Power grids tremble as electric vehicle growth set to accelerate 19% next year

Shipments of electric cars – both battery and plug-in hybrid vehicles – are set to grow by 19 percent in 2024 to hit 17.9 million units worldwide, according to Gartner. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) make up the bulk of the market, with 11 million units expected to be sold by the end of 2023. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles …

[bofh1961]

For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Many people live in places where they can't charge the vehicle at home. Without off-street parking it's not going to be feasible. Nobody will want to chance a journey knowing that, at best, they'll face a long wait at one of the few public charging points before they get to twiddle their thumbs for at least half an hour before they can continue their journey. At worst they'll arrive at their chosen charging point to find it's out of order and they'll have to call a breakdown service. Which will, of course, recharge their car from an ICE generator. Did I mention that public charging points will be far more expensive to use than overnight charging at home?

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Something like 75-80% of vehicles in the UK are able to be parked off road at home (RAC figures I'e quoted often here)... a good proportion of the rest will be parked at work for good portions of their life.

Yes, we need much wider distribution of AC chargers... AC because they're cheap to install and therefore cost of energy through them can also be cheaper (and usually is), and because if you charge every time you go shopping, or eat out, or go to a show or...

"Did I mention that public charging points will be far more expensive to use than overnight charging at home?"

Did you mention that they're still cheaper than petrol?

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Did you mention that they're still cheaper than petrol?

They're not. I have a PHEV, in terms of per-mile costs charging at home is cheapest, then comes using petrol (despite half the cost being tax and duty). Public charge points are the most expensive.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

> I have a PHEV, ... Public charge points are the most expensive.

Here, this is also true for my PHEV, but the reason is that all paid charge points have a large per minute tariff on top of the kWh charge.

For a Tesla or Kia that can fast charge, it is still cheaper than petrol for highway driving.

(as I say here, no idea where the o.p lives etc)

[Missing Semicolon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

70p/kwh is 23p/mile at 3mile/kwh.

£1.50/litre is 17p/mile at 40mpg. So even less in a Prius.

Thats the price at our local supermarket charge points.

Your mileage may vary, but overall the price of ICE travel is of the same order as that of public charge-point EV travel.

Not including the ruinous depreciation on EVs of course.

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

So you're assuming 3m/kwh? Wow... no wonder you think EVs are expensive... despite driving a first gen MG ZS, which isn't exactly aero efficient, and doesn't have the best battery management I get *well* over 3, nudging 4 most of the time.

Depreciation on any vehicle is ruinous, that's why most people don't buy new.

With 4.54 litres in a gallon and £1.53 (current RAC UK average for petrol) at 40mpg (being generous here, for petrol the uk averages 36, for diesel it's 43) that's 17.3p/m.

At 3.9m/kWh that would need public charging to be 67.8p/mile.

For DC fast charging Gridserve charge 69p, Instavolt 75p, Telsa 60p - so they're there or thereabouts.

BUT... those aren't the chargers you'd use for all charging if you couldn't guarantee charging at home (which is where this started).

You'd find AC chargers at places you visit anyway (supermarket, shopping centre, gym, train station, cinema... wherever), or better still at your place of work.

Local to me there are several free chargers (and that's a price hard to beat)... and those which charge start at 20p, but none are over 60p.

Of course if you can charge at home (like the vast majority can) then you're looking at under 2p/mile.

[Barrie Shepherd]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

The story is not that clear.

When you buy liquid fuel you are paying the government 53 pence for each litre in addition to the oil cartels and garage operators.

When you charge your EV what you pay goes to the charge point operator and the electrical distribution and supply cartel.

Why can a garage operate a building, storage and all the other stuff they do for the profit from fuel sales but EV charger operators are charging like wounded bulls?

Soon the government will want it's revenue stream back from the EV chargers as well - that's only fair.

[Lon24]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

There is a distinction between off-road charging and road charging. Off-road EVs are much more economical (unless you do 200+ miles per day, every day). Fast charging is expensive and undesirable unless you need it to complete a journey. For most of us it represents a tiny percentage of total charges and doesn't really figure in the cost of ownership.

For those without drives It largely depends on your local authority having an agreement with a good provider to provide a trickle charge lampost or equivelent nearby which doesn't get ICE-ed. But with a drive there isn't an economic argument beyond the capital cost. Given that 75% of households have a drive and hence no charging problem then we should be most concerned of the 25% without home charging where low cost local charging is essential That's sorted in my part of London but ymmv. Overall charging is not the problem the anti-EV lobby pretend it is.

Disclosure: I'm a EV owner of four years with a drive.

[Dr_N]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Jeep have a small network if off-road chargers in the US:

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/jeep-to-deploy-solar-powered-stations-in-remote-areas-to-recharge-electric-off-roaders-198997.html

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Jeep have a small network if off-road chargers in the US:"

That's a very cool idea. They'd better be pretty robust as it will be harder to get a technician out to the more remote installations very quickly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Using a public EV charger attracts VAT at 15%. Charging at home is 5%.

Please use public chargers. It helps our government fend off the bailiffs.

[veti]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Soon the government will want it's revenue stream back from the EV chargers as well - that's only fair.

Yes, it will. But not until the share of battery EVs on the road has plateaued, and old-fashioned petrol pumps are getting harder to find. They don't want to do anything to inhibit the takeup, so they'll wait until a critical mass of people - in this case, probably something like 75% or more of the population - are committed or at least resigned to the change.

[blackcat]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I fear road charging is coming a lot sooner than you think. As ICE cars have become more efficient, the move to EVs and keeping fuel duty relatively static under fear of being hung from the tower of London the revenue from motorists has dropped in real terms. And they NEED that money.

[Dr Dan Holdsworth]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

The problem with road pricing is that the "obvious solution" namely a location sensor in the car is a very bad idea indeed on several fronts. Firstly, GPS signals are easy to interfere with, secondly such a system could turn into an automatic speeding fine machine, and thirdly the GPS or similar signal is really easily interfered with to inflict malicious prosecutions on innocent motorists.

That then leaves motorway pricing, which cannot be too heinous or people will simply crowd onto minor roads to dodge the tax.

[blackcat]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

The results of the Low Traffic Neighbourhood trials seem to all indicate that traffic did decrease on the blocked roads, it increased even more on the other roads in the locale. Another one of those things that just moves the problem and makes it worse elsewhere.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Soon the government will want it's revenue stream back from the EV chargers as well - that's only fair."

It's not fair, it's stupid. I say that as it means a whole bunch of accounting to assess the tax on every charging session. It makes much more sense to do some averaging and increase annual registration for EV's to cover the taxes that aren't being generated by petrol/diesel fill ups. That means it's one charge per year rather than 50+ (one charge a week and up) to keep track of.

When there was a big DIY bio-diesel craze, the UK government wanted everybody making it to queue up and pay the fuel tax on what they produced. A bit of forehead slapping later and the regulation changed to only require a payment if personal production exceeded a certain amount. So many people decided to be in compliance that it was costing way more money to accept the forms and payments than it brought in. I would assume there would also need to be some sort of fleet of bio-diesel detector vans roaming the country to catch people that weren't paying.

99% of the universe is there to do the accounting for the 1% we see.

[Roland6]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

>” I say that as it means a whole bunch of accounting to assess the tax on every charging session.”

That’s exactly how it works today; a charging session is simply a purchase.

The only problem is the major utilities billing systems are ancient and so don’t do transactional billing at this scale.

Solution is for EV chargers to be attached to dedicated providers who will have the appropriate IT systems to authorise and manage charging and do the transactional billing etc. which is basically what we have in the UK.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Solution is for EV chargers to be attached to dedicated providers who will have the appropriate IT systems to authorise and manage charging and do the transactional billing etc. which is basically what we have in the UK."

I still say in this case, it's far simpler to bill the EV owner annually or semi-annually either using an averaged rate or a rate calculated based on miles driven and the weight of the vehicle (or weight class). If a VAT is being added based on the retail price at a DCFC, it's even more tax since the cost per kW is more than what one would pay at home. If that's what you want to discourage the use of public fast chargers......

I'm trying to think of ways to reduce the amount of accounting overhead. If the charging provider has to assess, collect and remit the tax, that has a cost that will be passed on to the customer in the form of higher prices which leads to more tax.

[Roland6]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

>” I'm trying to think of ways to reduce the amount of accounting overhead.”

As you note taxes need to be simple and easy to collect. The simplest being a single annual charge, however who has a savings account for taxes?

Hence the simple way to get taxes paid is to collect them more frequently, which also has the effect of increasing costs. HMRC are encouraging this by increasingly doing things digitally and requiring businesses to do “real time” tax accounting.

Following the free market philosophy that has been dominant for many decades, it makes sense to the government to outsource the tax collection to “for profit” businesses, which provides even more ways for money to circulate though pockets and so raise even more tax revenues.

The regular charging events EVs require seem to be a sensible point at which to apply charges/taxes. Whether these usage charges should take account of more factors than just the kWh taken from the grid is up for discussion. Given we already have fuel duty, it is a simple concept to apply fuel duty to electricity used for EVs.

[Hairy Spod]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

they already take the VAT on public charging, the rest can be said to be 'saved' in terms of health and environmental costs which is why we need the transition to electric in the first place

[tellytart]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Your Tesla prices are a little out of date. If you're a Tesla owner (or pay the subscription to Telsa to be able to charge your non-Tesla car at the Tesla chargers that are open to all), it's actually around 35p off-peak, and 43p peak per kWh. (Peak times vary at different superchargers but usually it's similar to 4pm to 8pm).

I've had a Tesla for over 2 years now, I can't charge at home, but using superchargers, free charging at supermarkets etc, over the last 2 years my cost per mile has been 9.1p - so around half the cost of running a petrol car that averages 40mpg. Not to mention cheaper servicing costs.

[Mishak]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I drive a Lexus IS 300H, and the long-term average is 47.0 mpg - which works out at 14.8 p/mile.

My partner has a Kona EV that's averaging 4.7 miles/kWh, which works out to 1.9 p/mile charging at home, and 14.9 p/mile at the local fast chargers.

So, EV charged at home is much, much cheaper (and will save over £1,000 a year for the EV vs the Ionic hybrid it replaced - which was averaging more like 50+).

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"My partner has a Kona EV that's averaging 4.7 miles/kWh, which works out to 1.9 p/mile charging at home, and 14.9 p/mile at the local fast chargers."

I would expect that it's an unusual case to be fast charging locally. I've see people that can charge at home argue there's no fast chargers near them which makes no sense. You only need them on long trips away from home. Plenty of offerings now will go up to 300 miles if you drive carefully. That's a lot of hours driving in one day. A long day of field service work for me is 150 miles and more usual to be under 100 miles. I might go to a trade show tomorrow that's 150 miles each way, but they have Level 2 chargers at the location. If I had an EV, I'd be charging for 5-6 hours while at the show and would only need a quick stop on the way home mostly for some margin, just in case. I will have an EV at some point and have my eyes out for the places I'm likely to visit where charging might be an issue. I think Yellowstone could be a problem right now, but it's not as bad as it was last year.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"At 3.9m/kWh that would need public charging to be 67.8p/mile."

Many petrol stations on motorways that don't have much competition will often charge more than a station in town. There's one I know that it notorious for having a crazy price over the average since they are the only station for miles. If you get caught short on that highway and have to stop there, bring a tissue to weep in as you fuel up. (Hwy 395 at Lee Vining). They can be very bad on holiday weekends when there's lots of traffic.

[Roland6]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Motorway petrol stations have to comply with more regulations than those in town, for example being open 24x7.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I've been getting 3.6 to 4.0 miles/kWh in my EV-6 since April.

I charged at public chargers twice this weekend. 58p/kWh. Yes, you can pay more but mostly you don't have to.

Those two charging episodes were the first use of public chargers in over a month. The previous 1000+ miles was all done from charging at home and thanks to solar panels... that cost me less than £10.00. I know the figures because I record everything. Yes, I'm anal about it.

Using the EV-6 even for the occasional public charger use, it is far cheaper than a petrol or diesel powered vehicle. Can you refill your ICE tank free of charge at home?

Because of solar and home batteries, Apart from a dozen or so overnight charges (at 4.5p/kWh) I've been effectively off grid since the middle of May. My leccy bill for CY 2022 was under £400 for the whole year. I don't have gas.

Downvote me all you like but those are the facts.

[werdsmith]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

70p/kwh is 23p/mile at 3mile/kwh.

£1.50/litre is 17p/mile at 40mpg. So even less in a Prius.

Thats the price at our local supermarket charge points.

Tesco charges 23p / kWh on 7kW chargers 40p on the 22kW chargers and 50p / kWh on their 50kW chargers.

Lidl Podpoint chargers are similar (bo 7kW tariff).

What supermarket is charging 70p?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I don't know where you live, or when you checked, but according to ZapMap my nearest Tesco here in Gloucestershire charges 44-49p for a fast charge, and 62-69 for a rapid one. There's also a 2 hour parking limit.

The BP pulse charger station down the road is 75p for a fast charge.

I haven't seen prices near 25p for about 2 years.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"What supermarket is charging 70p?"

I've seen pricing like that at the closest train station to me in the US. Nobody was paying that for a couple of reasons. The charging spots are up front and nearly always ICE'd and there is very little need for DCFC at the train station. Ideally, the charging spots would be on the other side of the car park where they are less likely to get blocked with ICEV's and much slower. It's a commuter station so most are going to be gone for the better part of the day. If they are topping up their usage from going to a fro to the train station and some local shopping, they won't need high speed charging. I don't think the security people at the station can issue citations so there's no downside to parking in the charging spots if you can't/aren't charging. If the city wanted to raise a bunch of money in a hurry, they could spend some time at the train stations and write tickets for ICE'ing the EV charging slots and parking in the handicapped spots (they'll only be there a few minutes. Entitled bastards). They would need one officer to write tickets and another to stand back and provide cover. Plenty of those people would cry racism and how they are being picked on rather than acting sheepish that they've been caught obviously breaking the rules written down on that sign 1.5m in front of them citing the restriction and the relevant code. Grrrr

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"all paid charge points have a large per minute tariff on top of the kWh charge."

Can you point me to even one?

I've *never* paid a time based charge in more than three years of driving an EV.

There are some where if you stay a *long* time, or past your car's reasonable charge time, then you'll get charged per minute.

There was also a discussion about whether Tesla were going to start charging by minute rather than by kWh...

[VicMortimer]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

The public AC chargers around here that have a fee at all (most are free) all charge by the minute. There isn't a kWh fee at all.

Dunno what the HVDC chargers do, I've got a plug-in hybrid, so I mostly just charge at home unless I'm somewhere that a free charger gets me rockstar parking.

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

per minute in lieu of per unit charging I've seen (or at least "pay to park in the car park, the charger is free", though I've also seen the "pay for the charge and the car parking is free")

Never seen kWh + min.

[collinsl]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

> There was also a discussion about whether Tesla were going to start charging by minute rather than by kWh...

That's all very well until a charger derates itself due to a problem with the local power grid or the DC converter or the cooling in the cable etc, then you're forced to stay longer for the same charge amount, or you get less charge in the same time.

If the system was intelligent enough to drop the cost proportionately if the issue was outside your control then great, otherwise you're being penalised for using a broken charger.

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

So you're advocating for charging by the unit instead of by the minute? When it's occupancy that might be the "real" cost for the charge operator - after all if you sit there until your battery is full you'll be pulling less than it's max rating.

That was one of the main points raised at the time - you pay more for slow charging - so you want to always charge as fast as is reasonably possible.

That's kind of the point - you encourage short stops and fast charges, which also happens to be the fastest way to achieve a journey.

It's not all that common for chargers to derate, though I have seen it happen. Normally it's the car that does the derating.

[collinsl]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Charging for occupancy is an area which needs some thought but that's going to vary by location and by how many chargers there are in each location, so I would personally advocate for that to be addressed by existing methods such as hard time limits on presence in the car park, or ticketed entry/exit charged at different rates based on how long you were present.

The actual charging network should charge the same amount regardless of location, as you're buying electricity at the market rate so should pay for the electricity & the cost of the chargers in maintenance, installation etc, which won't vary that much and can be averaged out across the network.

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

The point of switching to per minute rather than per kWh was that Tesla could get more throughput at the chargers... it's not in their interest to have you sitting there whilst the vehicle has derated to <10kW.

People sitting at a charger getting from 98-100% for twenty minutes whilst there are people waiting to charge is just stupid and needs to be dis-incentivised.

Neither method is a cure all.

[Roland6]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

>” The actual charging network should charge the same amount regardless of location”

Not thinking straight or utopian thinking.

What is actually needed is a clear unit of charge pricing that enables comparison, just as we can today compare petrol/diesel pricing.

[Tim99]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I'm at a bit of a loss here - Maybe I'm just fortunate where I live. I have a VW Golf 7.5, which for me averages about 6 litres/100km. PULP is AU$2.11 today, so to travel 100km it costs me AU$12.66. If I was to replace the VW with a similar size EV like a GWM ORA, I should get about 16 kWh/100km. My mains electricity costs AU$0.26 kWh so adding a bit for efficiency loss that should be ~AU$4:30 to travel 100km, or about one third the cost.

My house has solar panels connected to a local grid where I'm paid AU$0.12 kWh for what I export, so if I charged during the day (I'm retired) the charge cost is ~AU$2:00 for 100 km. If I used a public charger the average cost here seems to be about AU$.50/kWh. My local shopping centre is "free" for a Tesla...

[Tim99]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

What's the matter down-voter? Don't you like my relative good fortune (sorry about that), or does a real calculation using real numbers upset your view of the world?

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: What's the matter down-voter?

Perhaps they are oil company shills? That is despite BP recently opening up a charger setup at the NEC in Brum that can charge 150+ vehicles at the same time. Ok, most are the same speed as your home charger but if you are there for a conference or and exhibition then you are going to be there for hours anyway.

[John Robson]

Re: What's the matter down-voter?

That's exactly the kind of facility somewhere like the NEC needs - you're not there for twenty minutes (heck it takes that long to get from the car park to the NEC).

DC should basically only be needed at service stations - at least in terms of the really fast stuff... There is a place for 25-75kW DC at food places (i.e. somewhere you'll be for an hour), but basically every car park should do 7kW as widely as they possibly can (even if those balance down to 3kW if the car park is really busy)

[Roland6]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Need to investigate the mains cost of EV electricity, as I expect this will be on a different tariff to general domestic. I suspect your game changer is the solar panels and having sufficient to charge from these.

I would treat the free charging as a bonus as I expect as numbers increase charging will be introduced - it’s costing the shopping centre to provide “free” charging and the government is going to want to shift revenues gained from petrol/diesel fuel onto EV fuel.

The only real question is going to be your lifestyle and can it adapt to your local EV charging constraints.

[Barrie Shepherd]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I suspect that when the government work out how to recover the lost Duty & VAT from liquid fuel sales charging any form of EV will be more expensive.

[Roland6]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

In the UK the infrastructure is largely in place:

Vehicle tax: just change EV category from zero to whatever.

Fuel duty: can be applied through the existing EV charging networks to which all home wall warts and public charging points are connected to.

Just needs the politician will; given the agenda to end new ICE sales, I anticipate the next Westminster government will start the ball rolling with steep increases after 2030 as fossil fuel revenues begin to fall (I expect also duties on fossil fuels to also increase).

[collinsl]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Home EV charging points are not connected to any sort of charging network, they don't need to be. They just run on their own dedicated circuit to your fuse box, like a cooker or power shower or immersion heater.

In fact a regular home AC charger is nothing more than a fancy contactor (electromagnetically powered breaker) and a small computer to communicate with the car to engage/disengage the contactor and to provide details on how much power the charger is rated to provide.

For more details, see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMxB7zA-e4Y&pp=ygUhdGVjaG5vbG9neSBjb25uZWN0aW9ucyBldiBjaGFyZ2Vy

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

And FF duty could rise even more steeply.

Your point is?

[Dr Dan Holdsworth]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I wonder how the costs add up if you make the PHEV's hydrocarbon engine capable of running on methane gas as well as petrol? That way all you need is a feed pipe from your household gas supply and then you use the gas supply to recharge the electric battery by way of the hydrocarbon engine.

[Cliffwilliams44]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

That's not nice, you are inserting reality into his fantasy world view. That will only cause him emotion distress.

Next you will be telling him that, when all factors are considered, mining, manufacturing, operation, and disposal, that EVs gave a higher carbon footprint than ICE vehicles.

[katrinab]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

They are not.

1 litre of petrol costs about £1.50. That is equivalent to 9.7kWh, so about 15.5p/kWh.

1 kWh of electricity at a public charger costs about 70p.

Electric cars are more efficient than petrol cars, but somewhere between 2 - 3 times more efficient, not 4.5 times.

If I was able to charge my car overnight at home, it would be about 14p/kWh. But overnight rates run from 1:30am to 8:30am where I am, so if I have to drive to work, I'm only going to realistically get about 5 hours. Daytime rate is about 40p/kWh, that is probably going to be about the same or possibly a little more expensive than petrol.

[Snowy]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Where I am in the UK my electricity rate is 27.60p/kWh, which would make charging the car more expensive than petrol.

[cyberdemon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

And don't forget, that is massively subsidised. EVs don't pay fuel duty, road tax, etc. (despite being a much greater contributor to potholes due to their increased weight and torque..)

But the worst part is, as I have said many times before, the local distribution grids really are 'trembling' because there is no way that they will be able to cope with a large proportion of EV and Heat Pump owners.

A 10kW charger is about 40 amps on single-phase. The cable under the road can usually carry 400A before it becomes inefficient and starts to overheat and fail. At ~5-10% adoption of EVs, there are already too many for a lot of neighbourhoods.

If the government thought RAAC was expensive to upgrade, they should consider how much it will cost to quadruple the capacity of our electric distribution grids in order to be able to phase out gas and petroleum.

Some people propose the "smart grid" as a solution - but this will just make the grid unequal in terms of cost, more expensive in general, and even more inefficient (as it would spend all of its time at maximum load where it is most inefficient)

We are far too hasty to decommission two out of three energy distribution networks (the gas grid and road-hauled petroleum) and place their load onto the one most expensive, most overloaded, most unreliable and most vulnerable to attack by our enemies. It's quite mad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

>But the worst part is, as I have said many times before, the local distribution grids really are 'trembling' because there is no way that they will be able to cope with a large proportion of EV and Heat Pump owners.

However you then implicitly conclude that the problem is EV's and heat pumps. Whereas I conclude that a major build out and re-engineering of the grid to allow more the energy efficient future, which is going to happen because less energy cost has always proven compelling before, since the boat and the wheel revolutionised freight, and it will this time too.

>We are far too hasty to decommission two out of three energy distribution networks (the gas grid and road-hauled petroleum) and place their load onto the one most expensive, most overloaded, most unreliable and most vulnerable to attack by our enemies. It's quite mad.

Again, this is backwards. We are far too slow, to build out the grid which is needed. This has been crystal clear since at least 2005, when it the trends showed that solar & wind would become cheaper marginal grid power sources within 5 years an some places, and 20 years in most places. Therefore they would begin to drive into the grid because of economics. It was clear by 2011 that EV's actually use about 1/3 the energy of fossil fuelled vehicles, and so in the long term would displace them (even if you had to burn coal to make the electricity)

Where I live 80% of the grid was built out in a 25 year period from nothing. Increasing the capacity of the system is a far smaller engineering and logistical challenge than that build out.

It was however done by the state, after 50 years in which a mix of private and local efforts had slowly built a patchy grid and just-sufficient-capacity-for-today, but basically stalled at infilling 75% of the land area, and stalled at increasing the capacity in the built out areas.

Actually the situation was not too different to the current one. A step change was needed. The solution is probably the same: a massive state driven grid upgrade over the next two decades.

(This is why I am back at Uni studying power systems btw)

[cyberdemon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

It was clear by 2011 that EV's actually use about 1/3 the energy of fossil fuelled vehicles, and so in the long term would displace them (even if you had to burn coal to make the electricity)

Citation on that, please.

As far as I am aware, a coal power plant is about 40% efficient at best. The grid transmission and distribution network is 85% efficient. The process of charging and discharging a lithium battery is 90% efficient, and an electric motor is 95% efficient.

That multiplies out at 29%, which is no better than a not very good internal combustion engine.

Then when you factor that due to the weight of its battery an EV has to be much heavier than a fossil powered car, I struggle to see how it would need one third as much in terms of at-the-road energy. If anything it should need more.

Perhaps you are assuming a large amount of regen braking, or you are assuming that the EV travels at its most efficient speed of 20mph? Well I can tell you: EV drivers don't drive like that...

As regards upgrade vs build-out, sadly it is more complicated to upgrade than to build-out from scratch, because upgrade usually implies that all the land in the area is occupied and so you have to use all your old service ducts and pylons which don't have the capacity to be upgraded, new substation locations are difficult/expensive, and you can't interrupt service by ripping out the old before installing the new.

All of the streets where I live have ancient paper-insulated cable buried naked under the road i.e. not in a duct, which frequently overloads and explodes. All they do is patch the exploded section, it would be too expensive obviously to dig up all of the roads in the town, and all similar towns across the country.

[Max Pyat]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

You clearly don't work in the utility industry.

As someone who does work in the sector, let me reassure you that it's not nearly so bad as you imagine to upgrade. Significant investment, for sure, but entirely doable. No need for hand wringing and panic.

To pick up on your examples.

Regarding overhead lines, Have you heard of HTLS? Having established wayleaves for the route is massive vs a new build.

Underground cables: Ancient overloading cables will have to be dug up and replaced anyway, at which point they can be uprated. Directional drilling has also revolutionised cable building.

Modern substations are also a fraction of the size of old ones as they can move to GIS from the old air insulated gear that will often be there.

Finally, all transmission and distribution systems are designed with redundancy and feeding options to allow maintenance to be done. There is disruption, but it's manageable

[cyberdemon]

Someone with a clue :)

Interesting and informative post, thanks Max.

As a utilities man then, do you actually think that it is wise for the UK to get rid of all energy distribution systems except for electricity? Are we ever going to test the "black start" plan? Will it work?

Are you at all concerned about the frequency and voltage stability in the UK, especially with all the nonlinear loads being added? I notice NG are doing "demand control by voltage reduction" tests, but I predict that won't work, as most loads these days are regulated constant power loads, e.g. IT equipment, inverter driven HVAC, industrial robots - as you reduce the voltage they will just draw more current. Even heaters will respond to a drop in voltage by increasing their duty cycle if they have a good thermostat. EVs are the exception as they can reduce their rate of charging if you ask nicely.

Re. HTLS. Yes I have heard of this and tbh it sounds on the face of it, a terrible idea to run pylons at high temperatures, however little sagging occurs. It's inefficient. We all know that resistive losses go with the square of current, so running transmission lines at such high loads that they get hot, is surely a fools game. What is the loss in terms of MW/km of an HTLS transmission line under its max load?

Is there any chance of a new voltage standard between 400V and 11kV? It strikes me that something around 2kV could massively improve distribution capacity for EV charging while saving on copper. We don't really want 1000A underground cables do we? They would be very expensive, i think.

How does directional drilling work in urban areas where the exact contents of the ground is not well known? Is there anything to stop you accidentally hitting a gas pipe, water main, fibre optic or another electricity cable?

Yes I know about GIS. Doesn't it involve surrounding busbars and switchgear with a gas which is about 23000 times worse than CO2 for the greenhouse effect, and which never ever gets destroyed or removed by nature? What happens if it leaks? It needs to be replaced as fast as it is leaking or else the busbar will arc to its casing and fail, no? How much SF6 do you get through?

[John Robson]

Re: Someone with a clue :)

Less and less worried about grid stability - because most of the loads we are adding to the grid can actually help manage the grid.

I am waiting for frequency based billing to be a thing - the price of importing/exporting electricity can move when the frequency drifts up or down - particularly with V2G capable vehicles you get a very good distributed grid balancing system.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Someone with a clue :)

Everyone doesn't worry about what they don't think will happen....then it does and they sh*t the bed because they don't have a plan B.

Look at the UK's current power make up and tell me how massive load increases will work with non-dispatchable renewables. More batteries to solve the problem? Best let Rio's head of lithium mining know because she doesn't think there's enough availability (current or planned) to cope out to 2030. Enjoy that reliance on the World's dictators for gas pricing. The UK will be OPEC's bitch with that gas reliance.

[cyberdemon]

Re: Someone with a clue :)

Yeah and what happens if there is an incident at one of Britain's three (yes, three) LNG import terminals?

They are already a major bottleneck, with LNG ships queuing to unload, just to maintain the UK's gas needs.

Icon: the energy contained in one LNG tanker is approximately the same as one of these

[katrinab]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"It was clear by 2011 that EV's actually use about 1/3 the energy of fossil fuelled vehicles"

Not quite. They are more efficient from plug to wheel because most of the efficiency losses have taken place before the electricity reaches your wall socket.

If you were to charge up your electric car from a petrol powered generator, I don't think it would use 2-3 times less petrol than if you put the petrol directly into a petrol-powered car. You would maybe see some savings from not having the engine idle when not driving at 0km/h. Hybrids and stop/start engines also give you those efficiency gains.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

If you were to charge up your electric car from a petrol powered generator, I don't think it would use 2-3 times less petrol than if you put the petrol directly into a petrol-powered car.

That's patently not true.

If you burn fuel oil, to generate electricity, to power EVs instead of refining diesel and shipping it around to fuel cars it's waaaaaaay more efficient.

Internal combustion engines and their drivetrains are just not that efficient.

[jmch]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"They are more efficient from plug to wheel because most of the efficiency losses have taken place before the electricity reaches your wall socket."

Yes, and as per cyberdemon's post above, an EV powered by the most-polluting, least efficient source of fossil fuel is about as efficient as a not-so-efficient ICE car. But combined cycle gas is far more efficient than coal, and nuclear / wind / solar don't need any fossil fuel input, so when looking at the mix of power on the grid, the electric car is anyway more efficient than an ICE one. (Though to be fair, saying 2 / 3 / n times more efficient is meaningless once there are different non-carbon sources of electricity on the grid.)

Also to note this isn't just about efficiency... one of the most dangerous killers from human health is particulate emissions, a lot of which are coming out from tailpipes straight into highly populated areas. Renewable energy cuts those emissions completely, but even a coal plant that can electrostatically capture a lot of the particulate matter from it's stacks, AND which is far away from dense population centres is a better health outcome than burning petrol/diesel in urban areas.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

a lot of which are coming out from tailpipes straight into highly populated areas

On old cars, not so much on new ones. Inefficient burn by-products are an engineering issue that's mostly been solved.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Again, this is backwards. We are far too slow, to build out the grid which is needed. This has been crystal clear since at least 2005, when it the trends showed that solar & wind would become cheaper marginal grid power sources within 5 years an some places, and 20 years in most places. Therefore they would begin to drive into the grid because of economics. It was clear by 2011 that EV's actually use about 1/3 the energy of fossil fuelled vehicles, and so in the long term would displace them (even if you had to burn coal to make the electricity)

Actually.. that's backwards, or just marketing BS from the 'renewables' lobby. The reality looks somewhat different-

https://gridwatch.co.uk/Wind

minimum: 0.099 GW maximum: 0.954 GW average: 0.368 GW

Which are yesterday's 10-min averages. Then-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66749344

No new offshore wind project contracts have been bought by developers at a key government auction, dealing a blow to the UK's renewable power strategy.

...It was hoped offshore wind in the latest round could have helped generate five gigawatts of power, enough to run five million homes, but wind farm builders had warned for months that the government was not taking into account how much the costs of developing them had soared.

The UK currently has around 11GW of installed capacity, and yesterday (and much of the week) have been generating 2/10ths of f'all. Simple reason. The weather. A nice, high pressure 'heat dome' meaning virtually no wind across the UK, and much of Europe. The rest highlights the bs from the 'renewables' scumbags and their PR operations, which of course includes the dear'ol Bbc. If "the trends showed that solar & wind would become cheaper marginal grid power sources within 5 years an some places" were true, then there would have been no problem bidding in this round of CfDs.

Instead there's been something of a self-inflicted reality check. Last auctions there were some large wind projects that were awarded on low-ball bids. This allowed the 'renewables' scumbags to claim that wind was cheap. Since then of course the bidders on those projects have announced they may have to pull out because they can't actually afford to run at the prices they bid for. Same has been happening in the US, but the US regulators are being stricter on holding bidders to contracts, and penalties for breaking them.

The inflation claim is also bs. CfDs are indexed, which is one of the problems, ie the price of their electricty increases by the rate of food inflation. Or gas prices. Neither of which are an input cost for the subsdiy farmers. However, high energy costs are a major contributor to inflation, along with other 'Green' policies. So steel making uses a lot of energy, as does baking massive carbon fibre blades. Wage inflation is also energy driven, ie people need more money to pay for their over-inflated 'renewable' energy.

Then there's the impact on 'modernising' the grid to support these follies. Sure, let's waste billions on batteries, but batteries still need charging, and if there's no wind, that's not going to happen. They also can't perform grid stabilisation if they're flat, and grid stability has got a whole lot worse thanks to intermittent 'renewables'. And then to add insult to injury, Net Zero will roughly triple UK energy demand to support electrification of transport, heating, cooking etc. And fossil fuels are just far more efficient at that due to the fuels energy density.

So hopefully this is a wake-up call to restore sanity, ditch 'renewables' and get building nuclear... Although that may be optimistic given the intense lobbying from the 'renewables' scumbags, Greens and anti-nuclear and fossil fuel neo-luddites.

[blackcat]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I have not found a definitive source but I read that the latest German wind auctions also ended up with zero bids. So it is not a UK govt (or not entirely) problem.

[blackcat]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-08/germany-onshore-wind-auction-dip-casts-doubt-on-renewable-goals

Appears to be onshore wind and not zero but very few bids.

Sorry, paywall and 12ft doesn't unlock it.

[rcxb]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/germany-onshore-wind-auction-dip-casts-doubt-on-renewable-goals-1.1968860

[Max Pyat]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

There's not much point in you posting when you clearly know about as much about the topic as Alex Jones.

A bit less emotion please and a bit more paying heed to engineering and physics.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

A bit less emotion please and a bit more paying heed to engineering and physics.

Engineering? Like knowing and understanding that renewables require firming in order to compare costs with dispatchable generation? That kind of knowledge?

When renewables are listed as "cheap" because firming is not included the public need the reality check that "it's cheap, but only if you don't mind nothing happening when you turn the switch on". Firm supply is what matters, and firming costs money. In the UK firming is currently supplied by gas - you know, the stuff the UK imports from overseas at high prices because it is a price taker not a price setter.

[jmch]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"A nice, high pressure 'heat dome' meaning virtually no wind across the UK, and much of Europe"

That's what comes of putting so many eggs in the wind basket and not enough in the solar one (which would, in these windless and cloudless conditions, easily make up the difference). In case you hadn't noticed, grid-scale solar + storage* prices have come down to a point where even that is competitive.

"CfDs are indexed, which is one of the problems, ie the price of their electricty increases by the rate of food inflation. Or gas prices. Neither of which are an input cost for the subsdiy farmers. However, high energy costs are a major contributor to inflation"

This isn't an argument against renewables, just an argument against how they are currently financed *in the UK*

"So hopefully this is a wake-up call to restore sanity, ditch 'renewables' and get building nuclear"

I'm with you on the nuclear, but that's to replace some of the baseload. Ditching renewables would be insane (although changing the way they are financed / incentivised is probably in order)

*short-term storage to smooth out supply, so not overnight (when anyway demand is lower), and not so useful at higher-latitude winter (where anyway wind is stronger).

[munnoch]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"That's what comes of putting so many eggs in the wind basket and not enough in the solar one (which would, in these windless and cloudless conditions, easily make up the difference)."

We get long spells (several days at a stretch) of still conditions during winter as well. How is solar going to address that?

[collinsl]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

If you ditch fields of static solar panels and look at some other technologies like heliostats which run using focused sunlight you can generate power with even the weakest of sunshine, if your mirrors are suitably calibrated and mobile.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_tower

Of course if you use other sources like tidal power or hydroelectric dams (not that there are many suitable rivers in the UK) then they function regardless of the sun level.

[blackcat]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

On paper those systems work but so far very few have been good in reality.

In the US the big two are Ivanpah, which is direct solar to steam and requires a fair amount of natural gas to start up and keep running if the sky is a bit cloudy, and Crescent Dunes which uses molten salt to store heat. The latter has had all sorts of teething troubles. The thermal storage idea is good as it turns solar into a dispatchable power source.

The simple fact is fields of PV is cheaper and simpler. So it wins.

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Several days isn't an issue - it's several weeks that's an issue.

[munnoch]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"it's several weeks that's an issue"

Winter demand is about 50GW in the UK, so we need 50x24xN of grid storage to last N days (assuming all other power sources are off-line, no gas, no coal, no nukes, no import, hydro will run dry in a few hours).

14 days of storage would be 16,800 GWh. A Tesla battery is what about 65 kWh? So that would be about 2.5 billion of them.... (I might have slipped a few digits, the numbers got really big, but its not just like a football pitches worth).

Sure, fun new ways of storage are being developed. Compressed gases, big weights down mineshafts etc. but this requirement is just bonkers off the scale. If you can keep the lights on for a couple of days before falling back to fossils then you will be doing *really* well.

Or we can impose COVID style lock downs to curtail demand, you pick...

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Well if you decide that there are no interconnects and that there will be zero generation from anything else... yes it's a significant capacity required - but that's a completely unrealistic scenario.

Let's have a look at a distributed system... EVs - average is ~50kWh at the moment and there are more than 30 million registered cars in the UK which spend 23+ hours a day parked, and do just 20 miles a day (~10% capacity).

That's 1.5TWh of storage which we should already be mandating to have bidirectional 7kW AC inverters.

Single site 100MWh chemical batteries are already online in the UK. Long term storage won't look like that though, it will be things like opening up gas reserve storage for hydrogen, methane, ammonia or whatever else ends up being the most useful storage product - we used to have 500 billion cubic metres of storage - that's an awful lot of storage available.

The XLinks project is looking to add another 3.6 GW interconnect to remote solar and wind generation.

We *know* it hasn't been built yet - that shouldn't stop us moving towards it, and building it as we go.

There is no need for "lockdowns" to curtail demand... just planning as we get to the point you fear, where burning shit isn't our primary form of energy generation.

[cyberdemon]

XLinks

I have never heard anything so daft, what a waste of copper to drag those electrons 7000km from Morocco and back, only to be blown up by a russian sub when the time is right.

[blackcat]

Re: XLinks

It is an idea that keeps popping up every few years.

Someone posted an article saying we could power the world by putting solar panels in the Sahara along with a map showing a relatively small area of panels.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/09/22/we-could-power-the-entire-world-by-harnessing-solar-energy-from-1-of-the-sahara/?sh=532e8eb3d440

The issues being that the area mentioned would need to be in full sun 24 hours a day and getting peak efficiency the entire time.

[John Robson]

Re: XLinks

No - it assumed 12 hours of generation a day - which is about right for the Sahara (source: the article you linked)

It's fairly obviously not a practical proposition to concentrate all the solar generation in one spot - it's an illustration of how much energy we let go to waste.

[John Robson]

Re: XLinks

Ah yes - unlike all those pipelines, oil rigs, tankers... those are of course immune from attack, and have no environmental or material cost at all.

We're going to have a grid of grids across the world (or maybe a couple) - get used to it.

Australia might not join in much, but they have a particularly good balance of negatively correlated generation options.

[munnoch]

Re: XLinks

Indeed, I mentioned it in another post.

Absolute fantasy to think that a) it'll get built and b) that it'll last more than 30s when the tanks start rolling (which they will, if not in our lifetimes, then in our children's).

Xi and Putin will laugh so hard they'll wet themselves.

[munnoch]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I wasn't seriously suggesting using EV batteries for grid feed in. Just as a unit of measure.

If I had a pure EV (I have a hybrid plus a collection of 30+ year old ICE's), the absolute last thing I would agree to do is donate any of its finite charge-discharge cycles to keeping someone else's lights on.

But I guess its only a matter of time before Musk decides to be a player in the energy market by clawing back all those free charges he's handed out over the years through his charging network and writes it into the T&C's that he can drain you any time he wants.

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Then you don't understand batteries...

The cycles on an EV battery are finite, but so is the water in the ocean... there's an awful lot of it - and low rate charge/discharging (and 7kW is a pittance for battery pack that can put out 100kW+) in the "middle" of a battery does the least possible degradation.

You also don't understand how the electricity market works - you're not "donating", you're selling (or using in your own home) energy which you bought at a cheaper rate when grid supply exceeded demand.

[munnoch]

GridWatch

Gridwatch shows that the last week or so has been dire for renewables. There's even been coal stations fired up, along with import of about 10% of our consumption. We aren't even touching the sides at the moment. Yes, I get that the situation will change over time but its such a looooong way off being viable.

I honestly don't know how anyone imagines this is going to work. Its not hard to see how displacing fossil fuels for transport and space and water heating can only result in an explosion of demand for electricity by several times what we have now. You just have to look at current levels of consumption of each and do some simple arithmetic.

The Greens seem only too happy for our standard of living to go back to the Stone Age whilst ignoring that its business as usual in the rest of the world. Cutting our own throats will not make climate change go away.

[John Robson]

Re: GridWatch

It's really not hard to see fossil fuels displaced for transport, it's already very possible for everything other than air freight.

Transport is a drop in the ocean compared with heating over winter - that's the real challenge, but it is usually accompanied by wind.

However, even if we simply changed out boilers for heat pumps and used the gas in a power plant instead of in homes, we'd still reduce the amount of gas we burned... and on the many weeks of the year when we don't need to burn that gas (because renewables will be sufficient) then we can reduce it to zero. Similarly replacing gas hobs with induction power from a gas power plant wouldn't save gas, but it's pretty close to a zero sum, and obviously improves the lower carbon the grid mix is.

Both of those also have very significant health benefits for society.

The west coast of the USA and Canada has a massive interconnect, connecting the hydro power in Canada with the wind power of the western states with the solar in California - that's really nice, because California and Canada have almost opposite load cycles - Canada needs heat in winter, California needs cooling in summer. If you can connect east to west as well then you get a further spreading of load cycles and a spread of solar generation.

The idea is to build more than enough generation capacity, a diverse interconnected large scale grid, and to invest in storage - some of that will be battery based, with some very fast response units for second by second balancing of the grid, and others which are designed for day/night smoothing/arbitrage.

The long term storage technology "winners" are less clear, but is one of the few areas where there is likely a role for hydrogen (electrolysis in times of over supply, and fuel cell/combustion in times of under supply). Obviously the better round trip efficiency the better, but it doesn't matter hugely if it's not very efficient (30% or so is OK).

[blackcat]

Re: GridWatch

Looking online shows only 1 interconnect spanning the west coast into CA and it is rated at 3GW. A quick check and California as a whole is currently using 24GW in the early AM west coast time.

https://www.caiso.com/Pages/default.aspx

Appears we have a LONG way to go to achieve the utopia of shipping electricity around as describe.

[munnoch]

Re: GridWatch

And Europe doesn't have these sorts of complementary demands. The weather is pretty much the same all over Europe at any given time.

Interconnects on the scale of Country/State capacity are pretty significant engineering projects. Assuming you can find another sucker who has a few 10's of GW going spare to lend to you.

There is a batshit crazy scheme to connect a solar project in Morocco to the UK. Putin/Xi will applaud that idea...

[blackcat]

Re: GridWatch

There have been several plans for major solar in north Africa but the cost of the interconnects, the horrific water usage needed to keep the panels clean and the locals cottoning on to being exploited by Europe put the end to those.

[collinsl]

Re: GridWatch

The UK has interconnects with France and The Netherlands and at various points we export to them and (mostly) import from them, especially from France's nuclear power.

The problem is that France's nuclear reactors are all now very old and are (literally) crumbling so need renewing, and they don't have a very diverse energy portfolio so they may well soon be facing an energy shortage if a number of their plants have to be decommissioned due to safety concerns over aging plant.

And given the length of time needed to build new nuclear power they won't be getting any new plants any time soon.

[blackcat]

Re: GridWatch

And this is why we need to get a wiggle on with sorting out our own energy systems.

France is building new reactors, just slowly. There are advantages to a single design and disadvantages.

[John Robson]

Re: GridWatch

"The weather is pretty much the same all over Europe at any given time."

Yes that's why we had a really hot July alongside the heatwaves that were killing people across southern Europe - Oh, no... we didn't.

We do have countries that rely on AC in the summer, but don't need heating in the winter, and we do have countries that do the opposite.

And Europe also borders Africa, which would improve the balance further.

[John Robson]

Re: GridWatch

Did I say that *all* of their generation would be imported?

You don't need 100% capacity interconnect, because you always have local generation - your interconnects deal with peak loads.

As more and more renewables are built then we will want to increase interconnects, though increased storage will decrease the interconnect size required.

Crikey - it's like people 120 years ago declaring that "we haven't got a complete motorway network so cars will never work".

[munnoch]

Re: GridWatch

"it's like people 120 years ago declaring that "we haven't got a complete motorway network so cars will never work"

A lot of the time it feels like that's still true today...

My objection is only the arbitrary drop dead dates being set by govt. No new ICE's, no new gas boilers etc., when the time frames for genuinely viable alternatives are so much longer.

HP's are simply not alternatives to combustion boilers in any property that is older than about 10 years (and for many newer ones due to the piss-poor construction standards the UK is famous for). Give me hydrogen instead. Forget retrofitting insulation etc. requires far too much attention to detail to be done effectively at scale. Hence failure of Green Deal etc..

EV's might be closer to being viable, but one country has a virtual monopoly on production of the nasty stuff that goes into them (PV panels too...). Of course Poo Bear would never do anything to hurt us....

Deadlines focus minds supposedly, except when its obvious that they are fantasy.

[John Robson]

Re: GridWatch

"HP's are simply not alternatives to combustion boilers in any property that is older than about 10 years (and for many newer ones due to the piss-poor construction standards the UK is famous for). Give me hydrogen instead. Forget retrofitting insulation etc. requires far too much attention to detail to be done effectively at scale. Hence failure of Green Deal etc.."

Erm - and why not - my 1940's house is well suited, I spent all of last winter, which included some pretty cold snaps, running my boiler at a flow temp of 40-45 degrees.

It was actually really nice, far less cycling of the boiler and heating. It also proved to me that I don't need to do anything major to get a heat pump when the boiler (which is fast approaching twenty years old) needs replacing.

A heat pump will heat any house - it will take more energy to heat a less well insulated house, but all that really means is that the energy savings from a heat pump are even more significant.

Should you insulate first? yes, absolutely - but it's not actually a requirement of a heat pump that you have a certified passive house.

Hydrogen is a non starter in domestic systems - it leaks *really* easily, and you can't put an odourant in and expect that to be a good warning... because the hydrogen will leak *well* before the odourant does. It has a place in the future of energy, but the home isn't it.

"EV's might be closer to being viable"

More than closer, they are already viable - in fact they are already way better than ICE vehicles.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: GridWatch

Hydrogen is a non starter in domestic systems - it leaks *really* easily,

Until "natural" gas arrived in the 1970s most of the UK was fed by "town" gas made from coal and stored in huge gasometers. It was 50% hydrogen, which didn't cause mass hysteria about leaks. We're still using a lot of that pipework today.

[John Robson]

Re: GridWatch

And we had plenty of deaths as a result of using it.

You seem to be mistaking better understanding of what options are available, and the risks associated with them, for "mass hysteria".

We've also replaced a very significant amount of the pipework since then, and moving to a gas with a *much* wider flammibility range than methane, and a similar (slightly lower) ignition point (i.e. much easier to cause an explosion) is not something that people actually want to see - particularly not when there are better ways of using said hydrogen to power our homes (by using a large heat engine or fuel cell, and then efficient electrical modes of heating).

[blackcat]

Re: GridWatch

Most of the deaths were from the fact town gas also contained an alarming amount of carbon monoxide.

There have been plenty of deaths from natural gas as it is heavier than air so likes to build up at floor level in enclosed spaces.

[John Robson]

Re: GridWatch

Many were, but explosion risks are still explosion risks, and they happened.

Yes, some still happen.

You know - we should probably stop pumping explosive gases into houses, we could use other mechanisms to pump heat into buildings and food...

[Roland6]

Re: GridWatch

methane is a lot less explosive than hydrogen.

When the gas network was switched over to natural gas, all the boiler, fire and cooker burners had to be changed to support a different gas air mix. I suspect a switch to hydrogen will require a similar project but at a much larger scale due to the massive increase in homes since the 1960s.

It is perhaps notable that serious attempts are being made to do community scale trials of a switchover to hydrogen, I don’t remember there being any such trials before the switch to natural gas/ methane.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: GridWatch

I don’t remember there being any such trials before the switch to natural gas/ methane.

That's because the government owned the gas industry, and simply informed people that it was happening. The conversion cost got added onto taxes, but probably saved money overall.

Doesn't work like that today.

[rafff]

Re: GridWatch

"However, by 2030, electric power generation and grid capacity could hold back uptake, regardless of price."

Since our grid is already pretty close to overload, there is no way that we can add the charging load of cars (forget vans, taxis, buses, lorries, ...). Just look up the stats on total miles driven each year and multiply by the average energy consumption of a BEV. We need to double our generating capacity, half of the extra to go to charging BEVs, and the other half as a safety margin - which we currently do not have.

[John Robson]

Re: GridWatch

- Average annual mileage in the UK: 7,400 miles (and even that might be an over estimate looking at recent MOT data)

- Number of cars in the UK: 33.3 million

- Average efficiency: say 3.8m/kWh (I usually use 4, it turns out that it doesn't actually matter what number we choose here...)

That's a total of 2.5 tera miles, or 658 GWh/year

That's compared with a 2022 electrical demand of 321 TWh, which is down from the 398TWh we used in 2005.

All cars going EV* would adds about 0.2% to national electricity demand - assuming we haven't actually reduced grid capacity by 20% over the last 18 years it certainly won't push the grid beyond breaking point.

* Yes I'm ignoring that ~3% of cars are already electric - it doesn't make a significant difference.

---

If you really want something to think about it's how we deal with electrification of (domestic) heat - that's hundreds of TWh a year, and concentrated into the winter months.

80% of that demand is currently direct fossil fuel. Converting to electric we can reduce that demand to well under a third of the current levels (since boilers etc are not 100% efficient but a heat pump will be over 300%), but it's still a substantial additional load, particularly given that it's concentrated.

Watson et al. looked at peak demand and peak heat demand was ~170GW (40% lower than previously thought), which needs about 50GW of electricity generation and transmission.

So yes, we will need to invest and upgrade the grid over the next few decades, but mostly for heating loads, not transport.

[blackcat]

Re: GridWatch

You sure? I make the maths for your car milage 64.8TWh/year.

Working backwards:

658GWh is 658,000,000 kWh, multiply by 3.8 is 2,500,400,000.

Divide by 33.3 million is 75 miles per car.

[John Robson]

Re: GridWatch

Quite possible - lots of zeroes around, and silly units (that's one reason I showed the working)

If you're right then it's still less than the demand from 2005, and heating is still a higher load (and an even more challenging one than that because it's concentrated into a third of the year)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: GridWatch

Your numbers are way off.

The UK car fleet uses around 140TWh petrol and 130TWh diesel (calculated as Tonnes of Oil Equivalent (ToE)) each year, for a total of 270TWh.

Even if we make the generous assumption that EVs are ~3x as efficient (2x overall generator-to-car is more likely) that still comes in at 90TWh of energy that needs to be replaced. At UK annual electricity consumption of 320TWh, that's a 30% increase in required generating capacity. Add haulage fuel requirements of 150TWh and it's even worse.

To meet 410TWh per year will require 47GW of generating capacity running continuously. We have about 50GW of fossil+nuclear baseload, the remaining 25GW is from renewables and so could be anywhere between 0 and 25 at any given time. That's cutting it fine, even without adding the additional demand of new domesting heating when gas & oil is phased out.

[John Robson]

Re: GridWatch

Nope - the other person who corrected my calculation made far better assumptions.

And you'll note that we're still under the previous peak grid usage... because we're using 80TWh less per year than we used to anyway.

The grid can cope with all cars going to BEV without exceeding it's previous load.

We do need to invest as heating demand increases - but we also need to look at technologies which are available to help the grid - cars should all have bidirectional grid tied inverters (the charger doesn't care what direction the power flows) - 33 million * 7kW is a very substantial amount of power to have flexibly available (and yes, I know that you personally drive a million miles a day and can't ever plug in, but the vast majority of cars can - and using even a small proportion of a battery as an arbitrage tool will help cover the cost of having a car for many.

Cars are not the only option for demand and supply flexiblility, but they are a very large source of it - simply because cars spend 23 hours a day parked up doing nothing... they are the low hanging fruit.

[Roland6]

Re: GridWatch

>” (and even that might be an over estimate looking at recent MOT data)”

CoViD / lockdown effect possibly?

Although with 2 at uni. now, it looks like I will be doing an additional 10k miles per annum, destroying my “green” credentials…

[John Robson]

Re: GridWatch

Not aware of many lockdowns in 2023 yet.

But yes, covid does seem to have given us a boost in the ongoing decline of mileage.

[Dr Dan Holdsworth]

Re: GridWatch

We need, in other words, a lot of small but long-lived nuclear generators that might as well use district heating as the cold side of the heat engine. If we can operate the hot side at a sufficiently high temperature then we can use the waste steam from the turbines as steam input into district heating systems to supply heat to domestic consumers. We could also use grid-scale heat pumps to concentrate industrial waste heat such that it can be redistributed into district heating systems.

This sort of approach is only going to work in towns. Countryside locations are likely going to be burning biomass to keep warm for a long time to come. Contrary to popular belief, cycling carbon around the carbon cycle is an essentially harmless activity; it is inputs of fossil carbon into the carbon cycle that are causing the problems.

[John Robson]

Re: GridWatch

"Contrary to popular belief, cycling carbon around the carbon cycle is an essentially harmless activity; it is inputs of fossil carbon into the carbon cycle that are causing the problems."

Again - it rather depends...

It's not harmless in towns - not because of the carbon dioxide, but because of the other products of combustion.

It also requires that we maintain the ecology of a region - no good strip burning a forest and replacing it with concrete.

If you're somewhere where you have enough woodland to support you gathering fallen wood through the year to burn in winter then you're probably good - but we simply don't have enough woodland to do that.

[munnoch]

Re: GridWatch

I don't disagree that district heating would be an ideal solution, especially if it was fed by waste heat from other processes. Its been done in a few places. But in the UK??? My God, can you imagine the faff in actually getting it deployed?

Its taken us decades to get a tiny little fibre optic cable brought to every front door (and still not done, not even in densely populated areas). How will we ever manage with a bloody great insulated hot water pipe?

New builds for sure, but its always the retrofit market thats the killer to organise. And its existing properties that stand to benefit the most from a nice high temperature input as opposed to the dismal flow temperatures of stand alone HP's.

[blackcat]

Re: GridWatch

We've done district heating in the UK but back when iron pipe was king and electronics hadn't been invented and it was leaky and crap. And people have long memories.

[that one in the corner]

Re: GridWatch

There are newer district heating systems in the UK, ones that work, and a few more are at least being planned.

Have a look at the Sage, Gateshead - that whole Baltic Wharf area has shared heating.

And the plans include using water cycling through disused North East coal mines, with sensible BIG heat pumps at the head to make a sensible setup.

[John Robson]

Re: GridWatch

It infuriates me, and I'm sure others, to see new houses being built now, on completely new estates - removing farm and park land - without solar panels, heat pumps, or any other appropriate technology.

How are we not requiring these things as part of planning permission?

It should be trivial, at the time of construction, to install a distributed ground source heat pump system - have the south facing and east/west split roofs made of, not covered in, solar panels - have at least a *space* for battery storage...

The cost of the boreholes is then reduced because - you're not working around anything else, you already have heavy plant equipment around, and you need slightly fewer than doing enough for each house independently.

The cost of the solar is reduced because - you're already set up to build a roof, you don't need to build a conventional roof first, you don't need rails or to cut holes in an existing roof, the cabling is easier etc.

[collinsl]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

A lot of the reason why there was no offshore wind was because the government have removed or massively reduced subsidies for it so companies go elsewhere in order to make more profit from other countries/sources.

[codejunky]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

@collinsl

"A lot of the reason why there was no offshore wind was because the government have removed or massively reduced subsidies for it so companies go elsewhere in order to make more profit from other countries/sources."

That would mean that wind is too expensive. I like that the reality that unreliables is too expensive is starting to creep finally into the public knowledge because for too long people were sold a lie. At some point we will probably look back at this tulip bulb mania where vast amounts of money was sprayed up the wall while the rest of the world left us behind and wonder how people could be so stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"people were sold a lie"

... but enough about the FAILED Brexit.

[Roland6]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

>” Whereas I conclude that a major build out and re-engineering of the grid to allow more the energy efficient future, which is going to happen”

History and reality says it isn’t going to happen anytime soon, particularly given the extra load EVs would put on the grid was easily calculable back in 2010. We’ve had 10+ years and very little has been done to prepare for a re-engineer of the national grid, so as you note if we start today it’s probably going to be 25 years before it’s ready…

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

On the basis that it's simply not needed... no.

Whilst EVs will place a load on the grid, the larger load is heating.

And we've got 20% headroom on the grid (in that 18 years ago we consumed 20% more electricity, and I'm not aware of a large scale grid deconstruction project)

[blackcat]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

In that time we've halved (if not more) the UK nuclear fleet, decommissioned pretty much every coal plant and not quite added back enough wind and solar which makes us reliant on France.

[cyberdemon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

> Whilst EVs will place a load on the grid, the larger load is heating.

If we stop producing Diesel engines, transmissions, ECUs, exhausts, etc. because they are not profitable anymore, then we will have to consider electrifying road freight. That is where most of the energy is, not your teslas, not even your stupid SUVs.

Eventually someone will realise that Electric road freight is just not feasible due to the weight of the batteries. But it will be too bloody late.

You're right that heating is a big part of it, perhaps the biggest, but you can't sit there while we are at 10% car adoption and say that we can feasibly electrify all road vehicles, when we haven't even STARTED on freight

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

What will clearly happen is that electricity prices will spike because of the extra demand and "because they have to in order to build out the grid". This will then make EVs look less desirable to the wallets of the voting public who really don't want to be accessing food banks in order to run an EV. ICE cars will continue be sold. Like it or not, without a miracle, ICE cars will be sold past 2030 or whatever pie-in-the-sky somebody-else's-problem future date has been proposed.

[cyberdemon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Not if all the factories and their supply chains have closed down, because in the 2020s we made them unprofitable with our daft pie-in-the-sky legislation! We'll have to import Russian Ladas or something.

I'm sure someone has thought all this through, and is laughing maniacally right now..

[stiine]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

If you're going to start charging EVs fuel duty, you better be prepared to charge homes and businesses that have electrical service as well.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"If you're going to start charging EVs fuel duty, you better be prepared to charge homes and businesses that have electrical service as well."

In the US there are states that add an EV surcharge to the annual registration. The thing is that the charge is more than what one might pay if they owned a moderately efficient petrol vehicle in fuel taxes. It still wouldn't bother me as the EV is so much less money to operate that paying a bit more in "tax" isn't a big deal. The problem I have is that EV's in the US are nearly all luxury priced and my current car is in good nick and having a low mileage used engine fitted along with a fresh coat of paint would mean another 150k miles for 7x less money than a used Chevy Bolt.

[katrinab]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Public chargers are taxed at 20%, domestic electricity at 5%, so there is already precedent for this.

Most miles are driven by people who drive lots of miles, and you can’t drive many miles on a 13A plug. My guess is if you want anything bigger than that at home, they will put it on a separate meter and tax it st a higher rate.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

13A is just the socket rating. The ring main is fused at 30A, which would allow a standard 7kW home charger. That could fully charge an average 85kWh EV battery in 12 hours, and easily handle overnight topups. Requiring that such chargers be on a separate meter just risks dangerous DIY bodges to rewire them to the ordinary meter.

[cyberdemon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Obviously, EVs could be taxed per mile or per Newton-second to hit the pricks who floor it at crossroads and tear up the tarmac

All that's needed is a meter in the car itself. And with EV firmware having secure-boot and their own telemetry link, that's eminently plausible.

We don't need a separate meter for a machine that's already so locked down.

[cyberdemon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

For the downvoter: that's obviously not what I want to happen, just what i think -will- happen.

If we hadn't shunned fission and instead took the research money that we wasted on fusion and spent it on improved fission designs, we should have had energy that really was "Too cheap to meter".

But, sadly there is more money to be made for the privatised utility companies from the wildly fluctuating prices that renewables cause, and there is lots of money and data to be had from surveillance, so I believe in future everything will be smart-metered.

We already have 'black box' accelerometer/GPS devices that you can fit to your car for a 'discount' on your insurance.

On modern, (ULEZ-compliant) cars, these surveillance features are built-in and could easily be made mandatory.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Requiring that such chargers be on a separate meter just risks dangerous DIY bodges to rewire them to the ordinary meter."

It used to be that a second meter would be fitted to make it easy to get the usage on a EV tariff. I think that's mostly been done away with and discounts are given for charging in the wee hours through a Time of Use tariff.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Most miles are driven by people who drive lots of miles, and you can’t drive many miles on a 13A plug. My guess is if you want anything bigger than that at home, they will put it on a separate meter and tax it st a higher rate.

The UK already introduced a rule so that EV charges should be on a seperate meter, which then becomes an enabler for differential charging/taxing for 'fuel' vs normal domestic use. Which is one of the political challenges, ie 'supporting' EV usage without loading the costs onto everyone's electricity bills, which is extremely regressive.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"The UK already introduced a rule so that EV charges should be on a seperate meter, which then becomes an enabler for differential charging/taxing for 'fuel' vs normal domestic use."

That's just adding a bunch of complication. It would be easier to take a high average miles driven per year and add a fee at the annual registration to cover what a moderately efficient car would have in fuel taxes. Separate meters, mileage reporting and other schemes leave all sort of holes for people to cheat and many will. It also means there will need to be whole new agencies that go around auditing people to see if they are cheating which might cost more than it would bring in through fines.

[munnoch]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Almost certainly where this will end up is your EV charger won't work unless it establishes a secure link to your smart meter to report its actual consumption and allow you to be billed the "fuel duty" component.

[codejunky]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

@munnoch

If this is true the future is much worse-

https://dailysceptic.org/2023/09/07/energy-bill-authorises-reasonable-force-to-install-smart-meters-that-allow-authorities-to-turn-customers-energy-on-and-off/

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Toby Young? Joker-on-joker action.

[43300]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

If you think the interpretation in that article is wrong, why don't you point out where they've got it wrong?

[Alfie Noakes]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

...and i bet that this separate (EV) meter (made compulsary for new installations over a year ago) will allow you to be charged (taxed) even on electricity that you have generated from solar panels that you installed at your own expense!

Bastards!

[Missing Semicolon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

At some point, charging your EV from a 13A socket will be no more legal than running a road vehicle on Red diesel.

You don't need a high-current charger for normal usage. A 2kW granny charger can put 24-30 kWh in your car if you plug in when you get home. Which should be good for a 70-mile round trip a day.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

At some point, charging your EV from a 13A socket will be no more legal than running a road vehicle on Red diesel.

How are they going to stop me? It's not like the electrons can be died a different colour.

[blackcat]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Easy, the electronics in the charger inside the car. They already have a signalling wire that talks to the wall charger/inline charger to determine the amperage available. It is just an extension of that process.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

So people will buy counterfeit Chinese or Indian chargers on Alibaba, which are programmed to lie to the car.

Sure, they'll probably burn the occasional house down, but driving will still be cheap.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"So people will buy counterfeit Chinese or Indian chargers on Alibaba, which are programmed to lie to the car."

There's no point in lying to the car. You want the car to know how much power is available so it will charge as quickly as possible without blowing the circuit breaker or burning up the wiring/house.

[Justthefacts]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Actually easier than all the faff of colouring diesel. Keep and show your receipts. It’s mandatory to have your car MOT’d, which means they know your annual mileage. Therefore, they know roughly what the annual kWh used is, much closer than petrol because of regenerative.You either purchased the electricity on-the-road (petrol stations all have your number plate logged by ANPR, and so will the charger network), or you got it somewhere else. Everything I’ve said is already available centrally to the MOT and HMRC, fully automated.

There’s literally nothing to prevent them running a simple server calculation at MOT to figure out if you’re getting un-metered electricity anywhere.

[Roland6]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Surely, the car maintains a (possibly basic) log of recent charging events, just like existing engine management systems retain the last 20’ish fault codes. So should be relatively easy to upload as part of smart charging or via the GSM spy recent charging history…

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"which means they know your annual mileage."

They can take that and the gross weight of the car and calculate from there for the road tax as compared to a similar car that runs on petrol or diesel. It can even cost less since there is less accounting for an annual tax over taxes being assessed and collected each time fuel is added.

[jmch]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

That would require MOT to get all your electric consumption data from your provider.

Putting aside the fact that it's a gross violation of data privacy that would fall foul of all current privacy legislation (I note that the ex-EU UK could simply decide to allow this ), this would require a large-scale government IT project, which pretty much by definition will be a giant money-siphon into the pockets of the like of Crapita, which will deliver the square root of eff-all, to be scrapped after a decade of promises and overruns.

[Stork]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

A bit sad you have to rely on government incompetence to feel safe

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Putting aside the fact that it's a gross violation of data privacy that would fall foul of all current privacy legislation"

I think you are expecting that government is subject to data privacy laws. yeah, sure.

[Barrie Shepherd]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

".....charging your EV from a 13A socket will be no more legal than running a road vehicle on Red diesel."

How will they know? Teams of CAPITA men walking the streets at night sniffing out cables 13 amp plugs and TVs tuned to BBC?

The electrons in the battery cannot be stained with an ID dye.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"The electrons in the battery cannot be stained with an ID dye."

Yes, WE know that, but has anybody convinced the politicians it can't be done?

[Mark 65]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Victoria in Australia has proposed/started a per mile charge for EVs as they avoid fuel duty.

[Martin-73]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Indeed, we as sparkies have to complete a certificate for the DNO to let them know we're installing an EVSE, so they can see if the local substation can handle it. It's not so much the cables in the road, but the fuses in the feeder pillars at the substation, they are only usually rated 400A at most

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Here's £500 in crinkly notes to "forget" that bit. There's always someone who'll take it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I bought my EVSE on Amazon, 50A double pole breaker, wire, and all-weather NEMA 14-50 outlet box at Home Depot. Install took me a couple hours. No 'sparky' or certificate needed.

DIY not a thing over there?

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"NEMA 14-50 outlet box at Home Depot. Install took me a couple hours. No 'sparky' or certificate needed."

The former owner of my house had an outlet for a welder in the garage. I used the holes in the studs to run bigger wire, installed a 50A breaker and the 14-50 outlet. I can plug a welder, EVSE or a friend's RV into that. I think it cost me ~$50 for all of the bits. The place where the cost climbs is if the run to the panel is long/difficult. It was a whole 2m for me so very cheap.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

DIY of a lot of home electrics is illegal in the UK.

[werdsmith]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

No, not illegal. But needs building control to be notified and a qualified sparky to certify it safe.

[Martin-73]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

to be fair, you can get your local council to come certify your diy, they will charge about 5x what I do ... it's a shit show. I support competent DIYers... have seen a lot of DIY over the years that puts many sparkies to shame

[blackcat]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I've seen some horrors done by 'trained sparkies'. And with the rush for solar there are some horrors out there.

A friend had solar installed and the 'schematic' they left behind has zero in common with what was installed.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"I've seen some horrors done by 'trained sparkies'. And with the rush for solar there are some horrors out there."

An electrician is doing the job for money so the faster they can get done and the least they can pay for the parts, the mo money they make. I, as the homeowner/customer, have more skin in the game so taking longer to do the job is no big deal and using better quality parts isn't a big impact either. I want the installation to last forever and not burn the house down. Fortunately, I have the experience to do the work properly and if there is some aspect I'm not completely confident about, I will call somebody who is. A lot of installation work isn't worth paying a certified and licensed sparky to do. A hole drilled by me is just as good as one drilled by somebody holding a license and that's one of the things that usually takes the most time.

[Martin-73]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Smart meter installers are some of the worst. Found one on tuesday this week with all the screws INSIDE the service head loose after they changed the main tails. Got an EXTREMELY high Ze (external earth fault loop) impedance value, and wiggled wires till one crackled... it's ridiculous

[cyberdemon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

They can pry my Bakolite electromechanical meter out of my cold, dead hands

[Martin-73]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

100% sir (or madam, can't be sure of the gender of demons)... we still have an EM meter and if they ever replace it with an electronic POS, i'm putting my check meter in series.... have one for the upcoming weekend

[Martin-73]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Not for a new circuit, no... (i disagree with this, botched DIY crap keeps me in business)

[Martin-73]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Did you pull a permit from your city/county/whatever? we don't have to do that here

[Martin-73]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Guessing the 2 thumbs down come from people who forget this is a UK site, despite the .com and the stupid spelling

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: Weight of EV's

Many of those huge ICE powered SUV's weigh more than most EV's. The BMW X6 weighs more than a Tesla Model X.

The figure are out there on this thing called the internet.

Perhaps we should all be driving around in electrified 2CV's. They weigh less than 1 Donald Trump (as his Georgia Arrest)

[jmch]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"the local distribution grids really are 'trembling' because there is no way that they will be able to cope with a large proportion of EV and Heat Pump owners."

Local grids have had plenty of advance forecasts of the increase in electric usage due to heat pumps and electric vehicles. If upgrades to local grids aren't already planned and in the pipeline, that's because of negligence on their part. And the more power they handle, the more they get paid, so I'm pretty sure that financing will not be a problem.

"We are far too hasty to decommission two out of three energy distribution networks"

Straw man alert!!! I have literally never before heard the idea that anyone is trying to decommission either the gas grid or petrol stations. What will happen is that as and when using electricity becomes cheaper and more convenient than gas / petrol, that these 2 will start to phase out. It's going to happen over 3-5 decades, and there surely still will be places where both are available far into the future

[blackcat]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Local grids have had plenty of advance forecasts of the increase in electric usage"

And they've done....... NOTHING.

The M3 Fleet services are still waiting for a connection on the southbound side, FIVE years after they installed the chargers. This is due to the DNO being unable to run the required wires.

I've been waiting for my local DNO to trim the trees under the 11kV lines that run behind my house (they are legally obligated to do this, it isn't my responsibility) for 3 years and now the trees are above the lines. We've got 6 houses running off a 100A fuse on the local transformer and the prospect of another 4 houses being built and the DNO says they are not planning an upgrade.

As for your straw man straw man, the UK is planning to end the fitting of gas in new builds and phase out gas as an option for retrofit and Germany has just passed into law something very similar. So at some point the gas network will become unprofitable to run just to feed the few remaining gas cookers and heaters/boilers that haven't died. I foresee a fair few people swapping to bottled gas and a lot of people going for wood/coal, which is far worse than burning gas.

[cyberdemon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

> Straw man alert!!! I have literally never before heard the idea that anyone is trying to decommission either the gas grid or petrol stations.

take a look at this then It will be shut down when it is no longer profitable to maintain.

It will happen faster than you think, due to positive feedback.

The government bans gas boilers for new builds and private landlords, that means the same money to maintain the network and profitability has to be made from fewer customers. So the price goes up. More people switch away from gas and the cycle continues.

EVs are being adopted faster than anticipated too, because it is no longer profitable to invest in a factory that produces ICEs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

EVs are adopting faster than anticipated as they're currently attractive on a fuel cost basis during the recent fuel price hikes where petrol went up quicker than electricity. Up the power price and that ceases to be the case. Up the insurance costs because it turns out they get written off for minor incidents as no insurer wants to take on risk with the battery and it's less attractive again.

It's plenty profitable to invest in ICE production - the vehicles outsell EVs by multiples.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Worth remembering that BEVs really aren't the solution to climate issues. What they solve is:

1. Pollution in urban environments

2. Petro-dictator independence, depending on the country and its electricity generation setup

What they don't really solve is global CO2, given how much is created in the production of the battery - I've seen a comparison for Australia where a 70-odd kWh BEV breaks even at around 60,000km with a V6 diesel Ranger. Sources for values used are quoted in the video and I see no reason to disbelieve the analysis. On typical use that's 4-5 years ownership in that location, which coincides with vehicle turnover for many people. Oops.

Let's not even mention the destruction and pollution of rare-earth mining, the perils of thermal runaway in any environment (with optional Cobalt in the air), and the fact that most of these batteries will end up in landfill due to a lack of recycling capability and regulation. Lithium Hexafluorophosphate in the groundwater, yummy.

You can then consider that even if all cars were converted to EVs (won't happen for a generation or two and the grid can't cope) you still have trucks, planes, ships etc all spewing CO2.

What is the solution? Anything but BEVs. BEVs are the environmental equivalent of mask mandates during COVID - doesn't do anything useful but makes it look like the powers that be have gotten off their collective arses and done something.

Will probably get down-voted for this post, but I couldn't give less of a sh*t - you don't have to like the facts...they don't care either, they're simply facts.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Where I am in the UK my electricity rate is 27.60p/kWh, which would make charging the car more expensive than petrol."

You didn't keep track of the decimal properly when using your slide rule. I pay more than that for leccy and less for petrol and an EV is still much less expensive to "fuel".

[katrinab]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Are you suggesting you can get electricity for 2.76p/kWh? No chance of that.

Or £2.76/kWh? It isn't quite that bad yet. Give it another couple of years though.

Or maybe you are confused with 5p vs £5? It seems to be a very British thing to quote prices in our subdivision unit of currency. 5p = £0.05.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Are you suggesting you can get electricity for 2.76p/kWh? No chance of that."

It's a joke, son, you missed it. Anybody that's used a slide rule knows the pitfalls of that blasted dot and should be good at doing estimates to check their work.

EV's typically cost 25% that of petrol per mile, give or take. I've rarely seen anybody claiming that an EV is more money to operate post up real figures to back up their claims. It's very easy to check the price per kW and petrol costs for a stated location. Every time I check somebody, it's right in the region of 25% so I use that as a rule of thumb. I haven't run those calculations for the Orkney's or some very out of the way place. Petrol where I live is around $5/gal right now, but I know of a couple of stations that are $7-$8/gal (middle of no-competition). Electricity is close to $.33/kWh. My ICE car gets 30mpg with mixed driving. A Chevy Bolt is around 3.8miles/kWh. I leave the calculations as an exercise for the student.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

EV's typically cost 25% that of petrol per mile, give or take.

Not even true on your own figures.

You're taking a very poor ICE vehicle, 30miles per US gallon in mixed driving. At $5 - $8 per gallon, that works out at somewhere between $0.28 and $0.16 per mile.

You figures for the Bolt come out at $0.09 per mile, so at best that's 33%, worst is 50%. Not 25%.

Now let's look at realistic UK figures, which is what most of the comments refer to.

Average UK car economy is 52 miles per UK gallon, at a cost of $8.50/gallon (all prices converted to USD for convenience). That comes out to $0.16 per mile.

Electricity costs are very variable, around $0.35/kWh at home, $0.70 to $0.94 for a public charger. Even using your figures for the Bolt, rather than the more typical 3.4 miles/kWh quoted by UK car magazines for EVs here, that is a per mile cost of $0.09 if charged at home, but $0.18 to $0.25 per mile when using public chargers.

That makes ICE cars slightly cheaper to run than EVs if the EV is charged in public charging stations, but EVs are cheaper if always charged at home.

Now consider that tax makes up 5% of home electricity price, 20% of commercial charger price, and 50% of the pump fuel price, a differential that cannot last because the government gets $35bn/year from fuel duty and won't give that up. On a tax-equal basis, ICE is cheaper.

[tellytart]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

That's simply not true. I drive a BEV, I can't charge at home, can only charge on public superchargers and fast chargers. Over the last 2 years of running a BEV (because I've an app that tracks all the data), it's costing me 9 pence per mile, with an average price of 32p/kWh. If I could charge at home, the cost per mile would be less as I'd be able to switch to an EV specific electricity tariff to give me cheap overnight electricity for charging.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"You're taking a very poor ICE vehicle, 30miles per US gallon in mixed driving. At $5 - $8 per gallon, that works out at somewhere between $0.28 and $0.16 per mile.

You figures for the Bolt come out at $0.09 per mile, so at best that's 33%, worst is 50%. Not 25%."

It's the ICEV that I have. At some point not too far in the future I'm going to need to swap in another engine and it's likely to get much better mileage. The current engine has over 230k miles on it. I didn't state, but I also estimate oil changes in there too so you have a good argument based on the info I provided.

At the point I get an EV, I'll have rooftop solar as well to charge it with, so I should be down to that 25% figure, but I didn't throw that into the mix either. While 25% of ICEV operating cost is optimistic, to say that an EV is higher cost to operate than an ICEV is hard to show. An EV can be far more expensive to repair, so I am glossing over that too.

[HereAndGone]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

There is something wrong with those numbers.

Assuming a base vehicle gets 35 miles/gallon, or 9 miles per litre.

A decent EV should get around 4 miles/KwH.

So 9 miles is £1.50 for petrol

Home charging at your stated rate of 14p/kwH * 2.25 KwH is 32p. Even at your stated daytime rate of 40p/KwH, 2.25 KwH is 90p. Still well under the petrol rate of £1.50.

[Missing Semicolon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

4 miles/kwh is only possible with tiny cars driven carefully. 3miles/kWh is more like it.

Cars haven't done 35miles/gallon for years. 40 is a minimum, 50 is normal.

[Tessier-Ashpool]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

That’s not necessarily true. In winter, yes perhaps. But these past few months in the warm weather, my EV tells me how it’s been doing each time I power off after a journey. It’s mostly been over 5 miles per kWh. And it’s not a small car.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

" It’s mostly been over 5 miles per kWh. And it’s not a small car."

I'd believe both figures. EV's do really well with stop and start city driving and get worse "mileage" on the motorway (at speed).

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

:"Cars haven't done 35miles/gallon for years."

My car is years old and gets 30mpg fairly consistently.

[MarkTriumphant]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I get about 3.6 miles/kwh from my i4, which is hardly a tiny car.

[Tim99]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Possibly the difference between US and imperial gallons? US 30mpg = 36 imperial mpg; and US 35mpg = 42 imperial mpg.

[Missing Semicolon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

14p/kwh is a pipe dream. 30p is more usual.

[Tessier-Ashpool]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

OVO Anytime is 10p / kWh. You do need a compatible car or charger, though. Which, sadly, I don’t have.

[VicMortimer]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

It's about 11¢/kWh here. It's not a pipe dream, you're just being gouged over there.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"14p/kwh is a pipe dream. 30p is more usual."

There are places in the US as low as $.08/kWh. It's $.33/kWh where I live which sucks. It does make putting solar panels on a better deal. If power was $.08, solar would have a very poor ROI and battery storage a big waste of money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

My PHEV has a range of around 50km (30 miles) on a 10kWh charge, depending on how I drive. At 28.2p/kWh home electricty rates that's £2.82. I could go for an EV rate and pay perhaps 10p/kWh, but the higher peak rate charged for everything else makes that uneconomical for me.

The public chargers around here range from 50p to 75p per kWh, so for 10kWh that's £5.00 - £7.50

On petrol, it manages around 6l per 100km on a petrol-only journey (about 48MPG). At £1.50/litre that's about £4.50 for 50km.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Assuming a base vehicle gets 35 miles/gallon, or 9 miles per litre."

That seems extremely low to me. Is that a large car restricted to town driving only or something? My average sized Diesel gets more like 46+ in town only driving. Maybe I have a much lighter foot than you or I don't drive so much in rush hour queues.

60mpg is more normal for my driving patterns, mainly long motorway trips with a little town driving at each end of the route.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I did your research for you, Mr Downvoter

Q32) What is the UK’s average new car fuel consumption?

A32) The UK’s average new car fuel consumption in 2020 was 52.6 miles-per-gallon (mpg) (5.4 litres per 100 km) for petrol vehicles and 56.1 mpg for diesel vehicles (5.0 litres per 100 km).

You're welcome :-)

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"But overnight rates run from 1:30am to 8:30am where I am, so if I have to drive to work, I'm only going to realistically get about 5 hours."

If you can charge at 7.5kW, that's 37.5kWh or roughly 131 miles of travel (3.5miles/kWh) or put another way, over 2 hours of driving. If you drive further than that each day and only have access to charging for those 5 hours, that could be a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

>1 litre of petrol costs about £1.50. That is equivalent to 9.7kWh, so about 15.5p/kWh.

I get ~9.2kWh/L for 91 grade petrol. BUT, that is only if you burnt it in a condensing calorimeter.

A non-hybrid car typically gets 10-15% efficiency on urban driving (even though the motor can manage 25% at optimal loading)

Electric cars manage ~70% inclusing charging losses. The nett is evs are actually 5x better in typical urban use.

So 70p/kWh is still half the driving price of petrol, even if you added a road tax, it would still not be more expensive.

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

5 hours at 7kW is 35kWh - let's assume you only get 30kWh into the car in that time... So you get ~120 miles of range added every night.

That's six times more than the average car in the UK.

Don't assume efficiency comparisons, just do pennies per mile - Petrol is about 17p at the moment, for which an EV would need to be paying well over 60p/kWh.

Most public chargers are less than that, substantially so - you're just only aware of the DC chargers which aren't the appropriate chargers for regular public charging users.

14p/kWh is pretty high for an overnight rate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

for which an EV would need to be paying well over 60p/kWh.

Most public chargers are less than that, substantially so

No, they aren't, not any more. These days most public chargers are around 50-55p/kWh for slow chargers, and up to 75p for fast.

[werdsmith]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

No, they aren't, not any more. These days most public chargers are around 50-55p/kWh for slow chargers, and up to 75p for fast.

Tesco chargers are 50p for fast and 23p / 40p for slow. Lidl about the same.

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I took a look at my local chargers, and none of the AC chargers exceeded 55p - several were lower than that, some down to 20p and others were free.

DC chargers are *not* what you use if you can't charge at home - they are what you use on a long journey (a handful of times a year).

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"DC chargers are *not* what you use if you can't charge at home - they are what you use on a long journey (a handful of times a year)."

Many of the arguments against EV's use DC charging to state their case. If one needed to use a DC charger due to limited access to charging, I'd say they are a poor candidate for an EV in the first place. Right now, one needs to have access to charging at home or work to take advantage of the benefits of having an EV.

[cyberdemon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

The point is, home AC charging of EVs without extra taxes etc. is effectively subsidised, since it pays no fuel duty or road tax. If i filled an ICEV with "red diesel" and dodged road tax, then it would be cheaper to run than an EV.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

" is effectively subsidised, since it pays no fuel duty or road tax."

That depends on where you are. In the US, some states have an EV fee to compensate for lost fuel taxes. The last thing to worry about is government NOT finding a way to tax something. That's about all they're good at. Ok, that and frivolous spending too.

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Vehicle tax is paid on tailpipe emissions, so yes they do pay vehicle tax, it's just at zero rate (as it is for various other classes of vehicle).

You could break the law and still not end up as cheap as an EV:

Given that various of the chargers around here start at 20p/kWh - your red diesel isn't that cheap anyway:

"Our average Red Diesel price for today, Thursday 14th September 2023 is 85.56 pence per litre (excl. VAT)." (from boilerjuice)

So that's 85.56*1.05 = ~90p/ litre for your red diesel.

At an average UK diesel efficiency of 43mpg that's 9.5p/mile, carwow reckons the best available in the uk is 74mpg (peugeot 208) at 5.5p/mile.

Those local 20p chargers... they're 5p/mile

Charging at home, that's around 2p/mile (depending on tariff)

The free chargers, well let's think...

So no - even by breaking the law, you still don't get to the point where you can drive a diesel more cheaply than an EV.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

You need to get out and charge your car more.

I've been watching some of your Automobile bloggers, the kind who can get a loaner EV for a week. While I listen to their descriptions of the 'charging infrastructure' in the UK, I also read through the comments on their videos. Some of the comments are along the lines of "I've found a usable, high-speed, charger in an out-of-the-way parking lot and I'm not telling anyone about it" or "I've started looking for charge points at 50% charge because finding a usable charge point is hit or miss".

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Some of the comments are along the lines of "I've found a usable, high-speed, charger in an out-of-the-way parking lot and I'm not telling anyone about it" or "I've started looking for charge points at 50% charge because finding a usable charge point is hit or miss"."

All of that seems made up. There's a bunch of online sites that show where sites are and many of them will report the status of each charger (open, occupied, out of order). Some sites will score a charging location on its uptime figures and how often there are complaints posted.

I doubt there's a public DCFC that isn't listed. The companies that put them in want people to know where they are so they get customers. That's not to say that a few are hard to find at the back of a car park or behind some shops rather than out front where people will look for them.

[chriskno]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

How far is it to work? Most daily trips are less than 30 miles each way. 5 hours on a home charger - typically 6 or 7 Kw means 30 to 35 Kwh into your battery. Average distance per Kwh is 3.8 miles, is between 114 and 133 miles. That's based on my 5 year old Nissan Leaf which still has 100% of the battery cells operative. None of the comments I have read so far has mentioned how much better it is driving an EV, not to mention the zero emissions which is what it is really all about.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

" not to mention the zero emissions which is what it is really all about."

I don't mention that as I don't have a bottomless supply of bank notes I can earmark for "saving the planet". I find more benefit in the convenience of having an EV and that stems from having off street parking and the ability of charging at home. I also have a work schedule and driving needs that works well for owning an EV as I can charge at home about every other day or so durning the day if I put in solar or at night on an EV tariff until the solar is installed. I'm stymied by having an ICEV in good nick that is way cheaper to keep going than the cost of a newer EV (used).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

not to mention the zero emissions which is what it is really all about

EVs aren't zero emissions, they are zero local emissions. EVs are effectively remote emissions devices whereby the emissions occur during battery manufacturing, power generation and fuel extraction. China burns a lot of coal and that's where most of the environmentally damaging manufacturing occurs. Depending on where you live your generators could be burning gas, black coal or even lignite.

Zero locally is good, but let's not pretend they're zero.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Zero locally is good, but let's not pretend they're zero."

It's like saying that natural gas is a "clean" fuel. It's not. It's "cleanER" than many alternatives. The efficiencies of EV's makes them cleanER compared to an ICEV and shifting where the pollution is generated is a big benefit. It's also easier to put emissions controls on a coal power plant than to keep millions of private cars running optimally. I'm not saying that coal is the best way to generate electricity, but an EV charged with power generated at a coal plant is cleaner than a petrol car. If the fuel in the petrol car was made at a refinery power with coal or petroleum, the difference is even greater. I'm trying to recall if a talk done by Robert Llewelyn mentioned references, "Electric vehicles are rubbish, aren't they?" i don't have citations handy as I'm not submitting my commentarding for publication in a proper journal, sorry about that.

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Zero locally is good, but let's not pretend they're zero."

They're not zero at the moment, but there is no reason that much of the remote emissions can't be lowered further, and they are already substantially lower than ICE anyway.

Every time we add more low/zero carbon energy to the grid *every* EV improves, an ICE doesn't get that constant improvement.

[Boris the Cockroach]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Quote:

"Something like 75-80% of vehicles in the UK are able to be parked off road at home (RAC figures I'e quoted often here)... a good proportion of the rest will be parked at work for good portions of their life."

In this area, (UK south coast) the 2 big citys run at about 75% street parking, especially in the older areas. EV charging will be via lampost(after tearing out the lamppost and its wiring and putting in a charging point with a power cable that can supply 10 cars... we'll not worry about 30 feet of power cable trailing to every car) then theres the power load on the 11Kv substation feeds and the 240v distribution cables.... theres at least 1 fault every year on the 11Kv somewhere in the city, and several on the 240v due to the age of the cables, the extra EV load should help increase that.

But its ok , you can charge at work...... using who's power? so look forward to the payslip Gross pay, followed by deductions: Income tax, national insurance, pension, EV charging.....

And as an amusing footnote..... you know all those people with off road parking/garages, and who cheerfully fill out their insurance quotes with 'garaged/off road parking'

How many actually USE it?

[MarkTriumphant]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

The company that I work for provide chargers, although they are managed by an external company. I pay that company directly, so nothing on my payslip.

[IGotOut]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Something like 75-80% of vehicles in the UK are able to be parked off road at home (RAC figures I've quoted often here).."

I've no idea where the fuck the RAC got these figures but I call total bullshit on them. Maybe in suburbia, but go to ANY post industrial revolution town, especially Victorian era town or villages and that figure is, way, way off.

In my large village for example, and old mining area, I'd estimate 75 -80% of parking is on street. Just go round the central areas of Birmingham, the Black Country, or in most industrial northern towns, you'll see it repeated over and over.

But I guess I can sling a cable out of the window, through the small from yard, across the road, around the corner and eventually reach my car.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

>” But I guess I can sling a cable out of the window, through the small from yard, across the road, around the corner and eventually reach my car.

Last year in sorting out a relative’s house (I had power of attorney and executor) we discovered they owned the adjacent block of garages and off road parking for the neighbouring houses, additionally the main electricity supply to the estate was accessible from this land. Because they had been good neighbours and the neighbours had been good to my aging relative’s, I offered the neighbours the opportunity to have EV charging points put in and covert the land to being jointly owned, all for the cost of making the changes; all refused … The house has now been sold, the new owner (as did my relative’s) have the rights to charge the neighbours for access and use of this land, they can put in EV charging points (at cost to themselves) and set the tariff…

[cyberdemon]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

> "Something like 75-80% of vehicles in the UK are able to be parked off road at home"

> I've no idea where the fuck the RAC got these figures

I think these figures come from insurance companies and they increased suddenly and inexplicably around the time when it became widely known that claiming to have off-road parking reduced one's insurance premiums

[werdsmith]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Off road parking has meant lower premiums for decades.

[Bruce Ordway]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I've been told hybrids are better for some colder regions of the US (one of which, I live in).

Batteries don't like the cold and... electricity to recharge is more likely to be coal generated (assuming people are recharging at night).

[david 12]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Batteries don't like the cold

Thats less important for a modern EV, down to 0F / -20C

When we say "Batteries don't like the cold", what we mean is that "loads which depend on battery regulation don't like the cold". That is a traditional battery system and load: your incandescent lights (including torch / flashlight / headlights / brake lights), but also your camera and tape-recorder and starter motor, depend on the battery voltage as well as on the battery charge.

At cold temperatures, lead-acid battery voltage drops more rapidly with discharge, so your regulation-dependent load drops out sooner, while the battery is still full of charge.

But for an EV designed to run Li batteries right down to low voltage, system voltage regulation is not important: they are designed to run at every battery voltage from high to almost nothing, and temperature dependence of the input voltage is not very important.

0F is also cold for a lot of IC engines: that's why we have block heaters. EV that are designed for cold climates have something similar.

[Graham Dawson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Cold lithium cells have a much reduced capacity - not voltage, but amp- or watt-hours - due to increased resistance within the cell. Discharging the dell against that increased resistance will damage it, permanently reducing its capacity over time. Cold also directly induces a permanent capacity reduction over time, which can only be mitigated by constant temperature maintenance.

It's safe to say that your comparison with cold engine blocks is misleading, at best. An engine block only needs to be brought to a safe operating temperature, after which it will keep itself warm as an effect of its own operation. A battery has to have that temperature maintained constantly by external means, which requires expending energy for the entire time it's in storage.

[david 12]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Yes, resistance increases with low temperatures. So the batteries warm up in use.

FWIW, they try to keep the battery below 55C. Over the working temperature range, cold ambient temperatures help keep the battery cool.

There is a significant decrease in range if you are running the Air Conditioning and Seat Heater to keep warm. That isn't a 'battery' problem, and it can only be solved the old-fashioned way: long underwear with coat and gloves.

There are a lot of people observing that they get short range in cold weather. They aren't quoting 'battery temperature' in their claims. For good reason: whatever the cause, it's mostly not down to "battery temperature".

[david 12]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

A battery has to have that temperature maintained constantly by external means, which requires expending energy for the entire time it's in storage.

Yes, with an IC engine, unless you keep your lead-acid battery fully charged, it will freeze at -20C. There are drivers who have to deal with temperatures below -20C. At those temperatures, you do need to act differently (including leaving your block heater on all night). That isn't a problem that is unique to EV vehicles.

[blackcat]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

The original Honda Insight had this wonderful method of warming the hybrid battery when it was cold. It would just charge the living shit out of it! The higher the internal resistance the quicker it got back to working temp. You can treat NiCd batteries pretty poorly... for a while. Very few of those cars left on the road as amazingly the batteries died after about 6 years.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

" Very few of those cars left on the road as amazingly the batteries died after about 6 years."

I suppose it's a good thing that Lithium battery packs have an 8-10 year warranty.

[John Robson]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"The original Honda Insight had this wonderful method of warming the hybrid battery when it was cold. It would just charge the living shit out of it! The higher the internal resistance the quicker it got back to working temp. You can treat NiCd batteries pretty poorly... for a while. Very few of those cars left on the road as amazingly the batteries died after about 6 years."

Wow - so you're looking at battery technologies that are no longer used, and a vehicle that hasn't been in production for more than 15 years.

You know what. horses don't work too well in -40 conditions either.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Cold lithium cells have a much reduced capacity - not voltage, but amp- or watt-hours - due to increased resistance within the cell."

In real world testing, it's about a 15% reduction. It does get worse for EV's since in cold weather, battery power is used to heat the cabin/occupants. This is why so many EV's feature heated seats (more efficient) and the best EV's will have an efficient heat pump for HVAC. Unless you are doing long trips, the reduction in range isn't a big deal since there can be plenty of battery for all of the driving you might do on a normal day. Some EV's will pre-heat the battery pack if a charging stop is programmed in the SatNav so even when it's blowing snow outside, the battery can charge quickly and take on a full charge. The battery heats up with highway travel too. Bjorn Nyland reviews EV's on his YT channel and he lives in Norway. If you want to see what cold weather travel is like, look up his channel. One of his stress test routes is up the arctic circle and back to the Oslo area.

[jmch]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Cold lithium cells have a much reduced capacity...."

That's why a large part of the bulk of current EV batteries are heaters - it's more efficient to use part of the battery capacity to heat the battery to a more efficient state. There are many new battery types near commercialisation* that do not suffer from this issue.

*That's what they tell us at least. To be fair, while staying skeptical of the type of claim of "super new battery with triple capacity, a third charging time, million charging cycles and operates at any temperature, in cars next year" (always next year), real-life battery improvements have quietly being getting along incrementally in the background, and these 10% per-year improvements build up massively over the course of a decade.

[MachDiamond]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

" electricity to recharge is more likely to be coal generated"

In the Pacific North West of the US, power is going to be hydro. You also skip over that where coal is being used to generate electricity, refineries turning crude oil into transportation fuel are coal powered. Your ICEV is coal powered if the fuel you use was refined someplace where the electricity is generated using coal. It's not a good argument.

[werdsmith]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

I've been told hybrids are better for some colder regions of the US (one of which, I live in).

Batteries don't like the cold

In Europe the nation where EVs have been adopted more than any other is Norway.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

Due to effective subsidies, not outstanding value.

[MatthewSt]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

"Did I mention that public charging points will be far more expensive to use than overnight charging at home?"

I would imagine that a market will appear for cheap overnight public charging. In the same way that Tesco etc list their car parks on apps for cheap long term parking, something similar will come along for charge points too. At the end of the day they've paid for the infrastructure so as long as they get a mark up on the electricity it's worth doing.

If overnight costs them 10p/kWh then they're better off selling it at 15p/kWh than not selling it at 40p/kWh

[toejam++]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

One reason some people prefer hybrids over BEVs is that the former tend to have more traditional looks and controls. Not everyone likes the modern minimalist interior, the dominating touchscreens, or the quirky styling that many BEVs seem to have. I know a few people who went with a Chevy Bolt or Hyundai Kona EV because they said they wanted a more "normal" looking car.

Another reason is cost. Many PHEVs and BEVs are only available in high end trims and (until very recently) with significant dealer markups. And that's on top of manufacturer price hikes because of high demand. Now that demand is dropping and a glut of BEVs are starting to pile up on dealer lots, maybe that will change. But it will take time.

And at least here in North America, a new wrinkle is the industry switch from CCS1 to NACS ports. I know a few people who don't want to be stuck with CCS1 vehicles, fearful that CCS1 will join CHAdeMO as an afterthought or that NACS-to-CCS1 dongles will be unreliable and bothersome. At least NACS-to-Type1 dongles have a better reputation.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: For many of us, hybrids make more sense than BEVs

For many of us, driving old vehicles makes more sense than buying new ones.

[codejunky]

Shocked?

"However, by 2030, electric power generation and grid capacity could hold back uptake, regardless of price."

How is this possible? After all this 'investment' in power generation and the grid. Surely it would be well supplied?

[blackcat]

Re: Shocked?

Because the investment has been badly invested. Very little has actually gone into the grid itself.

The southbound Fleet services on the M3 (UK) are STILL waiting for a grid connection for the tesla superchargers FIVE years after the chargers were installed. Yes, FIVE years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Shocked?

Some Gridserve charging stations have taken to installing their own diesel generators to power the fast chargers because the local grid can't cope. Net zero? Not a hope in hell.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Shocked?

"Some Gridserve charging stations have taken to installing their own diesel generators to power the fast chargers because the local grid can't cope. Net zero? Not a hope in hell.

Reference, please. Using diesel would be very expensive. Likely so expensive there would need to be some overriding reason why that charging station had to be located there.

Some stations in the US use battery storage so that stations can be put in places where there isn't the service for very fast charging. The station will recharge that battery when demand is below usage and the battery isn't full. That can also level peak demand which power companies charge a premium for.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Shocked?

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/electric-fleet-news/2023/06/19/gridserve-using-second-life-batteries-and-biofuel-to-powers-rapid-chargers

Biodiesel is used, with second-hand batteries to compensate for the lack of adequate grid connection.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Shocked?

"https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/electric-fleet-news/2023/06/19/gridserve-using-second-life-batteries-and-biofuel-to-powers-rapid-chargers

Biodiesel is used, with second-hand batteries to compensate for the lack of adequate grid connection."

The article is saying that it's an interim patch until a proper grid connection can be made. It would still make sense to keep the the upcycled batteries to level off demand needs.

I'm a bit disbelieving of the statement that burning veggie oil is 90% cleaner. To get there, I expect they have to ignore all of the inputs to make that oil.

[codejunky]

Re: Shocked?

@blackcat

"Because the investment has been badly invested. Very little has actually gone into the grid itself."

The bad investment was my point. So much money has been thrown at monuments to a sky god but actual power generation and fuel storage has been left to age out. We want the lights on but dont want to generate the power to keep them on. Only in very recent years has nuclear become a viable option because the green-nuts (those infected with green madness) have been passionately against it, only easing when they realise their magic technology doesnt actually fix the problem.

"The southbound Fleet services on the M3 (UK) are STILL waiting for a grid connection for the tesla superchargers FIVE years after the chargers were installed. Yes, FIVE years."

I can believe it. We live in a slow moving bureaucracy before anything can happen. And unreliables demand more upgrades to a grid that otherwise would be ok. The UK's energy strategy for a couple of decades has been the problem.

[cyberdemon]

Re: Shocked?

How is this possible? After all this 'investment' in power generation and the grid.

Because all the profits are 'invested' in dividends to shareholders, most of whom are offshore.

That's considered 'good' utility governance over here. The 'bad' ones take on huge debts and STILL pay shareholders before investing anything in infrastructure.

That's what John Redwood and Mrs T set us up for when they privatised and deregulated the utility sector.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Shocked?

"Surely it would be well supplied?"

If government forces a large shift to EV's in a short period of time, the grid won't be able to adapt. Another of those unintended consequences that politicians don't understand.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Shocked?

As one man put it "politicians are washed-up ex-lawyer arseholes that think everything is amenable to debate, including the laws of Physics"

[Doctor Syntax]

"Power grids tremble as electric vehicle growth set to accelerate"

Gosh, never saw that coming!

[spoofles]

Evolutionary dead end

Why are people using EVs?

If its to lower cost, as data has become available it is showing that on average it is more expensive to run an EV then an ICE vehicle in the US.

The current administration in the US did everything it could to drive up the cost of ICE and fuel to make make EVs more attractive and still had to provide subsidies to get people interested.

It is likely most US buyers are in EVs more for the subsidies then because they were lookign at an EV.

If its to save the planet then you are barking up the wrong tree.

In the US the same mad<people> that are jamming EVs down the collective throats of the driving public are also that same people that forced the US to generally abandon nuclear.

This means that generally all fo the electricity for charging EVs is generated by CNG or diesel.

Coal would be another option but the same group has been largely successful under the current administration in shutting down coal plants even if the coal they burn is very clean.

The same wags often like to point to alternative sources like solar or wind.

Even at the best of times these sources cannot provide enough electricity.

They also produce wast i nthe form of hard to dispose of turbine blades and solar panels that can require more energy to dispose of then they generate.

then there are the batteries that EVs and hybrids use which require rare earths.

Yes, they are not that rare and if you have access to one you can make the others but processing them creates an environmental nightmare.

Then there is the lousy, creaking electrical infrastructure in the US.

Electricity is expensive to store and the US has little to no capacity to do this.

Electricity is expensive to transport, the infrastructure imposes huge losses on generation.

Perhaps the US would be better off putting its research and financial capability behind something like hydrogen fuel cells?

They seem to be able to deliver everywhere electricity fails.

Though perhaps billionaires would not be able to increase their fortunes with tax supported subsidies.

That may be the real reason for EVs.

[Strong as Taishan Mountains]

Re: Evolutionary dead end

I wish for once we would focus on replacing all of this infrastructure first

It's the same here as it is for everything else, the boring stuff is all falling to pieces because our ADHD society cannot hold focus long enough to decide that maintaining anything is worth the cost.

[cyberdemon]

Re: Evolutionary dead end

That's what you get with modern democracy...

We used to have this department called the 'civil service' which would very deftly tell the minister what he wanted to hear, while quietly getting on with running the country.

Now, populist politicians are polarised and each new government will purge the civil service of anyone with anything resembling a clue, so big infrastructure projects spanning more than a couple of political terms are impossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Evolutionary dead end

We used to have this department called the 'civil service' which would very deftly tell the minister what he wanted to hear, while quietly getting on with r̶u̶n̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶r̶y̶ increasing the size of their department and inflating their gold-plated pension

FTFY

[cyberdemon]

Re: Evolutionary dead end

If you say so.

Meanwhile the ministers have no clue about anything except how to profit from the collapse of the country.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Evolutionary dead end

"Meanwhile the ministers have no clue about anything except how to profit from the collapse of the country."

I don't know about that, but they have figured out that since they write the laws, there are in a great position to make a fortune with a bit of insider trading. "Oh, that wasn't me, it was my spouse".

[MachDiamond]

Re: Evolutionary dead end

"so big infrastructure projects spanning more than a couple of political terms are impossible."

Ask people at NASA about that. A project that can't be approved and finished in one Presidential term are often terminated before completion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Evolutionary dead end.. its lies and fraud the whole way down

As someone who has been reading the California PUC reports for decades and the same for CARB (Cal Air Resources Board) you dont have to dig very far to find truly head shaking statements of utter stupidity.

In order to support even a 20% EV market share of all vehicles (not just compact cars which are a small part of the market) in the state they would have to rebuild from scratch the current state power grid. At immense cost. In a state were due to environmental regs (like CEQA) all infrastructure projects that took 2 or 3 years to build in the 1960's now take at least 10 to 15 years.to build. Assuming the permits are not tied up in courts for years. Which half the time they are. So its basically impossible to rebuild the power grid in state under current regs in any timely fashion. If at all.

And that is just one simple example. Every where you look its the same mind numbing stupidity. And corruption. But hey, CARB gets to hand out billions of dollars of "carbon credits" with zero oversight to the buddies of the CARB board members in the "green industry".

So if you look at the CARB "scientific studies" (all financed and paid for by CARB) even if every vehicle in CA was EV due to to the fact that all baseload and surge capacity has to be NG or coal (nukes cannot be built and the eco's want to rip down all the hydro dams) and you accept the most aggressive AGW models the total reduction in CO2 emissions for the state would be less that the annual growth in car emissions in just one province of China. Like Guangzhou. At the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.

As I said its stupidity all the way down. Meanwhile these same agencies have been responsible in the last few decades for some of the worst ecological disasters in the state since the 1860's.

What even funnier is that when you start discussing real numbers and real data with supporters of EVs who claim to be "scientists" and "engineers" it quickly becomes apparent that they are basically innumerate, still have no idea how orders of magnitude work, and their knowledge of power gen, economics or even basic physics is essential nil. We are talking people who flaunt their Stanford and UC Berkeley degrees here. Not people who went to City College in Bakersfield.

In case you think this is all about "saving the planet because CO2 is evil" this whole EV insanity started back in the 1970's when Jerry Browns best buddy (and election campaign manager) Tom Quinn (a rich kid trust fund baby from LA) had himself made head of CARB because he thought all cars were evil and basically everyone should use public transport with some (very expensive) EV's for special people. Like Tom Quinn. He said as much in 1978. CARB has been pushing EV's since the 1970's. At huge cost and with little take up. Because they are little more than toys for rich people. In the Bay Area most EV's are the third or fourth car in a household. As a quick drive around somewhere like Los Altos or Palo Alto will soon show.

The excuse for EV's at the time was "air pollution". The sky over LA back then was mostly brown. Its mostly blue now but almost no thanks to any reg passed by Quinns CARB. It was mostly due to Fed regs in the 1970's that had little to do with CARB and some CARB regs passed before Quinn took over and who followers have run int since.

At least in Cal EV's have been a cult fetish of rich kid eco's since the 1970's. Who over the decades have been coming up with more more outlandish reasons why their cult should be financed at immense cost to the tax payers and consumers. Like being forced to pay $6 a gallon for gas (rather than $3) even though California is sitting on oil reserves larger than Iraqs.

[blackcat]

Re: Evolutionary dead end.. its lies and fraud the whole way down

Ah, California, where the privately owned power company didn't do any maintenance which resulted in fires that killed a few people. And didn't the state then bail out the power company? (likely because the high-ups in the state govt are shareholders?)

The CA high speed rail is a classic example of these delays too. Years scratching their arses deciding the best route that appeases the largest number of their friends.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Evolutionary dead end.. its lies and fraud the whole way down..lets blame PG&E..

Those wildfires ? They were almost all caused by CARB shutting down all controlled burns back in the 1990's. Because, you know, air pollution. So after a few decades the fuel load was so great that almost every normal wildfire (this is fire country) turned into a large fire and big fires (usually caused by lightning or arson) turn into firestorms.

And over the last 30 years a combination eco loon propositions, CalEPA and the Coastal Commission made the maintenance of fire breaks almost impossible. Those fires which PG&E "caused". Those were along power line corridors where for the last twenty plus years PG&E could not cut new dozer lines, use herbicides to keep fire breaks free, or even cut trees in quite a few areas without getting permits that took months/years. If approved at all. Because, ecology you know. Yet in the last decade more sensitive habitats have been destroyed by firestorm wildfires than in the previous 100 years.

Thanks CARB. We now have the dirtiest air since the 1920's. With pollutants far more dangerous that the worst smogs of the 1960's.

PG&E are bastards. But thats because of the PUC. The state regulators makes sure there is no competition and that the state market is totally dysfuntional. The cluster f*ck of early 2000's when we had rolling blacks out and eye watering utility bill was never fixed. Because it was caused by the PUC and Sacramento in the first place.

The "High Speed" train to nowhere is another of Jerry Browns megalomaniac projects. Like the Bay Bridge Replacement that cost $10B and will fall down in the next earthquake. Not one single part of the train makes any sense. Its way beyond boondoggle. Its is literally insane. Deranged. It will never be finished. It will never carry passengers from SF to LA. And it will still cost over $50B due to the criminal incompetence of Jerry Brown.

And you thought HS2 was nuts.

But hey thats California for you. Sooner or later the bums are thrown out. For a few decades anyway. We are about due for another spasm of civic sanity after 5 decades of total stupidity.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Evolutionary dead end.. its lies and fraud the whole way down..lets blame PG&E..

"PG&E are bastards. But thats because of the PUC. The state regulators makes sure there is no competition and that the state market is totally dysfuntional. "

It's hard to have competition with power distribution. The scale to install and maintain high tension lines is very large. A bunch of smaller companies won't have the number of customers it takes to do those parts of the network. I'm also happy to not see 3-4 sets of power lines run all over town so people can choose their supplier (yeah the whole thing in countries outside the US is just middlemen, not primary infrastructure companies). The PUC is a bunch of mindless jerks. California is run by more mindless jerks that wouldn't allow PG&E to cut back foliage far enough away from transmission lines to increase safety (so they instead just shut down the lines when there's high winds). The utility companies are allowed to be run like any other corporation that's only interested in "maximizing value for the shareholders (the corporate execs that get fat stock options)". Why should PG&E be spending money on the naming rights of a sports arena? Billboards? Print advertising? It's a monopoly. I'm fine with them being a monopoly, but in exchange, they need to be regulated differently that a company making breakfast cereal. The whole lot should be the first ones with their backs against the wall when the revolution comes.

The HSR project in California is fraud to the greatest extent possible. Voter approved a bond measure with very specific conditions. One of those conditions was a private industry component to share in the costs (and any profits). No company believed that the project would ever see more than massive losses. That should have killed it off, but the politicians re-wrote the fine print and went forward with it anyway. Lots of good chums have made tons of money on studies, land acquisitions and concrete sales. The taxpayers, on the other hand, aren't feeling very comfortable when sitting down. A private company, Brightline, is supposed to be starting a service on existing tracks to go from LA to SF. The trip will take ~11hours. The way it works is that it is an overnight all-sleeper service. Have a nice G&T in the cafe car, toddle off to bed, wake up to a coffee and bun the next morning at your destination. Spend the day and take the return service rather than spending 11 hours round trip driving or a bunch of time faffing about at airports.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Evolutionary dead end.. its lies and fraud the whole way down..lets blame PG&E..and some

Now the funny thing about the PUC is that we have the worst of all possible worlds. A de-facto distribution monopoly with no economy of scale. Like they get in some states Back East. A bunch of gen cos (I've had three over the years PG&E, So Cal Ed and LADWP) with local monopolies and all act like the worst kind Communist Era state enterprise. So Cal Ed were the least deliberately nasty but they had the most common brown outs / blackouts during Santa Annas. Who needs air con during a Santa Anna..PG&E lines men have been some of the nicest guys I've met. And some were the most obnoxious jobsworths I have run into since British Rail in the 1970's.

The HSR project is going to be the biggest most expensive fraud at the taxpayers expense since the building of Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860's. But we at least got a working railroad out that one. HSR will deliver nothing of lasting value. Even in the best case scenario I could still drive SF to LA even on 101 (not 5), just over 6 hours, much faster and much cheaper than on any possible HSR. Thats without adding in the probable 3x tax payer subsidy of the ticket price.

Roll on the next California Political Rrevolution. Its been over one hundred years since the last time all the bums were thrown out. We are way over due. Its usually every 50 years but the 68'ers screwed up everything. As usual.

[stiine]

Re: Evolutionary dead end

Only for the first 13 years or 450k miles.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Evolutionary dead end

"If its to lower cost, as data has become available it is showing that on average it is more expensive to run an EV then an ICE vehicle in the US."

You need to show your work as it's in direct opposition to my data and experience. All I'm seeing is "they say", with no indication of who "they" are.

You are also glossing over the total cost of petroleum in the US which has to include endless wars and overseas military presence to secure regimes in the Middle East so there aren't serious disruptions to the world supply (the US doesn't actually get as much oil from the Middle East as it used to). It's a global commodity so any disruption to major oil production sends huge ripples across markets.

To have a base level commodity that the US relies on in the hands of other countries puts the US at a big risk. Generating electricity is input agnostic. It could come from wind/solar, fossil fuels or a steam generator running on dried cow pats. Petrol and diesel are only cost effective when produced from quality crude oil. Light/Sweet being much preferred to heavy/sour and the tar sands of Canada being the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel. The political costs might be the most expensive and the hardest to calculate.

Yes, the US produces oil domestically. The problem is no new refineries have been built in decades and they are configured to use narrow spectrums of crude that isn't found as much in the US. Saying "crude oil" is like saying "cancer". It's a catch-all term rather than a specific thing. I see lately that Sleepy Joe has blocked any drilling in the Alaskan north where there are possibly very huge reserves.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Evolutionary dead end

To have a base level commodity that the US relies on in the hands of other countries puts the US at a big risk. Generating electricity is input agnostic. It could come from wind/solar, fossil fuels or a steam generator running on dried cow pats.

A large part of EVs are reliant on China, so best of luck with the "hands of other countries" part.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Evolutionary dead end

"then there are the batteries that EVs and hybrids use which require rare earths."

Do you know that "Rare Earth" metals aren't all that rare? China has a stranglehold since the government is working with mining companies to manage excess Thorium stockpiles since Thorium is always found in the same matrix with the heavier Rare Earths. In the US, Thorium is classified as a "hazardous radioactive waste" and no mining company wants to deal with that mess. Even if they contract with a company to deal with it, they'd still be liable forever if the waste company didn't do its job properly.

[anderlan]

If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

Then we have the extra power to charge EVs. The electricity needed is comparable per mile of travel yielded.

[Duncan Macdonald]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

Not even close - the majority of the energy used in an oil refinery is thermal energy - and guess what - it is an oil refinery so they get the thermal energy by burning oil.

The push to EVs has the following major problems

1) The cost of EVs is still far higher than the cost of ICE vehicles

2) There is insufficient generation to handle a significant proportion of EVs even in windy periods where wind farms deliver maximum output (and during calm weather wind farms produce zero electricity).

3) Even if by some miracle the electricity generation was available, the distribution system is not sized to handle the additional load. The biggest problem is with local distribution in towns and cities - the cables and transformers are not sized for the additional load. As (in the UK) urban electricity distribution is done with underground cables the majority of urban roads would need to be dug up to replace the cables with bigger ones.

Current UK peak electricity demand is just under 50GW - approximately 0.75kW per person in the UK. Medium rate domestic EV chargers charge at about 7kW. There are over 33 million cars in the UK - if all were EVs charged with domestic chargers overnight the peak electricity demand by the EVs alone would be well over 200GW - over 4 times the current peak demand.

Because wind power is unreliable (the UK does get some calm days most years with very little wind power available) there has to be sufficient conventional generation (coal,oil,gas,nuclear) to cover shortages.

One further note - EV ranges are always quoted for mild conditions when the vehicle is not using heating or cooling - with an ICE vehicle heating is effectively free as it uses the waste heat from the engine - for an EV the power for heating comes directly from the same battery that powers the motor reducing the range considerably.

[graeme leggett]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

" they get the thermal energy by burning oil."

The whole point is to stop burning oil so we don't put anymore CO2 than necessary into the atmosphere.

[Roland6]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

With the death of ICE, the refineries will have plenty of gasoline - a fracking by product, to burn.

The advantage the refinery has over a car is it is large scale which simplifies the installation of carbon capture technology.

[cyberdemon]

carbon capture technology

See icon.

Can you point to ONE example of CCS that actually works?? I can only think of one: A tree. When it is old, leave it to transfer its carbon i to the soil or chop it down and build something with it. Whatever you do don't burn it or else you undo the carbon capture.

As far as I, and the editors of the Private Eye, can tell, CCS and BECCS is a convinient pipedream that allows the likes of Drax, Shell and BP to print yet more money while pretending to be "green".

But if it really is feasible to store 100 million tons of CO2 under the sea with no risk of it ever leaking out, then surely it must be possible to store a few thousand tonnes of nice solid vitrified nuclear waste under the sea with no risk of it ever leaking out.

[blackcat]

Re: carbon capture technology

The simple fact that they even think that firing drax with wood shipped over from the USA and Canada is even vaguely green shows just how broken things are. It is all sadly a grift to extract profit from the various govts which is all ultimately taxpayer funded.

[cyberdemon]

Re: carbon capture technology

Not just profit! They are actually being subsidised by the taxpayer for their tree-burning, which produces more CO2, organic, and particulate pollution per MWh than the dirtiest of dirty German brown coal.

The tories don't have the balls to cut their subsidies, mainly because they are on the list of shareholders and beneficiaries. Will Labour do any better? I hope so, but somehow I doubt it.

[blackcat]

Re: carbon capture technology

Given that Starmer has said he will keep up what the Tories are doing... nope. It is just too profitable. He's a big city lawyer/banker class just like the rest of them.

[MachDiamond]

Re: carbon capture technology

"then surely it must be possible to store a few thousand tonnes of nice solid vitrified nuclear waste under the sea with no risk of it ever leaking out."

That's not an idea I'd like to see come to fruition. I'd rather that research was done to find way of burning up that waste so minimize long term storage issues. If secure storage is only needed for 100 years, we already know how to do that and have places where it can sit for that amount of time. One of the tantalizing possibilities of LFTR reactors is they might be able to process the current stock of waste that's just sitting around. That has to be verified, certainly, but at least there is a chance and it's something worth a government spending money on rather than giving everybody a free EV or paying large corporations that don't need the money to do something they would be doing anyway if it has profit potential.

[cyberdemon]

Re: carbon capture technology

That's the same argument as Fusion though.

Of course, LFTR would be great, but let's not let it delay us in building reactors that we CAN build right away.

The only beneficiaries of the anti nuclear panic as far as I can tell, are the oil and renewables industries. And Drax, which I don't count as renewable

Of course I agree that we should be researching better fission designs though. I've said here before if only we could have spent on that instead of Fusion

[MachDiamond]

Re: carbon capture technology

"Of course, LFTR would be great, but let's not let it delay us in building reactors that we CAN build right away."

We know LFTR works. What's left is the engineering of a complete system that's economic to run rather than a prototype where money is no object. With as long as it takes to go from thinking about building a reactor to having it come on line, starting more of those projects might be a mistake if a LFTR or similar more modern design could be dramatically less expensive to build and operate. With no need for a large pressure vessel to house the reactor, the possibility of being able to generate and extract materials such as radioactive Molybdenum for medical uses could be an adjunct revenue stream of no small consequence. Being able to "burn up" decades of stored waste from PWR's could also be looked at as a revenue stream as it takes away the costs of super long term storage.

There are a bunch of PWR reactor projects underway or in limbo that could be completed in the mean time, but I'm wary of initiating even more and not doing any work with better designs because they are "unproven". This is the same as not considering an electric trolley system to take people from the airport to the underground replacing diesel busses because the busses are a proven technology and the trollies aren't. Trollies are proven, but not in the same format as what would be optimum to replace the busses.

[MachDiamond]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

"The whole point is to stop burning oil so we don't put anymore CO2 than necessary into the atmosphere."

I see it more as crude being a finite resource and we use it for so many other, more critical, products. Lots of medical products are made from plastic that's disposed of rather than something that can be autoclaved for reuse. It sounds wasteful until the cost of sterilization is calculated and then how there can be issues with it being done properly.

Epoxy is made from petroleum. Lightweight carbon fiber composites are made using epoxy. Drugs, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and on and on. If oil can be replaced as much as possible for transportation, that leaves more available for other things before it's gone.

I don't think that oil will run out, but it will continue to get more and more expensive to the point where only the most valuable things people are willing to pay for will be produced from it past a certain point.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

"if all were EVs charged with domestic chargers overnight the peak electricity demand by the EVs alone would be well over 200GW - over 4 times the current peak demand."

yep, but the grid isn't now and never has been designed to cope with a worst case scenario of everyone turning on everything all at the same time.

Average car commute round trip in the UK is about 20 miles so many EV drivers will not need to charge every day, or just need a relatively small top-up. But on the whole, I agree with you. If everyone has EVs and only charge as needed or for short top-up periods, it's still likely to pass the current grid capacity and most likely the local infrastructure capacity. At the very least, there will need to be some sort of negotiation between the car and the grid as to whether/when it can charge overnight.

[cyberdemon]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

> At the very least, there will need to be some sort of negotiation between the car and the grid as to whether/when it can charge overnight

Yes and that will lead to a loss of equality i.e. I predict there will be an auction system whereby you set your max bid for power and your car may or may not be charged in the morning, depending on the load on your local transformer and the bids placed by your neighbours.

That way, the fat cats at the electricity companies will be paid for their own incompetence - the less they invest in your infrastructure, the more money they will make!

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

We're British. It will be a queuing system. First come, first served. If you get home late at night and are at the back of the queue, don't plan on going anywhere in the morning :-)

(But of course there will be shorter "special" queues for those who can pay more.)

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

Think of it as the electrical equivalent of a toll road. Pay more for the wider, faster network If you can afford it.

Something, curiously, far more prevalent in supposedly egalitarian France than in market-driven capitalist UK.

[MachDiamond]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

"Think of it as the electrical equivalent of a toll road. Pay more for the wider, faster network If you can afford it."

Yes, but, if you could schedule your travel at any time, it makes sense to use the toll road when traffic is lightest and the tolls are the lowest.

[werdsmith]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

We're British. It will be a queuing system.

They do queuing very nicely in Disneyworld. Or you can buy a Fast Pass. Fast pass EV charging - don't give them ideas.

[Barrie Shepherd]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

Don't forget we are all going to have heat pumps as well to add to the load.

[MachDiamond]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

"At the very least, there will need to be some sort of negotiation between the car and the grid as to whether/when it can charge overnight."

There is still a vast amount of capacity going unused overnight that can be filled up. Going forward, if pricing can be sent down the lines to an EV, people can choose to have the car top up when rates are low (lots of supply vs demand) and only charge when rates are high if they must. That would go a long way to utilizing something like wind that isn't predictable.

[MachDiamond]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

"it's still likely to pass the current grid capacity and most likely the local infrastructure capacity."

It will if government forces adoption at an accelerated pace. If people move to EV's in a more organic way, it will be easier for companies to upgrade distribution as and where needed rather than having to do a big upgrade in a very short period of time long before what's being replaced will have had it's initial cost amortized.

[MachDiamond]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

"Not even close - the majority of the energy used in an oil refinery is thermal energy - and guess what - it is an oil refinery so they get the thermal energy by burning oil."

A couple do use oil (low grade) in a cogen fashion, but most use vast amounts of leccy as the primarily energy input.

[werdsmith]

Re: If have the extra power to refine more petrol...

They have a special deal with the power generators.

[WeirdlyOptimistic]

Someone is working at the 'skipping the infrastructure' problem

There is a company working on a good start for a solution. A two-seater, lightweight and aerodynamic vehicle with solar panels all over it. 40 miles or 60 km a day in ideal conditions of solar charging a day in sunny climates takes a significant load off of the charging infrastructure. That is enough charge to handle average daily commutes for most people. If you have to use a Tesla charger only once every couple months or in the middle of a long trip, it is the game changer that is needed to help the infrastructure survive the transition to EVs. Don't have your own garage, well, you are not supposed to put this vehicle in a garage. Street parking is perfectly fine for it.

Issues:

1) They are a startup that is still struggling to get financing. They are at that "close but not yet fully funded" state for production.

2) The vehicle does look quite radical, so acceptance will take time

3) 2 seats, so not for large families.

4) When will they hit the road? Summer 2024 looks possible, but startups do struggle.

Company name: Aptera

Are they the current best attempt at dealing with the problem? I think so. They are seriously trying and if they make it, they could be one of those radical "game changers'.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Someone is working at the 'skipping the infrastructure' problem

Aptera has been around for quite some time now. The concept of covering a vehicle in solar panels has been proposed many times and it still doesn't make sense. Not every facet will be flat on to the sun so won't be getting anywhere near the nameplate power generation. It also means a more complicated set of electronics so there aren't issues with shaded cells within a string. On bright sunny days I rather fancy parking in the shade so the interior of the car isn't vinyl melting hot when I get in. Leaving the car out in the sun is what I try to avoid and would rather put solar panels on the roof of the garage and store that to use to charge later or while the car is inside protected from UV damage.

In the case of something like the Aptera, its crash-worthiness would be a big question in my mind as well as stability in the wind.

[vistisen]

Re: Someone is working at the 'skipping the infrastructure' problem

Total nonstarter of an idea; Parking in a garage, or in a shadow, means that the car does not charge. neither will it charge during the night!. I have 26 solar panels at home that have a much larger surface area than a car’s body. These panels can provide almost 10 Kw in an hour at maximum output. So that would mean even if the car was the size om my solar panels, and working at maximum efficiency, then it would not be able to drive quicker than about 25 mph before it used more power that it generated. One sensible use of a solar cell on the car was on the original Nissan Leaf, where there was, I believe a solar panel on the car that generated enough power to run the air conditioning. That makes real sense. If the sun shines on the car enough to warm it up, then you can cool it down for ‘free’ without emptying your battery.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Someone is working at the 'skipping the infrastructure' problem

"and working at maximum efficiency, then it would not be able to drive quicker than about 25 mph before it used more power that it generated."

While it may have other problems, that is not one of them. It's always charging in daylight. It's not directly powered from the solar panels to the motors. There's a 10KW/h battery in there too. Night time driving over a long distance is clearly an issue, but those solar panels are extending the daylight driving distance even if they are not generating as much as you are using. I would assume it also has the option to plug in too. It's probably got at least as many use cases as those tiny little ICE 2 seater cars already on the roads. And, at least in the UK, it's classed as a "motorbike" in driving licencing terms since it's a three wheeler. I'm not au fait with the regulations on those, but if it had four wheels, I suspect it would be a non-starter across the UK and EU due to various regulations on roadworthyness and crash mitigations, eg crumple zones and how hitting a pedestrian might work out.

I like the fact they are trying out a non-standard design and look based on aerodynamics. Current EVs are incredibly "conservative" in their design. Few, if any, seem to have wanted to take a risk on an entirely new "look". It's not for me though. At least not yet. Maybe when I can afford to retire to sunnier climes!

[cyberdemon]

Re: Someone is working at the 'skipping the infrastructure' problem

Er, PV panels produce only about 200W per square metre, in ideal conditions. The amount of car that can be facing the sun at any one time is little more than 2 square metres, and as Mach said it doesn't all face directly.

Now, imagine charging your car at 300W. If you thought a 3kW "slow charger" was slow, this would take a week of good sun for just one charge.

Now, imagine how well it would do in the UK.. Where we get about 10 sunny days a year, all of them when you are stuck in a multistorey car park or under a tree full of pigeons.

It's a non-starter, but like most UK green tech startups it's highly effective at parting rich idiots from their money, and for that I congratulate them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Someone is working at the 'skipping the infrastructure' problem

"imagine how well it would do in the UK.."

Tell you what, why don't we not try to use them in the UK but leave them to people in more sunnier climes.

[cyberdemon]

Nope

Even in the sunniest places on earth, it would have very disappointing performance.

It's a gimmick, sadly.

Eventually we will all realise that the promise of EVs for everyone and having everything powered by renewable electricity was another gimmick..

The only feasible way to cut carbon emissions to what we are saying is needed, is to drastically reduce consumption i.e. not to have cars, central heating, hot showers, meat etc. at all, and to vastly reduce our numbers on this planet. I can think of one feasible path to that, it's achievable in a few years... See icon.

And then after the war it'll turn out to have been sunspots all along

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Someone is working at the 'skipping the infrastructure' problem

>Tell you what, why don't we not try to use them in the UK but leave them to people in more sunnier climes.

You aren't from around here are you?

If it doesn't work in the UK, then it obviously wouldn't work in more primitive places like Australia and Arizona.

That's the first rule of any energy discussion here...

(It's an unfortunate side effect of 500 years of everyone with get up and go, getting up and leaving)

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Someone is working at the 'skipping the infrastructure' problem

"The amount of car that can be facing the sun at any one time is little more than 2 square metres,"

You are right to be sceptical, but there's no need to go hunting for a worst case for your argument. Most car roofs are about 2 sq m, with another 1+ sq m for the bonnet/hood. That's a 50% difference in your calculations right at the outset. Taking into account the roof curvature and therefore the angle of incidence even in perfect conditions, ie noon at the equator, reduces solar cell performance a bit too, possibly as much as 7-8%. I doubt on a normal car it would be of any significant benefit, but on a very small, lightweight car such as the one being discussed, it very well may have some valid and practical use cases. I doubt they will be hugely popular if they make it onto the roads, but there are people who have a use case for tiny little 2 seater Smart cars, despite the fact many people still laugh at them even today!

[cyberdemon]

Re: Someone is working at the 'skipping the infrastructure' problem

Depends on the size of your car! What is the roof area of a "tiny little 2 seater Smart car"? I can barely imagine one square metre of useful solar panel mounted to such a vehicle..

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Someone is working at the 'skipping the infrastructure' problem

Does it? Half the roof area, probably about 2 square meters in total, roof plus bonnet and car that weighs half that of a four seater. But then, that was only a secondary observation from me. The primary one was the original quote of most cars having less than 2 sq meters, which is incorrect and leads to vastly different numbers when it turns out there's at least 50% more in reality.

[cyberdemon]

Re: Someone is working at the 'skipping the infrastructure' problem

> the original quote of most cars having less than 2 sq meters, which is incorrect and leads to vastly different numbers

The original quote was "little more than 2 square metres" which is not the same as "less than 2 square metres". And it does not lead to "vastly different numbers" it's the same order of magnitude whether its 2 square metres or 3. You are splitting hairs.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Someone is working at the 'skipping the infrastructure' problem

" but on a very small, lightweight car such as the one being discussed, it very well may have some valid and practical use cases. "

Many bog standard cars have a good 3sqm of top side that is moderately flat. The model that Apetera is showing on their website is highly curved which makes for shadowing and off-axis cells. The sun racers that drive across Australia are designed with nice big flat surfaces so they can be angled towards the sun. I can't recall if they're allowed to configure the angle while driving, but I have seen them taking a break and tilting the whole car to get as much sun as possible to recharge the batteries. The mechanism might weigh more that it's worth to angle the panels on the car. It really takes optimization to the most extreme to compete in those races.

[MachDiamond]

Cost of refining oil

Petrol doesn't come straight out of the ground. The refining of crude oil into transportation fuels is one of the biggest users of what's generated along with Ammonia production, BTW. One would think that it's not a grid melting issue that comes up since people driving an EV aren't using petrol that has an electricity input. It's not zero sum either, but likely tipping in favor of EV's. Power companies encourage charging in the wee hours when they have lots of unused capacity and EV owners take advantage of that which means more sales and better utilization in a traditionally slow time of the day.

I need to have my roof redone and when that happens, I'll have them install rail standoffs at the same time so I can install solar panels. Since I work half of the time in the field and the other half in my home office, charging an EV will be a good way to use the power from a solar installation since the feed-in tariff is crap and keeps going down. When the time comes, I'll invest in power management devices too so the last thing the system will do is export power to the grid. At that point I'll have a large tank full of hot water, the car will be charged and the house will be heated/cooled as much as I like. I don't have enough usage to justify battery storage over just paying for grid power on a time of use tariff. I'll run the numbers again when I'm at that point.

[Justthefacts]

Re: Cost of refining oil

“The feed-in tariff is crap”

FITs always belonged in the seventh circle of moronic Hell. Not because renewables themselves are intrinsically uneconomic. But because *retail renewables* are inevitably and fundamentally always less economic than *wholesale renewables* at the exact instant when they might ever be called upon.

The exact time when power companies might need to find power from elsewhere, the *one* time when it would be worth a high price is when there is neither wind nor sun. Because the power companies have access to wholesale solar farms too. So when it is very sunny, they don’t need any extra and won’t pay for it. But when it is not sunny…..you don’t have any to sell.

Ditto exactly for Wind. In the minority of the time that it is very Windy, wholesale Wind providers are saturating the power grid with cheap power. The grid really really does not want your shitty 15kW installation coming along and begging to “sell” them power, at the instant they are sending messages to all their actual providers paying them money to *stop* sending power.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Cost of refining oil

"FITs always belonged in the seventh circle of moronic Hell. Not because renewables themselves are intrinsically uneconomic. But because *retail renewables* are inevitably and fundamentally always less economic than *wholesale renewables* at the exact instant when they might ever be called upon."

There is a case to be made for residential feed-in making sense. Where I am, we are on the end of a long distribution line. As the city grows, if people are adding solar, it means those lines may not need to be upgraded for some time. I have a chest freezer in the garage that's solar powered with a battery back up and the grid backing all of that up. It was a fun project and still a work in progress. The warehouse grocery is 50 miles away so it's cost effective to buy in bulk especially when they have something on sale. It would be very un-cost effective if the power were to go out and everything in the freezer becomes suspect. The power it takes to run the freezer is minimal. Most modern chest freezers are very efficient. The big cost would be getting sick from food that thawed out and refroze or having to pitch all of the contents. All of the bits were purchased second hand or salvaged. The battery pack was made from cells I harvested from duff laptop packs. I bought the solar panel non-functional and found there was a break in the internal leads so I jumped that section out and lost a bit of performance, but got the panel so cheap it didn't matter. I'd like to do the same thing for the fridge/freezer in the kitchen. Nothing is worse than a big gulp of morning coffee only to find the milk had gone off.

[cyberdemon]

Re: Cost of refining oil

+1 for rooftop solar. It takes a load off the grid, it gives you free energy, it doesn't take up agricultural land, and it helps keep your house cool in summer as an insulation layer over your roof.

I wasn't aware of the scale of energy needed to refine petroleum though, that's an interesting point. Is the same amount of energy needed for petrol/gasoline as it is for Diesel? How does it compare to the energy required to liquefy LNG?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cost of refining oil

Debunk:

“Free energy” - The labour of installers and builders still needs to be paid. Once you factor that in, including the massive cost of fixing the inevitable leaking roof underneath a panel, 15 years down the line (a £50 job becomes £3000) it’s very much not free. Also, the inverter only has a 10 year lifetime whatever the panel is.

“It doesn’t take up agricultural land”: if we substituted UKs entire electricity supply with solar farms, that would use 200km2 which is roughly 0.1% of agricultural land. I’m not saying we should do this, but land use is just not an issue.

“Helps keep your house cool in summer”. Somewhat true. But heat-reflective panels or paint are so much cheaper, and way way more effective. In fact, if heat from the roof is a problem for you, you should already have put heat-reflection on the roof, and putting solar panel on top would make it *worse*. Because the solar panel is only partly reflecting, heats up and then traps a layer of hot air underneath that the radiative-heat-reflection can do nothing about. Solar panel only helps if you’ve already screwed up the passive design.

If you want to feel the performance difference between good passive design and ideologically driven subsidised “Green” shit, go to Iran or India. Their housing routinely deals with temperatures in the 35C+ range, passively, and feels comfortable and elegant. Architectural features like windcatchers and courtyard fountains; small windows, whitewash.

[cyberdemon]

Re: Cost of refining oil

Interesting point about the leaky roofs, I had not thought about that, but surely there must be some amount of good workmanship which can prevent that.

Who says inverters have a 10 year life? They are solid-state power electronics, they should be able to last longer than that.

I'll take your word for it on the relative insulation performance of PV panels vs reflective film. I'd argue the former are more socially acceptable and value-adding to a house though.

Your figure of 200km2 is a bit bunk though - that equates to 40GW @ 200W/m2 assuming 100% land use i.e. one big panel. You only get 200W in good sun i.e. 6 hours per day if it's not cloudy. We couldn't "power the UK" off of that.

And no, we will never have enough storage. Unlike inverters, batteries DO have a fixed lifespan. Just to maintain 1TWh of storage (of the kind we'd need to keep the lights on when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow for a few days), you'd need to replace at least 100GWh of batteries per year. And we are already draining rainforest aquifers at a staggering rate to mine the current levels of Lithium production.

Perhaps, if the land were in the middle of nowhere, it would be somewhat acceptable. But due to grid constraints, we have to put these solar farms on land near cities where it is close to the point-of-load. So it would affect a large number of people who would see themselves being surrounded by solar panels where green fields used to be.

But my main point about rooftop solar is that it reduces the grid load. Any Watt that is generated on a roof is a Watt that doesn't have to be supplied by the grid. You can't say the same for solar farms.

[blackcat]

Re: Cost of refining oil

I'd expect 25+ years from an inverter. As you say, solid state electronics. Unless they get too hot.

As for batteries, do the maths on this!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66740556

[cyberdemon]

Re: Cost of refining oil

Yep. 5 million x 2Wh vape batteries = 10MWh or 200 EVs per week being thrown in the bin, to be crushed and set fire to our recycling facilities.

That's so bad it could be considered hybrid warfare..

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cost of refining oil

I stopped someone I know throwing their exhausted vape in the bin - they didn't know/realise it was electrical waste.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cost of refining oil

Electric stogies that I have found ...

(hums King of the Road)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cost of refining oil

Even if they knew it was e-waste they probably wouldn't care. There's an inverse correlation between intelligence and vaping.

[werdsmith]

Re: Cost of refining oil

IT has Lithium battery too.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Cost of refining oil

"Who says inverters have a 10 year life? They are solid-state power electronics, they should be able to last longer than that."

If you buy cheap Chinesium, 10 years would be highly optimistic. Quality, name-brand electronics should last decades.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Cost of refining oil

"“It doesn’t take up agricultural land”: if we substituted UKs entire electricity supply with solar farms, that would use 200km2 which is roughly 0.1% of agricultural land. I’m not saying we should do this, but land use is just not an issue."

Not to mention the German experiment with vertically mounted solar panels so crops could still be grown, maintained and harvested with only a small fraction of the land lost to the panels and a pretty small drop in the panel efficiency.

Although the 200 square Km might be a bit of an underestimate.

[jmch]

Re: Cost of refining oil

I've also seen installations in Italy where panels are installed higher up (12-15ft) and citrus trees and other crops grown under them. Panels usually have gaps in between them because they're installed at an angle to optimise efficiency per panel area, and that also optimises the land area use fficiency since enough sunlight passes through for crops to grow (and also protects them from too much sun)

[MachDiamond]

Re: Cost of refining oil

"Panels usually have gaps in between them because they're installed at an angle to optimise efficiency per panel area, and that also optimises the land area use fficiency since enough sunlight passes through for crops to grow (and also protects them from too much sun)"

There's a couple of solar farms near me and they get plants growing between the lines of panels. From time to time, somebody is bringing a load of sheep to knock all of those plants back since I don't see the sheep at other times. I'm not sure if the sheep are being rented or the herder is bartering for free feed, but those installations are big fenced yards so both entities get value. Yesterday there was a flock along the main road into town where there's lots of vacant land. I expect the sheep being used as self-propelled mowers is cheaper than the diesel used in tractors. It's also good that the sheep don't eat everything since if the ground is stripped bare, the wind would move all of the top layer of soil into town. A tractor couldn't be that selective.

[Barrie Shepherd]

Re: Cost of refining oil

I'm no petrochemist but my limited understanding is that the refining of oil will still have to continue even if we don't use the petrol and diesel fractions.

We still need the other fractions for jet fuel, lubrication products, pharmaceutical products and a whole range of other chemicals so I don't get the "Stop Oil" or "EVs will save refining of oil" arguments.

Where are all the chemists when you need them?

[MachDiamond]

Re: Cost of refining oil

"I'm no petrochemist but my limited understanding is that the refining of oil will still have to continue even if we don't use the petrol and diesel fractions."

Cracking is breaking long hydrocarbon chains into small ones mostly to create petrol, diesel and jet fuel. The same process could be used to create lighter distillates of what would go into transportation fuel and cracking heavier oil would be done less. Petrol was initially a byproduct of making kerosene until a use was found for it. It really took off once the electric starter was invented and hand cranking an engine went away (along with broken arms and some deaths).

[Roland6]

Re: Cost of refining oil

>” I need to have my roof redone and when that happens, I'll have them install rail standoffs at the same time so I can install solar panels.”

Just fit solar panels and avoid the cost of new slates/tiles.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Cost of refining oil

"Just fit solar panels and avoid the cost of new slates/tiles."

I wish. It's asphalt shingles and been patched a few times. I think the tar paper underlayment wasn't repaired properly so I'd rather all of that is brought up to a good spec before I cover the roof with solar panels and find they have to come up to make repairs a year or two down the road. I'd like to have a standing seam steel roof put on. It would be lighter, take less labor to install and I think the materials are cheaper as well. Shade much of that with solar panels and the house might maintain temperature much better. The asphalt shingle have a fair amount of thermal mass but they also heat up very quickly in direct sun. I could go to gray rather than tan, but the local supply house was telling me there's rumblings about banning asphalt tiles altogether so I'd have to travel to another state to buy replacements if I needed to do repairs in future. Gray wouldn't work with the house color so I'd need to repaint too.

[Scene it all]

I looked at my typical driving pattern and decided to install the smaller 4 KW charging port in my garage. I do set my BEV to only charge at night even though we do not have time-of-day billing, just to be a good citizen. TOD is offered, but we do not have enough shiftable load to make it worth while and in fact it would cost us more.

[Anonymous Coward]

apples and (im)perfect oranges

I don't know about deploying new infrastructure but I can spot the Nirvana Falllacy being rolled out in this comment section.

People seem to be relying a lot on current state of battery tech and solar generation and EVs to raise objections, rather than allowing for improvements in efficiency/capacity that can come. eg more energy dense batteries which means you're using less energy to shift them around, improving solar panel output. EV might be more costly per mile this year but less in five years.

There's also an assumption that reduction in ICE vehicles is achieved solely by replacing them one-for-one, and mile-for-mile with EVs. If you could for example replace 10% of journeys with other means which are (say) 5x more efficient of energy then that would be equivalent 8% drop.

I consider myself pragmatic enough that I don't advocate that all current driving cases be solved by EVs but nor that those cases should also be anchor stopping EVs being used where they can.

[blackcat]

Re: apples and (im)perfect oranges

Yeah and no. There are theoretical limits to efficiencies and power densities and while there is some way to go we're probably not going to see huge leaps.

Perovskite solar cells are likely the next jump and they are about 25-30% better than silicon but we're still talking ~30% total conversion. Production costs should be a lot lower though, so bonus there.

Sodium ion batteries might hugely reduce the raw material issue but they are not as energy dense as lithium. Again lower cost.

[MachDiamond]

Re: apples and (im)perfect oranges

"Sodium ion batteries might hugely reduce the raw material issue but they are not as energy dense as lithium. Again lower cost."

Energy density is only a factor if you have limited space or the mass is a problem. Fuel cells for cars are massively expensive since they need to be made from more exotic materials to keep the size and weight down, but fixed installation cells are far less expensive per watt.

Reuse of EV packs for fixed installation is still a good use of them until there is so much degradation that they need to be recycled. That could push Sodium-Ion aside at some point in the future depending on all sorts of variables.

[blackcat]

Re: apples and (im)perfect oranges

For fixed applications you should probably be looking at flow batteries. Tesla goes with Lithium Ion as that is what they do.

Some EVs are now moving to LiFePo4 batteries. The new MG is going down that route. Energy density is not quite as good but the extended life is a major plus.

Sodium Ion solves so many of the Lithium issues. Don't need to destroy the earth to 'save' it, less explody, life appears very similar and potentially much cheaper.

The re-use of end of life EV packs for grid storage is utter pie in the sky bollocks. Usually a pack is replaced due to a single cell stack going bad which means it can't be used 'as is'. Manufacturers are constantly changing the internals of their packs so there is no continuity of interfaces. I think the Tesla model Y has a glued together pack so service is near impossible. Unless you have a steady supply of identical EVs that have been retired for non-battery related issues it just isn't going to work.

It is like V2G. Just a silly distraction from actually solving problems. The infrastructure costs (£ and environmental) needed for V2G hugely outweighs the gains.

[cyberdemon]

Re: apples and (im)perfect oranges

I had to look up Nirvana Fallacy but I think "net zero through electrification of everything" fits the definition provided to me by Google..

The trouble with Lithium Batteries is that they became too good too quickly. The scientists involved (some of whom I know personally) stumbled upon what is electrochemically just about the best battery possible. Everyone assumed that the tech would improve at a comparable rate to other tech, but it hasn't, because we found the best chemistry so early on.

Now, we are tweaking and perfecting the engineering, but not the science. We cannot increase power density without sacrificing energy density or safety. We can't increase safety without sacrificing power or energy density. It's just a classic "Engineering Triangle".

[graeme leggett]

Re: apples and (im)perfect oranges

Lithium sulfide batteries look to have double the energy/weight performance of current lithium-based batteries.

If you can take a 1/2 ton battery down to 250 kg then that's a substantial benefit.

Even if you used a 1/2 ton of LiS batteries instead but it meant you don't have to dig for cobalt that could be a cost and environmental benefit

PS Yes, I did pass on your strawman.

[cyberdemon]

Re: apples and (im)perfect oranges

> PS Yes, I did pass on your strawman.

Would that be the flaming, stinking strawman? LiS batteries are well known for exploding violently without warning, much worse than NMC Lithium batteries. They burned down a whole building on the site where I used to work.

[MachDiamond]

Re: apples and (im)perfect oranges

"Now, we are tweaking and perfecting the engineering, but not the science. We cannot increase power density without sacrificing energy density or safety. We can't increase safety without sacrificing power or energy density. It's just a classic "Engineering Triangle"."

Don't forget number of cycles, calendar life, temperature tolerance and cost.

Energy density may be close to tops when considering many of the other factors. That doesn't mean that there aren't improvements to be made elsewhere in the system as a whole. What's the mass difference between a glass roof, sheet steel or aluminum? Tyres with lower rolling resistance. Aerodynamics (not just making the door handles a point of failure). I could do without 90% of the "features" that makers are loading into the latest EV's. Power windows, a basic key fob and a backup camera are about as fancy as I need.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: apples and (im)perfect oranges

What's the mass difference between a glass roof, sheet steel or aluminum?

Largely irrelevant when you're dragging half a ton of batteries around.

[MachDiamond]

Re: apples and (im)perfect oranges

'Largely irrelevant when you're dragging half a ton of batteries around."

Sure, if that's all of the changes you will be doing, but in context of adding lightness in a bunch of different ways, it could be a large component.

I'm not a fan of glass roofs anyway. I can't be enjoying the view while driving and I don't have a large group of attractive multi-cultural friends as they show in all of the ads with big smiles and necks tilted to look at all of the tall trees that don't exist in the desert where I live. I'd rather have the shade and less wallet risk if something were to impact the roof.

[jmch]

Re: apples and (im)perfect oranges

"The trouble with Lithium Batteries is that they became too good too quickly. The scientists involved (some of whom I know personally) stumbled upon what is electrochemically just about the best battery possible. Everyone assumed that the tech would improve at a comparable rate to other tech, but it hasn't, because we found the best chemistry so early on."

Lithium batteries have improved a huge amount since they were discovered. About 10% per year for approx 10 years I believe, which is pretty good.

"Now, we are tweaking and perfecting the engineering, but not the science."

Not sure where you're getting that. There is extensive scientific research in new battery types, including the identification of compounds to target for future research and development. There are plenty of lithium alternatives being actively designed and worked-on, eg Sodium-air, Aluminium-graphene etc.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Thanksgiving test

My vote for the electric grid test in the US is Thanksgiving. It's a single day of nearly mandatory family gathering, electric cooking ranges will be running, everyone needs to recharge so they're ready for Black Friday sales, and it's not a good time for personal solar power.

I've experienced a couple of blackouts on Thanksgiving recently. Oddly, they were caused by neglected maintenance rather than high loads.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Thanksgiving test

Family gatherings tend to reduce load, because instead of using discretionary power at two (or more) households, you're using it at one. Cooking a meal for a bunch of guests means they're not doing their own cooking at the same time. National holidays reduce power consumption at workplaces. November in the US reduces A/C power consumption.

As for personal solar, it's negligible at grid scale. The EIA says that residential PV installations in 2021 were under 4 GW total capacity. Even if that's all producing as much as possible, averaging 12 hours/day, that's 48 GWh. US electrical consumption in 2022 was over 4000 TWh. Five orders of magnitude – residential PV is a rounding error as far as the grid's concerned.

(And some of us have gas ranges. Some of us also ignore the annual festival of stupidity called "Black Friday".)

[Barrie Shepherd]

Can the Grid and Street Distribution handle it.

A good video from Paul Jewell, System Development Manager at National Grid, telling us whether the grid in the UK will be able to cope with the significant increase in electric vehicles and heat pumps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uG4xv3oLeQ

[blackcat]

Re: Can the Grid and Street Distribution handle it.

The 'we are OK' figures I've seen rely on some very serious averages to work. Life doesn't work on averages. The IET, who should know a thing or two about electrics as they write the regs, say the UK electricity network as a whole needs many billions of upgrades.

[munnoch]

Re: Can the Grid and Street Distribution handle it.

I couldn't make it all the way through the video, the stupid couple and the slightly less stupid Captain of Industry were unbearable. But what I got from the first quarter was they are going to solve the capacity problem by running 3ph to the front door of all new builds. Great, problem solved.

[jmch]

Re: Can the Grid and Street Distribution handle it.

"The 'we are OK' figures..."... "the UK electricity network as a whole needs many billions of upgrades"

What I got from the video isn't "we're OK", it's "we're putting in as big distribution cables as possible into the ground and connected to consumers as quickly as possible so we should be OK", i.e. yes the network needs billions in upgrades, we're working on that.

Re Peak vs Average, of course they need to handle peak load, but also part of that is encouraging use distribution so that the peaks / troughs aren't too big and the variance from average is as small as possible.

[Anonymous Coward]

The electric cult

It’s all going to end in tears.

Mark my words.

- The ICE man.

[cyberdemon]

Re: The electric cult

Is it all a clever psyop to weaken western nations before WWIII drops? Or is it just incompetence with a lot of greed and corruption thrown in? We'll probably never know. Hanlon's Razor is getting blunt and rusty these days.

[blackcat]

Re: The electric cult

Germany seems to be edging closer to an all electric future faster than the rest of us. I foresee an uptick in wood stoves, open fireplaces etc. which are FAR worse for the environment than gas. Every time a govt tries to 'help' there is always some cursed monkey paw type ballsup.

There are stories of people going into the forests in Germany and cutting down trees for firewood last winter after the nordstream got cut off.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The electric cult

Burning of coal or "wet" wood was banned in the UK in 2021 (garden bonfires are exempt for the moment). There have been noises about banning logburning stoves and open fires completely, but the powers-that-be have shied away from it so far. It may come in for the various "zero-emission" zones popping up around the country first.

[werdsmith]

Re: The electric cult

The powers that be run nice big old Aga ranges in their various kitchens.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The electric cult

You can ban whatever you like, but can you enforce said ban? That takes staff and staff cost money. We've come to the point where, economically, it just makes sense to cook on a fire in your back yard - whether that's a BBQ, fire pit, or whatever else takes your fancy. That's progress for you, nearly back in caves. Just needs a grid failure to seal the deal.