Do you think that the UK switching to electric vehicles is realistic?

[JamesT]

One more thing about using a car to sell back power to the grid; even if someone isn't so keen on that idea, what about having your car able to power your home in the event of a power cut? That's a very real benefit that I am sure a lot of people have never thought of because a home battery can be quite expensive - but if you buy an EV, you've bought yourself a home battery on wheels!

Though the standard setup for homes that have their own generation is that your house would be shut down if there was a power cut. As the electricity company needs to know the local network is off when they're doing repairs. I believe you can get setups where you physically disconnect and run standalone, but it's definitely not the norm.

 

[trebor79]

Also, I can't refuel my petrol car at home, so if you got an EV that has rapid charging (like those from Kia/Hyundai) then it still isn't a ridiculous idea to own one and charge it before you get home or before a long journey - like an ICE vehicle. Yes, it would require a bit more planning - but if it saved you loads of money...

One more thing about using a car to sell back power to the grid; even if someone isn't so keen on that idea, what about having your car able to power your home in the event of a power cut? That's a very real benefit that I am sure a lot of people have never thought of because a home battery can be quite expensive - but if you buy an EV, you've bought yourself a home battery on wheels!

That's not at straightforward as it sounds. The issue with powering your home from a battery in a power cut is that you need to isolate your home from the grid, or have a switch that can be tripped by the grid operator. Otherwise the people working on the grid repairing faults might be working on equipment made live by you, and/or your car ends up attempting to power lots of properties.
A guy down the road has 2 wind turbines. During a power cut his G99 switch failed for some reason and his house stayed connected. All sorts of weird things happened - my router, laptop and monitor kept working, the TV didn't. The lights worked. If I turned the kettle on the neon light in the base lit up but the kettle didn't get hot.

How "real" a benefit that is depends very much on how often you experience power cuts at home. In most UK urban areas that's "pretty much never", whereas in rural areas with primarily above-ground local distribution it's "quite often".

In my current house, which I've lived in for 11 years now, I've never experienced one at all, though I have noticed the cooker clock having reset itself once so there was probably a short one overnight.

A power cut that occurs less than every 11 years is enough to go into the "no point bothering to mitigate" bucket, particularly given that, unless the power cut covers a wide enough area to knock mobile coverage out*, I can still work for about 8 hours on my laptop battery using my mobile phone for Internet connectivity.

* This is very, very, very rare. It did happen during the Lancaster floods some years ago.

Indeed. We're in a rural area and frequent power cuts are a fact of life. If it gets a bit windy odds on the power will go off, even if only very briefly. Unfortunately we seem to have a particularly sensitive RCD which invariably trips if there's any power cut. So if we're away from home I ahbe to get the neighbours to check my consumer unit lest my the freezer defrost.

 

[jon0844]

Though the standard setup for homes that have their own generation is that your house would be shut down if there was a power cut. As the electricity company needs to know the local network is off when they're doing repairs. I believe you can get setups where you physically disconnect and run standalone, but it's definitely not the norm.

Correct, you do have to have measures to ensure you're not feeding electricity back into the grid which could cause problems for anyone doing work nearby (it may even be a legal requirement?). To power your home, you'd be either switching over your supply input - or more likely just running selected items from the vehicle.

It all depends what you want to do. Have it as a backup for the power going down, or a more permanent solution where you can sell power. I doubt I'd bother with the latter, at least not unless I had solar panels to charge the car for free (otherwise you'd be messing around paying to charge and selling, and the varying costs based on time of day etc) but having a giant power bank on the drive...

Perhaps I bigged it up a little too much, but it is definitely going to be useful to have. We've had only a few power cuts in recent years, but some were quite lengthy. There seem to be more storms, so a higher chance of more issues to some people in rural areas - but towns are not safe. Remember the fairly recent outage that covered multiple counties north of London, covering many thousands of homes and being off for 3-6 hours.

Even if you had to run an extension lead from your car into the house to power a cooker/microwave, air conditioner, TV, router or whatever (maybe just charging devices) you'd be thankful. Maybe heat up your water.

The fact is, it will likely become a standard feature (currently it's usually optional or only on higher-end models) so if you want it, fine, if not - no matter.

It will be good for people camping too.

 

[Mawkie]

Vehicle to grid seems to be a weirdly contentious subject! I recently read a report that said personal cars are parked for 96% of the time, but even if we ignore that fact, there are vast amounts of commercial vehicles that could be made available to balance the load on the grid. The local DPD Depot near me being a case in point when this depot eventually becomes electric - multiply this by the 1000s of depots around the country and you can start to see the benefits.

 

[AM9]

Off grid energy from a battery, (EV or fixed) needs specific switchgear to completely isolate the property including neutral and ground connections. That must disconnect within 5 seconds and only attempt to reconnect when the grid supply is up and running. Such an installation would need specific permission from the DNO.
Reducing grid import energy/exporting is a far easier to do and only needs MSC certification from an installer provided the peak output is not greater than 3680kWH.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The other useful thing is that banks of used EV batteries can be used for grid storage, so even when their capacity drops below the point they would be useful in an EV they still have a purpose.

The more we move to renewables and nuclear, the more this is needed, and a shed full of used batteries that already existed is better for the environment than multiple Dinorwigs.

 

[MattRat]

They will be realistic only if an alternative is not found, and personally I don't want to live in that sort of world. I don't want good enough, I want the best possible, and other people do too. I just don't see batteries ever offering that.

 

[Ken H]

How "real" a benefit that is depends very much on how often you experience power cuts at home. In most UK urban areas that's "pretty much never", whereas in rural areas with primarily above-ground local distribution it's "quite often".

In my current house, which I've lived in for 11 years now, I've never experienced one at all, though I have noticed the cooker clock having reset itself once so there was probably a short one overnight.

A power cut that occurs less than every 11 years is enough to go into the "no point bothering to mitigate" bucket, particularly given that, unless the power cut covers a wide enough area to knock mobile coverage out*, I can still work for about 8 hours on my laptop battery using my mobile phone for Internet connectivity.

* This is very, very, very rare. It did happen during the Lancaster floods some years ago.

we have about 2 a year. Our circuit goes onto the moors as a pole route. so often goes 'phut!'

 

[cjmillsnun]

Given the significant obstacles involved with using electric cars and the massive change in infrastructure that would be required do you think it’s practical.

I’m especially thinking of those that live in blocks of flats that have no choice but to park on the street or those who do long distance commuting and it may not be practical to stop mid journey to charge up.

Long distance commuting is fine. I was putting on 30k miles in a Renault Zoe a year just commuting before the pandemic. But there needs to be a seismic shift in the charging infrastructure. In short we desperately need more destination charging. Rapid charging provision is increasing at about the rate it needs to.

Cars sit around idle most of the time. Provide enough destination charging and range won’t be an issue for most. But it’s going to require car park owners to make that investment with little initial return. Tesco have put 4 destination chargers at most of their extra stores. This isn’t enough and they should charge for their use. Workplaces need to provide destination charging and yes charge employees for its use.

With this type of charging provided EVs will become practical to most people.

 

[jon0844]

There's money to be made from offering charging infrastructure, so the switched on companies are realising this and investing - and it's also providing a lot of employment opportunities (not just installing chargers, but servicing and maintaining batteries, management systems and all the other equipment - whether for cars, or indeed homes and offices with batteries, solar etc).

I am sure more businesses will want in on this industry, and we'll see a huge growth. While ICE cars won't cease to exist in 2030 obviously, we'll have absolutely shifted to the majority of new cars being EV and it being common sense that these are the vehicles worth supporting.

Those who fight EVs and try and keep us using ICE vehicles forever will eventually go the way of the dinosaur. There's simply no way it isn't going to happen - we can just debate when.

 

[StKeverne1497]

Correct, you do have to have measures to ensure you're not feeding electricity back into the grid which could cause problems for anyone doing work nearby (it may even be a legal requirement?). To power your home, you'd be either switching over your supply input - or more likely just running selected items from the vehicle.

Of course, hundreds of "small scale generation" units disconnecting from the grid was one of the reasons the power went off in August 2019 stranding all those Class 700 and 717 EMUs (see below). It's a while since I looked at it (here's the final report) but from memory National Grid had about 1GW of reserve to call on (equivalent to the largest single generator in use at the time), but within about a second of the lightning strike which started everything they had lost some 500MW (estimated as it's not metered) of "embedded small scale generation", Hornsea wind farm also disconnected, and Little Barford power station disconnected all generators over a period of about 90 seconds for a total loss of around 1,900MW.

It's possible that without the loss of embedded generation the 1GW on immediate reserve would have been sufficient to stop the frequency dipping low enough to trigger the shutdown of the trains - their power was never disconnected but because of a misconfiguration following a software update, the change in frequency caused them to "lock out", and they could not be rebooted by their drivers.

The obvious answer is for National Grid to have had additional reserve in hand, but it's almost impossible to predict how much embedded generation will disconnect itself under fault conditions. Anyway, back to the plot...

If you want to use a battery (of any description) to help power the house in a power cut you need to have a split supply, so that when you go stand-alone (disconnected from the grid) the inverter - which is unlikely to be bigger than 10kW - doesn't try to run your electric shower, kettle and oven. It's something that is often done commercially or in hospitals, for example, where some circuits are "protected" - that is connected to batteries and/or generators - and others are not.

We live in a semi-rural area where short power cuts (of a minute or less) are fairly common. Occasionally - once every couple of years - we have a longer power cut (not counting planned outages), usually when something brings down the overhead cable which runs to the single transformer which powers the whole village. I have therefore always had certain equipment running from cheap UPS units; the sort sold for computers. These (I have three at the moment) keep a light or two on and keep the network equipment, desktops and DECT phones running. I did try one on the central heating boiler a few years ago, but the old-type pump didn't like the "modified sine wave" my cheap unit was putting out. Since then I've also bought a "pure sine wave" UPS and my central heating pumps are all inverter-driven, so I suppose it might be time to try it again. The Lead-acid batteries they use only last five or six years (when you test them, they hold up for a minute where previously they'd have done 15 or more) but are fairly easy to replace, if an annoying ongoing cost.

Car batteries as grid storage are not a bad idea so long as the control system keeps a (settable by you) minimum charge level in the car. People with solar PV are already fitting house batteries, I think because with current tariffs it's more economic to store any excess generated during the day in your own battery for use during the night than it is to export it immediately to the grid and then "buy it back" later. My idea for fitting caravans with car batteries is better still!

To go back a fairly long time, the Centre for Alternative Technology near Machynlleth was always intended to be off-grid, and they had a whole shed full of Lead-acid batteries storing the output from their many solar panels, wind turbines and water wheels and turbines. Some years ago they reassessed this and realised that - even with the generation mix of the grid then (it used a lot more coal) - it was actually less environmentally damaging (in terms of the manufacture and disposal of hundreds of Lead-acid batteries) to "store" their generation in the grid. As a bonus it was also cheaper. I wonder if they have looked at this again more recently with the advent of Lithium batteries and the increase in renewably-generated grid electricity?

Edit: also remembered a book I read called The New Autonomous House. Architects Robert and Brenda Vale (who were also involved with the Hockerton sustainable housing project) tried to build a "normal" house that was off-grid. It is a fascinating read to learn how they managed with no more heating than a small log burner, composting toilets and a self-built filtration system for rainwater, but they, too, decided against batteries, instead "storing" the output of their PV in the national grid.

 

[Ken H]

Of course, hundreds of "small scale generation" units disconnecting from the grid was one of the reasons the power went off in August 2019 stranding all those Class 700 and 717 EMUs (see below). It's a while since I looked at it (here's the final report) but from memory National Grid had about 1GW of reserve to call on (equivalent to the largest single generator in use at the time), but within about a second of the lightning strike which started everything they had lost some 500MW (estimated as it's not metered) of "embedded small scale generation", Hornsea wind farm also disconnected, and Little Barford power station disconnected all generators over a period of about 90 seconds for a total loss of around 1,900MW.

It's possible that without the loss of embedded generation the 1GW on immediate reserve would have been sufficient to stop the frequency dipping low enough to trigger the shutdown of the trains - their power was never disconnected but because of a misconfiguration following a software update, the change in frequency caused them to "lock out", and they could not be rebooted by their drivers.

The obvious answer is for National Grid to have had additional reserve in hand, but it's almost impossible to predict how much embedded generation will disconnect itself under fault conditions. Anyway, back to the plot...

If you want to use a battery (of any description) to help power the house in a power cut you need to have a split supply, so that when you go stand-alone (disconnected from the grid) the inverter - which is unlikely to be bigger than 10kW - doesn't try to run your electric shower, kettle and oven. It's something that is often done commercially or in hospitals, for example, where some circuits are "protected" - that is connected to batteries and/or generators - and others are not.

We live in a semi-rural area where short power cuts (of a minute or less) are fairly common. Occasionally - once every couple of years - we have a longer power cut (not counting planned outages), usually when something brings down the overhead cable which runs to the single transformer which powers the whole village. I have therefore always had certain equipment running from cheap UPS units; the sort sold for computers. These (I have three at the moment) keep a light or two on and keep the network equipment, desktops and DECT phones running. I did try one on the central heating boiler a few years ago, but the old-type pump didn't like the "modified sine wave" my cheap unit was putting out. Since then I've also bought a "pure sine wave" UPS and my central heating pumps are all inverter-driven, so I suppose it might be time to try it again. The Lead-acid batteries they use only last five or six years (when you test them, they hold up for a minute where previously they'd have done 15 or more) but are fairly easy to replace, if an annoying ongoing cost.

Car batteries as grid storage are not a bad idea so long as the control system keeps a (settable by you) minimum charge level in the car. People with solar PV are already fitting house batteries, I think because with current tariffs it's more economic to store any excess generated during the day in your own battery for use during the night than it is to export it immediately to the grid and then "buy it back" later. My idea for fitting caravans with car batteries is better still!

To go back a fairly long time, the Centre for Alternative Technology near Machynlleth was always intended to be off-grid, and they had a whole shed full of Lead-acid batteries storing the output from their many solar panels, wind turbines and water wheels and turbines. Some years ago they reassessed this and realised that - even with the generation mix of the grid then (it used a lot more coal) - it was actually less environmentally damaging (in terms of the manufacture and disposal of hundreds of Lead-acid batteries) to "store" their generation in the grid. As a bonus it was also cheaper. I wonder if they have looked at this again more recently with the advent of Lithium batteries and the increase in renewably-generated grid electricity?

The problem is that much generation is made by static inverters, rather than rotating machines, i.e alternators.
Rotating machines have intertia so their frequency does not drop off a cliff when they are given a large extra load.
Static inverters will just follow the grid frequency downward, which is what happened in Aug 2019. So in an emergency, the frequency is unstable.
How we fix that I dont know. Flywheels? more alternator generation?

 

[Bald Rick]

One more thing about using a car to sell back power to the grid

the beauty of this is that it will be possible for many people to make money if they have their car plugged in most of the time and have the right technology.

windy night or sunny day, wholesale price low, fill the battery.

next morning peak load, wholesale price high, sell sell sell.

if you have a 60kwh battery in the car, and know you only need to keep, say, 20 in reserve, it’s conceivable you could make a tenner a day on a good day.

 

[trebor79]

The problem is that much generation is made by static inverters, rather than rotating machines, i.e alternators.
Rotating machines have intertia so their frequency does not drop off a cliff when they are given a large extra load.
Static inverters will just follow the grid frequency downward, which is what happened in Aug 2019. So in an emergency, the frequency is unstable.
How we fix that I dont know. Flywheels? more alternator generation?

Yes flywheels are a solution. In fact there are a couple of projects in Scotland doing exactly that and National Grid will offer contacts for such frequency stabilisation projects.

 

[Bald Rick]

Terrific article on the BBC about the subject:

Fuel prices: Could I save money driving an electric car?

As petrol and diesel prices continue to increase, interest in electric vehicles is rising

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Sonik]

The "grid" as in 'National grid' can cope with likely demand from EVs & according to those whose heads would roll if it didn't.

If that's true, then how come renewable generators get paid massive sums for curtailing their output, at the same time we are burning fossil fuels to support load elsewhere?

I think NG are being more than a little disingenuous here. Their assertion is based on modeling of a hypothetical scenario, but the real world isn't perfect.

And as others have pointed out, the bigger issue isn't NG, it's the DNO networks. These networks are already much more stressed, and by virtue of their complexity and geographical diversity, will be much, much more difficult to re-balance, whether through reinforcement or 'smart grid' means.

And then there's heat pumps...

 

[StKeverne1497]

If that's true, then how come renewable generators get paid massive sums for curtailing their output, at the same time we are burning fossil fuels to support load elsewhere?

One reason (among several) is that lot of renewable generation is in Scotland and transmission links between Scotland and the rest of the UK are not able to cope. The traditional 400kV and 275kV links are now supplemented with a Western HVDC link and an Eastern link is also proposed, which will help enormously in bringing electricity from where it is generated to where it is needed (the heavily populated parts of England), and any further surplus could potentially be sent directly to Europe via Norway, instead of England.

Other than using the generation immediately or exporting it, what are the alternatives? One proposal being seriously considered is to use surplus generation to produce "green" Hydrogen which can then either be injected into the gas grid (not always viable as renewable generation facilities are not often near gas pipelines) or stored for later use in combustion engines when the wind isn't blowing, the sun isn't shining or the rain isn't falling.

 

[Sonik]

One reason (among several) is that lot of renewable generation is in Scotland and transmission links between Scotland and the rest of the UK are not able to cope. The traditional 400kV and 275kV links are now supplemented with a Western HVDC link and an Eastern link is also proposed, which will help enormously in bringing electricity from where it is generated to where it is needed (the heavily populated parts of England), and any further surplus could potentially be sent directly to Europe via Norway, instead of England.

Other than using the generation immediately or exporting it, what are the alternatives? One proposal being seriously considered is to use surplus generation to produce "green" Hydrogen which can then either be injected into the gas grid (not always viable as renewable generation facilities are not often near gas pipelines) or stored for later use in combustion engines when the wind isn't blowing, the sun isn't shining or the rain isn't falling.

So in other words, the grid is not able to cope, hence it needs substantial reinforcement? I'm struggling to reconcile this with the paternalistic platitudes emanating from NG; it's treating the public like Imelda Marcos.

Don't get me wrong, I think the problem is entirely fixable. But some people are clearly being less than completely honest - personally I think it would be better if they said 'yes it's an issue but no problem we can fix it' otherwise they leave holes in their argument for naysayers to pick up on, making it more difficult to deal with what needs to be done. You can easily foresee a future media furore over the consumer being made to pay for upgrades that they have been promised were not needed.

And failure here is not really an option.

 

[The Ham]

So in other words, the grid is not able to cope, hence it needs substantial reinforcement? I'm struggling to reconcile this with the paternalistic platitudes emanating from NG; it's treating the public like Imelda Marcos.

Don't get me wrong, I think the problem is entirely fixable. But some people are clearly being less than completely honest - personally I think it would be better if they said 'yes it's an issue but no problem we can fix it' otherwise they leave holes in their argument for naysayers to pick up on, making it more difficult to deal with what needs to be done. You can easily foresee a future media furore over the consumer being made to pay for upgrades that they have been promised were not needed.

And failure here is not really an option.

Whilst the exact layout of the grid may not suite future layout requirements (and so need fixing), it also has to be remembered that currently the grid is supplying less electricity than it was a decade ago. Mostly due to much more energy efficient products.

Yes there's going to be changes as tone goes on, however it's going to be mostly tinkering based on where there's generation where there wasn't so much before.

Even at a local level there's going to be a need for changes, however many of those are likely to be upgraded as existing kit get life expired. As we've got a bit of time before even 20% of cars are pluggable (currently about 2%).

Whilst there'll be some areas where those upgrades are needed faster, chances are some of those upgrades will be (at least in part) funded by those print in faster (3 phase split required) chargers.

Also, on the matter of heat pumps, it could be possible (at least in the short term) to provide a percentage of their electricity from gas generation and it still produce less carbon emissions than the gas boilers being replaced. Of course, if the boiler being replaced is an oil fired one then the benefits are even greater.

 

[rangersac]

Terrific article on the BBC about the subject:

Fuel prices: Could I save money driving an electric car?

As petrol and diesel prices continue to increase, interest in electric vehicles is rising

www.bbc.co.uk

It's mostly decent but the statement "Drivers also need a dedicated home charging unit, costing between £550 and £1,100. A normal three-pin plug socket will work in an emergency but will be much slower." is utter nonsense. My family is two car, one PHEV and one BEV. Between them we have driven close to 100K miles and have never once used anything larger than a 15A supply

 

[Sonik]

Whilst the exact layout of the grid may not suite future layout requirements (and so need fixing), it also has to be remembered that currently the grid is supplying less electricity than it was a decade ago. Mostly due to much more energy efficient products.

Yes there's going to be changes as tone goes on, however it's going to be mostly tinkering based on where there's generation where there wasn't so much before.

Even at a local level there's going to be a need for changes, however many of those are likely to be upgraded as existing kit get life expired. As we've got a bit of time before even 20% of cars are pluggable (currently about 2%).

Whilst there'll be some areas where those upgrades are needed faster, chances are some of those upgrades will be (at least in part) funded by those print in faster (3 phase split required) chargers.

Also, on the matter of heat pumps, it could be possible (at least in the short term) to provide a percentage of their electricity from gas generation and it still produce less carbon emissions than the gas boilers being replaced. Of course, if the boiler being replaced is an oil fired one then the benefits are even greater.

I don't disagree with any of that, it's the messaging I find objectionable.

But then NG is a private company, that has a total monopoly position on energy distribution in much of the UK (electricity and gas) so it's hardly surprising. They know that if (when) problems arise, solutions will have to be found and ultimately consumers will pay for it, so it's not really NG's problem.

TLDR: be careful what you interpret from peoples comments/position, regardless of their seeming authority on the subject.

 

[AM9]

If that's true, then how come renewable generators get paid massive sums for curtailing their output, at the same time we are burning fossil fuels to support load elsewhere?

I think NG are being more than a little disingenuous here. Their assertion is based on modeling of a hypothetical scenario, but the real world isn't perfect.

And as others have pointed out, the bigger issue isn't NG, it's the DNO networks. These networks are already much more stressed, and by virtue of their complexity and geographical diversity, will be much, much more difficult to re-balance, whether through reinforcement or 'smart grid' means.

And then there's heat pumps...

Your argument seems based on treating the UK electricity system as a fixed installation that will be overwhelmed in the near future by the demands of EV charging. Firstly, as has been said here, plug-in vehicles represent 2% of the total, So supply is not an issue at present. The supply is primarily designed to satisfy transient demand, i.e where energy is needed when it is used. The whole supply network is not fixed and is in a constant state of development.
Road vehicles use their own stored energy, be it hydrocarbons or stored in their batteries which is why their charging regime will be regulated. Certain features to ensure this are already mandated in charger designs and their conditions of use will determine the priority the EVs get with respect to existing essential energy uses.
Take note that most supply systems in a developed economy are designed to meet anticipated demand, including that for road vehicle fuel. Whenever there is a hiatus in oil products supply, there is panic buying which effectively transfers the supply from bulk storage to vehicle fuel tanks, as happened in the naughties when an industrial dispute prevented deliveries to service stations.
Finally, your later post's assertion that "if (when) problems arise, solutions will have to be found and ultimately consumers will pay for it", is a strange position to take. In a capitalist environment, consumers pay for everything, either when purchasing goods/services or through taxes. Which pot of money do you think should pay for national infrastructure?

 

[Sonik]

Finally, your later post's assertion that "if (when) problems arise, solutions will have to be found and ultimately consumers will pay for it", is a strange position to take. In a capitalist environment, consumers pay for everything, either when purchasing goods/services or through taxes. Which pot of money do you think should pay for national infrastructure?

Like I said above I don't have a problem with it and I know improvements will be done incrementally and paid for by the consumer. I have personally been involved with multi-megawatt connections so I have some idea of the challenges and costs involved.

What I find objectionable is NG making statements to the effect that the issue doesn't exist, when they better than anyone know that it does. Contrast this with NR for example who are quite open about the issues and the need for major investment.

 

[The Ham]

Like I said above I don't have a problem with it and I know improvements will be done incrementally and paid for by the consumer. I have personally been involved with multi-megawatt connections so I have some idea of the challenges and costs involved.

What I find objectionable is NG making statements that the issue doesn't exist, when they better than anyone know that it does.

Let's take a different example, my car could breakdown at any point. Now all the time that I own it people could make statements like your car is going to breakdown, if I then reply saying that it's not a problem then who is right?

If I did no maintenance, ignored rattles and warning lights and didn't have plans on how to replace it then it's arguable that the other person would be right I would need to consider what I'm doing.

However with good planning the risk of a car breakdown would not only be reduced but the impact of it can be limited.

 

[Sonik]

Let's take a different example, my car could breakdown at any point. Now all the time that I own it people could make statements like your car is going to breakdown, if I then reply saying that it's not a problem then who is right?

If I did no maintenance, ignored rattles and warning lights and didn't have plans on how to replace it then it's arguable that the other person would be right I would need to consider what I'm doing.

However with good planning the risk of a car breakdown would not only be reduced but the impact of it can be limited.

I don't think that's a valid comparison. A personal car is not critical national infrastructure on which millions of people are dependent, without other choices.

 

[Bald Rick]

My take on it is that the Grid is able to cope with EV demand now, and can do so for the next few years Without further investment. As @Sonik says, there are times where NG has to pay renewable operators to go offline as there is insufficient demand, particularly overnight on windy nights. That will change as more EVs charge overnight, and indeed I gather it has already changed now that the North Sea Link HVDC is open to Norway. The Viking link to Denmark will help too when it opens, as there will be an awful lot of wind power coming on line in the North Sea in the next few years, which will need a home if theres insufficient demand in the U.K. There are various other grid balancing projects in train, not least Coire Glas pumped storage near Fort William (early construction works under way) and separately around 30GW of battery proposals dotted around the country.

There’s no question that the Grid could cope with 30 million EVs now - it definitely couldn’t. However as the rate of EV take up increases the Grid will be ‘expanding’ to cope Through significant investment like that mentioned above. The question for me is will it keep ahead of EV take up, and time will only tell. My opinion is that it will. Even with 200,000 new EVs on the road this year, the amount of extra grid capacity needed is barely noise in the system (roughly 50MW on average). In 5 years time when there’s a million+ new EVs on the road each year , that’s when the current investments need to be delivering.

interestingly, this calendar year there have been more EV cars sold than diesel cars (incl diesel mild hybrids), so the equation of EV over diesel is clearly tips to the former for a majority of purchasers. Petrol still dominates of course.

 

[Sonik]

In 5 years time when there’s a million+ new EVs on the road each year , that’s when the current investments need to be delivering.

Exactly - manufacturers can churn out cars much quicker than the utilities can enhance networks. They have evidently been caught out by the shift to renewables, which has a structured planning horizon and a much longer lead time.

At some point electric cars will become mainstream and purchases may accelerate rapidly, something which is completely outside the control of the utilities.

However they will probably scrape through regardless because there is a good level of redundancy built into the networks, they will just be playing catch-up all the time, to ensure they don't end up with single points of failure.

 

[The Lad]

Nissan LEAFs were the only vehicle capable of V2G although that may have changed since I last looked, I have seen a EV that offered a 2kw output from its battery for camping etc. The big challenge to the grid will be heat pumps which will by and large be a daytime load.

 

[Iskra]

I have 3 major concerns about moving to EV’s.

1) I don’t believe the technology is quite there yet for them to be that practical in terms of range. I believe however that this obstacle will be overcome in the next few years.

2) Can the national grid handle everyone switching en masse to EV’s? I don’t believe it could. To support the move to EV’s a new wave of nuclear power stations will be needed and, if started tomorrow it would be 10 years before we had the amount needed. This is a major obstacle. Buying our electric from France and others is not a sustainable long term strategy.

3) Affordability. Currently, if you went and bought a used conventional vehicle, you could be on the road for £1000 if you aren’t picky. Current new EV’s are expensive and even 2nd hand ones are generally 5 figures (with diminished range compared to a new one) and if it needs a new battery, that’s a 5 figure outlay too which all EV’s will need eventually too. I don’t see how this technology can be truly relevant until they can be afforded by the masses, and it’s not particularly fair for those that can afford them to lecture those that can’t on the morality of owning a conventional vehicle.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I have 3 major concerns about moving to EV’s.

1) I don’t believe the technology is quite there yet for them to be that practical in terms of range. I believe however that this obstacle will be overcome in the next few years.

I think it's almost there. The MGs have a 200ish mile range, which is enough for most purposes, and it will improve further.

2) Can the national grid handle everyone switching en masse to EV’s? I don’t believe it could. To support the move to EV’s a new wave of nuclear power stations will be needed and, if started tomorrow it would be 10 years before we had the amount needed. This is a major obstacle. Buying our electric from France and others is not a sustainable long term strategy.

That needs doing anyway so we can move away from gas heating to electric, and be less dependent on other countries (as demonstrated to be necessary by the Ukraine war).

3) Affordability. Currently, if you went and bought a used conventional vehicle, you could be on the road for £1000 if you aren’t picky. Current new EV’s are expensive and even 2nd hand ones are generally 5 figures (with diminished range compared to a new one) and if it needs a new battery, that’s a 5 figure outlay too which all EV’s will need eventually too. I don’t see how this technology can be truly relevant until they can be afforded by the masses, and it’s not particularly fair for those that can afford them to lecture those that can’t on the morality of owning a conventional vehicle.

All used cars are expensive at the moment due to a lack of new ones. But that aside, it will filter through. Batteries, with decent thermal management, will usefully last 10+ years, which is about the same as an ICE car typically lasts before it starts rusting to bits. And after that they won't have zero capacity - a car with say 50 mile range may still be a useful second runaround (most two car families have one that's used for long trips and a smaller one that basically never leaves town), or the batteries can be sold and repurposed as grid storage.