BLACKOUT

[ian4x4]

Now look what you have done!

Note below was copied from the BBC news blog site.

09:46: BLACKOUT? Keith emails the Live page: "Can someone please answer why it is that we are being encouraged to buy and use electric powered cars, whilst at the same time being told that we are vulnerable to power cuts because we have insufficient capacity? Or am I missing something?"

 

[maby]

I have said before that I'm sceptical about the wisdom of heavily promoting electric cars at the moment. While the take-up is relatively low, they are fine for us and help the government to claim green credentials, but the infrastructure really is not geared up to support several million of them being purchased over the next few years...

 

[ian4x4]

It seems they hope you will use up the batteries life helping out the under investment that has been made in our electricity infrastructure.

Further BBC blog reads

Philip Haile helpfully emails a reply to Keith's question on electric cars (see 09:46). "In the long term electric cars might be the solution to reducing blackouts on the grid," he says. "With a Smart Grid energy from car batteries could be used to power the grid at peak times." Philip adds: "There is almost enough excess overnight grid capacity to switch all cars to electric (greater than 10 GW)"

 

[maby]

Incidentally, Sky News has carried a similar report this morning. One of the pundits criticised the "fact" that he could spend over £100k on a new BVM i8, get a £5000 government subsidy to help pay for it and then "get free electricity for the lifetime of the car" - am I missing something here???

 

[maby]

It seems they hope you will use up the batteries life helping out the under investment that has been made in our electricity infrastructure.

Further BBC blog reads

Philip Haile helpfully emails a reply to Keith's question on electric cars (see 09:46). "In the long term electric cars might be the solution to reducing blackouts on the grid," he says. "With a Smart Grid energy from car batteries could be used to power the grid at peak times." Philip adds: "There is almost enough excess overnight grid capacity to switch all cars to electric (greater than 10 GW)"

I've heard claims of the excess overnight capacity before - but that does assume that they make it worth our while to restrict our charging to overnight! I looked at going on Economy 7, but the numbers don't stack up and it would require a significant change to lifestyle to benefit from it. The electricity to charge the car could be cheaper, but my daytime domestic consumption - which is not inconsiderable since I work from home - would be significantly more expensive than the cheapest deals I can find on standard service. It might make sense on a vehicle with greater electric range but with the Outlander, I do top-up charges during the day - it's plugged up at the moment.

Oh, and by the way, they are certainly not getting their sticky fingers on my battery! With some question marks over its life expectancy and replacement costs of £2000 (or more), it is definitely restricted to moving my car!

 

[PolishPilot]

The key to the solution is battery technology.
Stationary battery at your home with acceptable price and capacity will do the job.
You can feed it with solar or wind power when available,
if not recharge it with cheap night tariff and then use it for
fast battery to battery charging of your EV at time most convenient to you.

In my opinion the "grid problem" is as severe as the "horse manure problem"
by the end of 19th century.

Distributed renewable energy production and storage will make
contemporary grids obsolete.

 

[maddogsetc]

I have said before that I'm sceptical about the wisdom of heavily promoting electric cars at the moment. While the take-up is relatively low, they are fine for us and help the government to claim green credentials, but the infrastructure really is not geared up to support several million of them being purchased over the next few years...

This is very much my view given the paucity of investment in power generation over the last 20 years or so and the long lead time for such projects. On the other hand, I had a long and slightly alcohol fuelled (well, perhaps a bit more than slightly) chat with an associate who is an energy analyst for HM Govt who was convinced that there was plenty of capacity in the system, although I think he was rather focussed on off-peak demand, which seems to me somewhat short-sighted if we are talking about mass adoption of EV's.

Leaving infrastructure aside for a moment, I also struggle to envisage how HMG is going to replace the huge loss of tax revenue if sales of fossil fuels were to plummet - surely we will either see the introduction of some kind of dual tariff, with electric vehicles paying higher rates, or the cost of electricity would have to rise across the board?

 

[PolishPilot]

Panasonic partners with Powertree to deploy charging stations with solar power and energy storage.
One good example what the future might look like.

Panasonic Enterprise Solutions has partnered with Powertree Services to build 68 EV charging stations at multi-unit residential properties in San Francisco. Each is part of a system that includes solar panels and battery storage. The installation will not only provide charging for vehicles, but also solar power to the buildings and load-balancing services to the grid.

More here:

http://chargedevs.com/newswire/panasonic-partners-with-powertree-to-deploy-charging-stations-with-solar-power-and-energy-storage/

 

[maby]

It is pretty sunny in San Francisco, you know! I'm not holding my breath for solar charging stations in Northern Europe. Might just about work in the middle of the summer, but we wouldn't be going very far in the winter - even on a cloudless day, we get maybe four hours of relatively weak sunlight - we would need enormous solar arrays to get a vehicle charged in that period. Those poor old Norwegians would have to lock up the car from November to February at least!

 

[stevothesaddler]

If the "take-up" becomes higher, the amount of R&D that goes into battery life and technologies will increase. Those of us who have already taken the plunge are still the "early adopters". If numbers increase significantly, the tech will only get better IMHO.

 

[jaapv]

This concern appears to me to be spurious. The contribution to total power demand by electric vehicles is minuscule. Even my home sauna pulls five times the current of the PHEV.
Most electrical vehicles will be recharged overnight, when power demand is at a minimum. And in practice many owners will contribute to generating power locally either by installing solar panels, which are efficient enough for ourlatitudes nowadays, or will participate in the building of a wind turbine - a very profitable option over here.

 

[jayfdee]

I have said before that I'm sceptical about the wisdom of heavily promoting electric cars at the moment. While the take-up is relatively low, they are fine for us and help the government to claim green credentials, but the infrastructure really is not geared up to support several million of them being purchased over the next few years...

This is very much my view given the paucity of investment in power generation over the last 20 years or so and the long lead time for such projects. On the other hand, I had a long and slightly alcohol fuelled (well, perhaps a bit more than slightly) chat with an associate who is an energy analyst for HM Govt who was convinced that there was plenty of capacity in the system, although I think he was rather focussed on off-peak demand, which seems to me somewhat short-sighted if we are talking about mass adoption of EV's.

Leaving infrastructure aside for a moment, I also struggle to envisage how HMG is going to replace the huge loss of tax revenue if sales of fossil fuels were to plummet - surely we will either see the introduction of some kind of dual tariff, with electric vehicles paying higher rates, or the cost of electricity would have to rise across the board?

Yes indeed,let us be honest,using electricity derived from a fossil fuelled power station is probably comparable in energy efficiency terms,to using diesel direct in your engine. Remember from the power station(fossil) we only have a generating efficiency in the 30-40% range,then there are transmission losses,charging losses,and battery to wheels losses.
The PHEV really makes sense because there is no fuel duty on the electricity used,so expect changes if they become too popular.
However how they can tell where your elec comes from is another matter,and reversing the zero VED would be an about turn that even our politicians are unlikely to stomach.
I suspect we will eventually be financially encouraged to install off peak metering,which would be hugely beneficial to the UK if the growth of PHEV cars grows,and of course beneficial to us.

 

[simonrh]

I was recently at an electrical power and generation confrence at VDE in Frankfurt.

While we were there we were able to go and look round VDE's EV battery test facility which was very interesting.

However, while we were there one of the presentations was about the benefit of having electric vehicles on the grid generally as they are a stable, reliable electrical load that helps them keep on top of keeping the mains frequency bang on 50Hz which is their key metric for transmission and distribution performance. Basically just a big stable energy sink on the grid (better when used outside of the peak morning and evening demand admittedly). They seemed to quite like them.

 

[user 258]

I have said before that I'm sceptical about the wisdom of heavily promoting electric cars at the moment. While the take-up is relatively low, they are fine for us and help the government to claim green credentials, but the infrastructure really is not geared up to support several million of them being purchased over the next few years...

This is very much my view given the paucity of investment in power generation over the last 20 years or so and the long lead time for such projects. On the other hand, I had a long and slightly alcohol fuelled (well, perhaps a bit more than slightly) chat with an associate who is an energy analyst for HM Govt who was convinced that there was plenty of capacity in the system, although I think he was rather focussed on off-peak demand, which seems to me somewhat short-sighted if we are talking about mass adoption of EV's.

Leaving infrastructure aside for a moment, I also struggle to envisage how HMG is going to replace the huge loss of tax revenue if sales of fossil fuels were to plummet - surely we will either see the introduction of some kind of dual tariff, with electric vehicles paying higher rates, or the cost of electricity would have to rise across the board?

Yes indeed,let us be honest,using electricity derived from a fossil fuelled power station is probably comparable in energy efficiency terms,to using diesel direct in your engine. Remember from the power station(fossil) we only have a generating efficiency in the 30-40% range,then there are transmission losses,charging losses,and battery to wheels losses.
The PHEV really makes sense because there is no fuel duty on the electricity used,so expect changes if they become too popular.
However how they can tell where your elec comes from is another matter,and reversing the zero VED would be an about turn that even our politicians are unlikely to stomach.
I suspect we will eventually be financially encouraged to install off peak metering,which would be hugely beneficial to the UK if the growth of PHEV cars grows,and of course beneficial to us.

Hi,

I pretty much agree that the cost effectiveness of EV is down to tax structures. However, I would point out that one big win of EV over ICE use is in low power situations such as slow moving urban traffic where EV is efficient and ICE is inefficient, unless you want the heat generated by that inefficiency to keep warm.

Kind regards,
Mark