Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

JKenH:

This is the point I was making. GA makes a valid argument and so do you. I entirely understand your point that all generation can be considered marginal. I recall making a similar comment to GA about switching a kettle on earlier in the thread

Agreed. 2 different ways of looking at it, but GA seems to think I'm wrong and there's no such thing as renewable energy on the grid, taking the strain off the power plants. He seems to believe all EV drivers are always using that little marginal bit at the top!

Pass on actual figures

Fair enough, you're thinking for yourself. I think everyone, should count all of their electric use as:
x% nuclear
x% gas
x% coal
x% renewable.

I'll not bother with figures to argue over, it's about principle. I would also argue that if someone installs solar panels on their roof, they get to count that as 'their' generation, and if they don't literally get to consume that light energy, they can at least offset it against their use.

Now, I have bought an EV, let’s say I manage to put 10kwh into the car on a sunny day. That is 10kwh that doesn’t get exported to the grid and so 10kwh more has to be generated by the grid to meet that shortfall. How dirty that 10kwh is will depend on the mix of the grid that day. So the marginal CO2 generated as a result of me putting 10kwh of energy into my car is not the zero CO2 it would be from my solar but the CO2 from the extra generation the grid has to produce.

Fair enough, and understood. But this is saying that if you didn't charge (and therefore use) your car, there would be fewer emmissions. Take another step, and consider that if you hadn't installed solar panels, there would be more emmissions. So, again, my NET argument. Do you drive more kWh, or produce more kWh? If you give the grid back 100kWh, and use 100kWh, your driving is NET Zero. I'm ignoring home consumption, that gets accounted like the rest of us chumps, from the grid!

I hope that makes my own viewpoint a bit clearer

Absolutely. Taking the (often made up!) numbers out seems to have help sort out the theories.

GreatApe:

It gets this 106g across the range

106g, driving along a motorway, with no regen? The battery will empty, you'll be on pure ICE and consumption will go up. That's what the 2.5m/kWh is that we're talking about. What's your source?

I accept your 75g and 3.7m/kWh

Excellent. 75g came from your figures, with adjustments from me, 3.8 was mine from one car, 3.7 from the other.

The other oster here said 87% he had a meter on his wall so let's go with 87% if you like

87% it is.

Wait....is your 3.7m/kWh behind the charger?

Yes, it's as reported by the car. You'll find it very difficult to read the meters of all the public chargers!

So the PV saves emissions of CO2

There you go, easy, wasn't it?!

To say the PV charges the car and lowers the cars emmissions makes as much sense as me saying the apple tree I planted last year lowers my diesel cars emmissions.

It does offset it a certain amount, and in a much less direct way. Do you think offset is a dirty word? I mean, I know it's become a bit of a marketing buzzword (or did), but it's still a real thing, is it not?!

Whatever the solar panels do are allocated to the solar panels not the car

OK, but I want to assign it to the person. People install solar panels, use electric in their homes and cars. If you asign what the solar panels do to the person, and that person also drives an EV, can you bring yourself to do the offsetting? If that person's solar panels generate the same about as that person uses in their EV, including all your precious losses, can they call their car 'net Zero emmissions'? I say yes.

Kernel Sanders

I get this, because the PV can't be offsetting carbon elsewhere on the Grid if it's charging the car.

But you're adding on the car on top of the grid. It's part of the grid. And the solar panels will spend less time charging the car, than not. It's false accounting. The consumer has added:
1. Solar panels
2. an EV
To the grid. One gives, one takes away. What the point you make above does, is hand over the solar panel to the power companies, grid production, stealing that production from the consumer, whilst still burdening him with the electric he puts into the EV.
I'm not sure if I'm being clear, but what about this - there's a high proportion of people with solar panels, that also have EVs. This is not coincidence, they go well together. If they didn't have EVs, they might not also have solar. Our grid would be less clean as a result, would it not?

Great Ape:

then I'd say you can argue the combo of the two offset each other

Err, that's what I've been saying?!!

Another example of why 'my solar panels charge my car so it's zero Emissions isn't quite the full picture

I think it's very much 'good enough'!

Kernel Sanders:

No, they aren't higher, they are still neutral because in your scenario, that solar on the roof is cancelling out the electrical demands of the EV. You appear have duplicated the effects of the EV's disablement.

YES! He's double counting all over the place in favour of his argument.

Martyn:

Another beauty of BEV's is that they will mostly be charged at night, when wind generation is higher, and the CO2 intensity of the grid is lower.

And their ability to absorb RE excess through smart charging in the future will allow a higher penetration of RE generation to be rolled out onto the grid - which in turn means less FF generation for all leccy supply, not just BEV's, so they are actually an integral part of the RE solution too.

This is 'good case' thinking, whereas Great Ape is sticking with 'creative worst case' thinking with regards to EVs.

JKenH:
Careful now...

The argument was whether [STRIKE]BEVs[/STRIKE] ANY DEVICE PLUGGED IN use marginal generation or core generation

I agree on the whole BEVs should use less CO2 than ICEs although the saving will vary depending on the CO2 of the grid when used to charge them

Even GA's figures show that they already are! And my point is they'll only get cleaner, along with the grid.

You're paying attention to the peaks and troughs in demand. If everyone did this and took action, the UK would be a happier electric place. Well done. This is why industry pays varying amounts for electricity, and why the smart grid and maybe V2G, is coming.

EVandPV:

The vast majority of ev drivers will of course be on an ev tariff like Octopus Go.

I would love to be, but in NI our Electricty market is different.

Let's say at the beginning it is 50 units supplied by wind 50 units supplied by gas
Well we can't just throw more wind on the grid but we can throw more gas in a turbine.

That's fine. So when we look at out big average figures for the year, we've just reduced the % renewables a bit. You're talking like it doesn't get counted, it DOES!