge them.” Perhaps it was intended to distract from the unpalatable truth of what I actually said. 

I am simply pointing out that until we stop burning fossil fuels to generate electricity the charging of them will result in CO2 being emitted. 

I really don’t understand why people find that so difficult to accept. I run an EV. I use a Zappi to charge it and like you enjoy seeing 98% of the charge has come from my solar panels on a sunny day (for some technical reason, I suppose, I have never seen 100%). It has cost me nothing to charge my car. I get that and I boast to people I have charged my car for fee from my solar panels because I like electric cars and would like to see more of them on the road. It doesn’t mean I hate EVs anymore than admitting my kids or grandkids aren’t perfect means I hate them or they aren’t overall the best things in my life.

I have absolutely no problem with EVs or solar panels - I love both but I am being realistic and honest, that’s all, and that, it seems, isn’t allowed when it comes to discussing EVs or RE on here. 

Changing the subject slightly but I do find EV owners as a group (look at some of the Facebook EV owners posts as an example) are extremely blinkered on the subject of emissions and EV efficiency. It is the norm to make over generous assumptions and statements about the efficiency of our vehicles ignoring poor economy at high speed and charging losses, vampire drain etc. (I started a thread on charging efficiency to share experiences but no one was minded to contribute as I suspect this was seen as being negative. Or perhaps people just want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend they don’t exist).

Suggest an EV might get less than 3 miles/kWh from the plug in winter and you’d think you had called someone’s baby ugly. 

We need to be realistic about EV efficiency and charging losses otherwise we are just lying to ourselves and others.

JKenH

Martyn1981 said:

orrery said:

JKenH said:

It is not inadvertent or an isolated day that EVs contribute to CO2 emissions, they do that every single time we charge them. 

"... every single time ..." ?

You must come over and meet my solar panels, and my car charger, that can charge the car from solar only, then explain that to me again.

Yeah, every time a PV system is installed, it displaces more FF generation off the grid by providing new additional RE. Hard to believe just how 'new' this stuff was to us 10(ish) years ago, but now we are using domestic powerstations to provide some of the home leccy, home space heating and transport miles, and additionally help green up our neighbours too when we export.

I have to admit I do enjoy the summer miles in the BEV, the thought of driving on sunshine is great.

I agree that every time a new roof top PV system is added it helps. I have previously said that if you already have an EV and then add PV there is a better argument for saying you are using your own PV to charge the car  than if you already had PV then added an EV (as in my case). Since I got my EV my neighbours’ grid has got dirtier as less of my PV goes to the grid.

Adding our own PV focuses our mind on energy efficiency and I believe something like a Zappi car charger or  iBoost/Eddi solar diverter can smooth out the peaks and troughs of demand/supply particularly on a day like yesterday when most of us I think had  bands of cloud/rain/snow scudding across our roofs. I can even manage my Neo hot water boiler manually to take an extra 700 watts or so when the sun pops out. Often the clouds are passing so quickly that it is no more than a flicker on the voltage/frequency at the generating station and anything that can respond to that is helping maintain a constant load on the grid rather than adding to it.

So, yes, yesterday those Zappis probably weren’t costing us too much in CO2.

Martyn1981

I haven't been posting the monthly results so much now, as I think the trend is set. But I do find Sweden's results interesting each time, as they seemed to particularly take to PHEV's. In fact my BiL who lives in Sweden has had a  PHEV for several years, and his new company car will also be a PHEV. He pondered a BEV, but his apartment block and area or not served well with chargers, but rollout is accelerating, so next car should be a BEV.

You can also see the 'Tesla effect' in the second image, as they boost deliveries in the last month of each quarter, but this may slowly start to flatten out now as Giga Berlin slowly ramps up.

Sweden’s Plugin EV Share Hits 56% In March, Will Accelerate

orrery

JKenH said:

Quite simple really. Your panels are sending electricity to the grid for everyone to use to boil their kettles, charge their cars run their ASHPs, light their schools offices and factories. Once you plug your car in that electricity that your panels had been providing has to come from somewhere else...

What a strange view, you seem to admit the merit of my argument and then say, yebut arbut, when you turn it off ...

Your argument is pointless: we progressively add more renewables and therefore we get nearer to zero emissions, and we already know that the 100% coal fired EV starting point was better that ICE.
ICE fuel is a dirty filthy business (ref the video) and we're moving away from it. Every step we take along the path is a win, but still those following the Oil Company playbook (ex tobacco company playbook) still pop up trying to throw in obscure arguments to sow doubt, then others repeat it.

So, in the meantime, I use either pure 100% solar ('cos my charger can do that) or I charge overnight using leccy from my 100% renewables tariff (don't bother, we've done that one to death too).