Electric cars

AnotherJoe · 18 January 2018 at 9:29AM

David_Aston wrote: »

Thank you Adrian and almillar.
Can I ask, does this Renault supplied charger plug into your mains?
Also, plugging in after getting back from work, ten hour charge ready for work in the morning. Am I missing a major snag here?

If it’s the sort of charger that is fitted to a wall it will fully charge from zero in somewhere between 4-8 hours and the Op is likely to save a bit of money moving to economy 7 type tariff and that will also move the load to nighttime. .

If it’s the sort that plugs into a 3 pin socket “EVSE” then it could take much longer and a dedicated new socket would be best but then again the cost of fitting that won’t be much different to a higher capacity charger being fitted. The exception to that would be if mileage is low and the OP is topping up 10 miles a day rather than 100.

There are many peopel here looking for problems rather than solutions, and who seemingly can’t envisage any improvements in current systems or indeed any changes in them at all, ever.

I wonder how they ever got any electricity fitted in houses since “obviously” there was already gas in place. All those new fangled light bulbs needed the existing infrastructure to be replaced or added just to replace perfectly serviceable gas mantles. And every house would need new wiring which sureky was wholly impractical. Not to mention new transformers and what would happen when it was dark at 5pm on a Thursday November er and everyone switched their light bulbs on at once ? Nah it would never happen surely ?

Though I don’t understand how we even got gas surely people at the time couldn't envisage digging all the streets up to put gas in place when it was perfectly easy to deliver coal to houses by horse and cart ?

Those Victorian’s surely had an edge and more get go than today’s “can’t do it won’t do it” merchants, or was it all built in spite of similar objections back then ?

Martyn1981 · 18 January 2018 at 10:23AM

redux wrote: »

That sets up dilemmas about electric cars. Charging gently overnight at home is one thing, but widespread demand for fast charge of cars during peak times is going to cause problems in prioritising load. Some factories use more power than homes, but factories won't want to be switched off.

It won't cause any problems if they have storage on site to balance out supply and demand. If only Tesla had a product that does this, some sort of pack to store power!

Here's an example being trialled:-

GreenWay Launches First “GridBooster” EV Fast-Charging System In Central & Eastern Europe

LOL, always worth a random word Google search before posting. Guess what I found?

BATTERY STORAGE PROJECT A ‘BLUEPRINT’ FOR EV CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE GLOBALLY

At South Mimms Welcome Break Motorway Services, we have installed a 250kW/500kWh Powerpack alongside one of Tesla’s largest and busiest UK charging locations. The Supercharger site can charge up to 12 cars at one time, and since popular charging periods often coincide with peak periods of grid demand – between 4pm and 7pm, when electricity prices are at their highest – flexible solutions are needed to ease the strain on local grids and control electricity costs.

Integrating a Powerpack at the location has meant that during peak periods, vehicles can charge from Powerpack instead of drawing power from the grid. Throughout the remainder of the day, the Powerpack system charges from and discharges to the grid, providing a Firm Frequency Response (FFR) service to National Grid and earning revenue for balancing grid electricity supply and demand on a second-by-second basis.

Martyn1981 · 18 January 2018 at 10:28AM

IanMSpencer wrote: »

For example, they have glossed over the issue of rush hour - note that they assume that there is capacity for the car to be there "on demand" which if nothing else changes you can assume means people still will travel at rush hour and now there will be parents ordering cars up for their kids so at school time I would expect even more journeys as mum and dad go to work and kids go to 3 different schools.

The data on car use I've seen (on another site) is that the peak demand (mornings in London) is 35% of vehicles. Assuming no car sharing is deployed (picking up additional passengers on route) that still means a 2/3rds reduction in the UK car fleet is possible.

It also means that cars can be recharged (on a rotation basis) outside of this period when demand is less.

There's also the possibility that in town journeys will be much faster (thereby reducing peak demand at any given moment in time) due to clearer roads from lack of parked cars on both sides restricting traffic flow.

Martyn1981 · 18 January 2018 at 10:34AM

Gloomendoom wrote: »

Interestingly, looking at the previous slide in the presentation, based on a VW Golf sized EV travelling the UK average 24 miles per day, drawing 12 kwh/day from the grid, the maximum the grid could cope with could be as few as 1 million vehicles.

That's without smart charging

Based on info I've seen and EV owners on here, shouldn't that be more like 6kWh per day not 12kWh?

But, even if it is 12kWh, then that's an average of 0.5kW additional load on the grid per car, so for 1m cars that's an additional 0.5GW, so roughly a 1% increase in average demand. Why would that be the Grid limit?

At 0.25kW and 30m cars, we get an average of 7.5GW increase, which may well be too much at peak demand times, but a 'cinch' for the other 20hrs a day.

Martyn1981 · 18 January 2018 at 10:37AM

AnotherJoe wrote: »

There are many peopel here looking for problems rather than solutions, and who seemingly can’t envisage any improvements in current systems or indeed any changes in them at all, ever.

I think it's an issue of context. The number of EV's, the amount of leccy consumption, etc etc are very big numbers, so without context they seem scary.

When some context is actually applied to the numbers, then they are no longer scary, rather simple and boring instead.

Charging 100kWh cars every day is tricky, but (on average) having to charge a 40kWh car once a week is (almost) easy.

Gloomendoom · 18 January 2018 at 11:04AM

Got a source for it ?

See post #773

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Funny how the national grid report debunking scaremongering myths never mentioned that during their report on EV cars.

Thanks for the link. The question being addressed there is that of satisfying peak demand, not local network capability. It does, however, provide a link to another document (Future Energy Scenarios, National Grid, 2017) which I have quickly scanned through and that does, at first glance, seem to lend weight to the notion that the network, as it stands, won't cope if there is a significant swing to mass EV ownership.

For example...

"Consumer Power sees the most aggressive rise in peak demand. This is brought about by less engaged consumers who use electricity when it suits them. The potential impact that unmanaged mass EV charging, particularly at peak time, could create is significant. In such a scenario, challenges to operating the system, generation and network capability will need to be addressed if we are to have a network that is safe, secure, reliable and economical"

"How the peak time demand from EVs is treated has a significant effect on the electricity system. If left largely unmanaged, as in Consumer Power, it has the potential to be a challenge to the system but in particular to the distribution networks and for system operators post 2030."

"By 2030, our scenarios predict there will be between 1.9 and 9.3 million EVs on the roads. If these vehicles were all to charge at the same time it would put significant strain on distribution networks and peak generation capacity."

"More broadly, networks will need to upgrade and adapt to the changing nature of generation and demand connected to them, taking a whole electricity system approach to minimise costs to consumers."

"We have also assumed that the network infrastructure changes, which will undoubtedly be required to support such a rapid electrification of transport, are in place and so do not prevent consumers from owning EVs."

"With the level of new generation capacity expected, there will be a requirement for considerable electricity network development."

Gloomendoom · 18 January 2018 at 11:40AM

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Based on info I've seen and EV owners on here, shouldn't that be more like 6kWh per day not 12kWh?

Agreed. Based on this table, 12 does seem to be around double the actual consumption.

If that is true, then we could double the numbers of EVs that the grid could cope with to around 2 million.

Which ties in rather nicely with this statement from the National Grid...

"By 2030, our scenarios predict there will be between 1.9 and 9.3 million EVs on the roads. If these vehicles were all to charge at the same time it would put significant strain on distribution networks and peak generation capacity."

Which is, presumably, where smart charging comes in to manage charging to match capacity. I foresee the end of E7 tariffs.

AnotherJoe · 18 January 2018 at 12:08PM

IanMSpencer wrote: »

For example, they have glossed over the issue of rush hour - note that they assume that there is capacity for the car to be there "on demand" which if nothing else changes you can assume means people still will travel at rush hour and now there will be parents ordering cars up for their kids so at school time I would expect even more journeys as mum and dad go to work and kids go to 3 different schools.

I agree, i am a big proponent of EVs but I think not only is autonomy a busted flush and wont happen, but self evidently even if it happens at some low level in certain strict conditions, it will increase congestion.

Simple thought experiment; which has fewer car journeys ? (1) I drive to work and park. (2) a car drives to my house, the car drives to my work, the car drives somewhere else?

The proof point of this is already here, because uber-type services with lowered cost of transport are increasing congestion because of the cars driving in to pick up people which a car already parked there wouldn't do (because its cheaper to uber in and out than drive in and park all day). There are articles/op ed pieces in local newspapers complaining about ubers waiting to pick up people.

Secondly, they are not displacing personal cars. They are displacing public services such as bus and tram in their heartlands of Seattle and San Francisco. If you could take an uber for say $5 compared to bus of $3 or $4, wouldn't you? So what does that do to the number of vehicles on the road?

AnotherJoe · 18 January 2018 at 12:21PM

Gloomendoom wrote: »

Agreed. Based on this table, 12 does seem to be around double the actual consumption.

If that is true, then we could double the numbers of EVs that the grid could cope with to around 2 million.

Which ties in rather nicely with this statement from the National Grid...

"By 2030, our scenarios predict there will be between 1.9 and 9.3 million EVs on the roads. If these vehicles were all to charge at the same time it would put significant strain on distribution networks and peak generation capacity."

Which is, presumably, where smart charging comes in to manage charging to match capacity. I foresee the end of E7 tariffs.

E7 matches charging to capacity in a crude but useful way already by moving charging to off peak, and will be continue to be useful for quite a few years to come. It will mean no need, for example, having to pay wind farm operators to turn off generation at night because there's nowhere for the electric to go, which si what can happen now. Thats a simple win win for the power companies, instead of paying Acme turbines 1p/hour to switch off, pay them 2p for the electricity, and charge 3p to the person charging their EV.

Anyway its a red herring to think all those vehicles would charge at the same time, why would they? Not everyone charges every day, and not everyone charges at the same time, its already distributed and for the next few years nothing especially sophisticated is needed, just pricing to give a nudge to move from evening to nightime charging. Later on smart meters can be used to offer all sorts of innovative schemes.

Gloomendoom · 18 January 2018 at 12:34PM

AnotherJoe wrote: »

E7 matches charging to capacity in a crude but useful way already by moving charging to off peak, and will be continue to be useful for quite a few years to come. It will mean no need, for example, having to pay wind farm operators to turn off generation at night because there's nowhere for the electric to go, which si what can happen now. Thats a simple win win for the power companies, instead of paying Acme turbines 1p/hour to switch off, pay them 2p for the electricity, and charge 3p to the person charging their EV.

Anyway its a red herring to think all those vehicles would charge at the same time, why would they? Not everyone charges every day, and not everyone charges at the same time, its already distributed and for the next few years nothing especially sophisticated is needed, just pricing to give a nudge to move from evening to nightime charging. Later on smart meters can be used to offer all sorts of innovative schemes.

Agreed, but it's safe to say most people will charge where they get most value for money and that is likely to be overnight at home. The gloomy projections for network capability were based on two million cars topping up their average daily drain of 6 kWh (or 1 million at 12) which they may do daily or once or twice a week, not everybody charging from empty every night.

Electric cars

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