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

[Ediswan]

Yes, CCGT (closed cycle gas turbine, if I recall) is relatively new, I forgot about that.

The term is Combined-cycle. The hot exhaust from the gas turbine is used to boil water to drive a steam turbine.

 

[Peter Sarf]

The term is Combined-cycle. The hot exhaust from the gas turbine is used to boil water to drive a steam turbine.

Oh. So is it all via steam or does a proportion of the electricity get generated from the spinning shaft ?.

I think I should have remembered this.... (getting older).

 

[MotCO]

The other thing that has expanded rapidly in the last couple of years is grid scale battery storage. There is now well over 4GW of it on line, with more being commissioned every week (it will be at least 5GW by early next year), compared to 2 GW 2 years ago. This is helping time shift demand into the overnight period, and also has helped out when major suppliers go off line, as they did a gew weeks ago when the Norway interconnector tripped.

Presumably this can come on line relatively quickly, but how many hours will it last?

 

[jon0844]

Don’t worry, the government has a master plan, something about rolling two hour power cuts if I remember correctly

No, we've had incentives to shift usage - such as low, free or negative pricing at some hours of the day, and being paid to use less in the peak period (1600-1900). There are other things we can do now, or in the future with things like V2G or people using their home batteries to support the grid, so we won't need to turn the power off.

As long as there are some that think smart meters and green energy are evil and part of some big conspiracy to somehow stop us going out, we will have people actively seeking to undermine plans to address the problem without having to use more fossil fuels. I wonder who might be spreading such falsehoods and misinformation......

Makes me think. If I had an electric car I would be using it so infrequently I might end up charging on the cheap and then discharging back to the grid before I need to use it. The incentive might be that the car is making me money !

Yes, that's exactly what people are going to be able to do.

I'm looking at getting a home battery of between 10-15kWh, but when I get an EV it will likely have 40-50kWh available - enough for 4-5 days of home usage. If I can use my car to cover me at the expensive 1600-1900 time, happy days. If I'm out and the EV isn't home, well besides the base load there's not a lot of need for power in my house anyway.

Obviously one family member could be home and the other has taken the car, so you don't get the same benefits as a dedicated home battery but the difference is you bought an EV and have the battery, whereas the other costs £5-10k separately. Swings and roundabouts.

I think V2G will make a big difference when it takes off, but it's perhaps too early to fully understand how it will work as there are so few cars that have it, and we need regulators to allow energy providers to use them.

 

[Ediswan]

Oh. So is it all via steam or does a proportion of the electricity get generated from the spinning shaft ?.

I think I should have remembered this.... (getting older).

The gas turbine drives a generator directly. I believe the steam turbine drives a separate generator. There can be multiple gas turbines with one steam turbine.

Edit: The high level specfication of Rye House:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye_House_power_station

Rye House was built by Siemens AG. It has three Siemens V94.2 gas turbines rotating at 3000 rpm. Each drives a generator producing 150 MW at a terminal voltage of 11 kV and exhausts at 540 °C into a Babcock Energy steam generator. The three steam generators supply a single Siemens turbogenerator producing 250 MW at 15.75 kV. The combined outputs feed the National Grid at 400 kV. The station has the largest air-cooled condenser in Europe. The chimneys are 58 m high. The station employs thirty-seven people.

 

[Krokodil]

Yes, CCGT (closed cycle gas turbine, if I recall) is relatively new, I forgot about that.

Also "new" in the sense of the 1990s "dash for gas". In 1990 gas was only 5% of generation, by 2002 it was 30%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash_for_Gas

 

[MotCO]

I'm looking at getting a home battery of between 10-15kWh, but when I get an EV it will likely have 40-50kWh available - enough for 4-5 days of home usage.

Serious question. Will using a car's battery as V2G reduce the lifetime of the battery? Does an EV battery degrade marginally after each charge / discharge cycle, so will using it as a source of power to the Grid reduce its life? Do cars' battery management systems operate when discharging to the Grid, or only when in use as a vehicle? (I understand the battery management system helps the battery to operate at optimum temperature etc.)

 

[jon0844]

Serious question. Will using a car's battery as V2G reduce the lifetime of the battery? Does an EV battery degrade marginally after each charge / discharge cycle, so will using it as a source of power to the Grid reduce its life? Do cars' battery management systems operate when discharging to the Grid, or only when in use as a vehicle? (I understand the battery management system helps the battery to operate at optimum temperature etc.)

Yes, there will be some more degradation but it's all based on cycles and as I'm likely doing 10-20 miles tops per day, with the odd 50-60 mile trip (and maybe one or two 200+ mile trips per year for short city breaks or holidays), I wouldn't expect to need to worry about anything significant.

In addition, I wouldn't expect to be running the entire home from the car, but selected circuits - which may include an oven to allow cooking at times of the highest demand. The best way to save money is to shift usage to cheaper times, or just use less in the first place!

 

[JamesT]

No, we've had incentives to shift usage - such as low, free or negative pricing at some hours of the day, and being paid to use less in the peak period (1600-1900). There are other things we can do now, or in the future with things like V2G or people using their home batteries to support the grid, so we won't need to turn the power off.

As long as there are some that think smart meters and green energy are evil and part of some big conspiracy to somehow stop us going out, we will have people actively seeking to undermine plans to address the problem without having to use more fossil fuels. I wonder who might be spreading such falsehoods and misinformation......

Rolling power cuts aren't misinformation, we've just not got to the point of needing them: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63155827

British households could lose power for up to three hours at a time this winter if gas supplies run extremely low, National Grid has warned.

The company said it was an "unlikely" scenario but added that supply interruptions were a possibility if the energy crisis escalated.

Cuts would probably occur at peak times and customers would be warned in advance.

That was 2022. I know at work it was being taken very seriously and contingency plans were being drawn up for particular buildings being turned off.

 

[jon0844]

I didn't feel the need to say that if demand exceeds supply then we might have to instigate cuts (or that they'll be imposed upon us without any choice), but my point was there are plenty of other things we can do - and the industry IS doing. It would likely get to things quicker if there weren't so many people fighting such changes.

But, as I've said before, I'm happy to be averaging 30% less over the year (although the last few weeks haven't been great and Agile is almost 90p tomorrow for 30 minutes!) and supporting time of use tariffs and other ways to balance the grid.

 

[Noddy]

Serious question. Will using a car's battery as V2G reduce the lifetime of the battery? Does an EV battery degrade marginally after each charge / discharge cycle, so will using it as a source of power to the Grid reduce its life? Do cars' battery management systems operate when discharging to the Grid, or only when in use as a vehicle? (I understand the battery management system helps the battery to operate at optimum temperature etc.)

V2L and V2G will cause some cycling and degradation but it will likely be so marginal it won’t be noticed. An average house uses 2700kwh per year which is about 7.4kwh per day. So a typical car battery could power that house for a week to 10 days and only go through one cycle. With V2G and V2L it’s only likely be used occasionally and for a few hours at a time, maybe a handful of cycles a year. Heat is the battery killer and doing low load stuff just doesn’t make any significant difference.

 

[trebor79]

Let us look at the real picture at this moment.

57.4% from gas
11.1% genuine renewable
11% imports, fossil renewable coal, who knows
7% biomass imported and shipped from Canada by diesel transport
12.9% nuclear.

nuclear, biomass, lmports, are they green?

Even if the grid were 100% fossil fuelled, the emissions from driving an EV would still be lower than from ICE.
The grid is getting less carbon intensive all the time.

 

[Bald Rick]

I think the new use is gas turbines to generate electricity.

Thinking a bit more that means something we have for coping with sudden peaks is actually getting relied on for general power generation.

Yes, CCGT (closed cycle gas turbine, if I recall) is relatively new, I forgot about that.

’Relatively new’ is 30 years +. And they are not designed for coping with sudden peaks in electricity demand (although they can respond more quickly then coal can). Batteries and Dinorwic are there for rapid response.

Presumably this can come on line relatively quickly, but how many hours will it last?

Battery storage comes on line in fractions of a second. How long does it last? Well that depends how much you are taking. There’s nearly 5GWh available grid side - so 1 GW for 5 hours. Within a couple of years they will be three times that. And if just 20% of EVs are online for V2G at any one time, then by the end of next year thats going to be another 20GWh on tap. Not enough to power the country for a week, but certainly enough to get us through the evening peaks.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Don’t worry, the government has a master plan, something about rolling two hour power cuts if I remember correctly

I think the majority of street lights can now be controlled remotely so I would hope turning off the street lights would be the first line of defence. I have noticed over the past few days streetlights out on the A23 and I think that on later days they have been back on. I need to notice more to be sure.

 

[Krokodil]

I think the majority of street lights can now be controlled remotely so I would hope turning off the street lights would be the first line of defence. I have noticed over the past few days streetlights out on the A23 and I think that on later days they have been back on. I need to notice more to be sure.

Isn't paying large industrial consumers to switch off one of the things they do?

 

[Peter Sarf]

Isn't paying large industrial consumers to switch off one of the things they do?

No idea. There must be some scope for that.

Buyt I know the firm I used to work at used a huge amount of electricity (I think they had four substations). The extruders would not take to being turned off, it entails several hours of run down and cleaning if planned but unplanned was worse. The pressure vessels could be left off line if planned but totally screwed the product if there was a power cut. So it depends how easily an industrial process can be paused at relatively short notice.

 

[Bald Rick]

Isn't paying large industrial consumers to switch off one of the things they do?

Yes it is - some industrial customers are on special deals which give them (effectively) cheaper electricity on the basis they can be turned down with some notice. One small example - there’s hotels that do this.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Yes it is - some industrial customers are on special deals which give them (effectively) cheaper electricity on the basis they can be turned down with some notice. One small example - there’s hotels that do this.

Hotels !. Well that could be unpopular with customers. Imagine going to your hotel at end of day (in the 16:00-19:00 risky time zone) only to find you cannot charge your laptop or mobile, wi-fi is down and evening meal is a candle lit salad.

 

[jon0844]

Hotels !. Well that could be unpopular with customers. Imagine going to your hotel at end of day (in the 16:00-19:00 risky time zone) only to find you cannot charge your laptop or mobile, wi-fi is down and evening meal is a candle lit salad.

I assumed there might be many hotel facilities and function rooms that could be cut back before having to make people sleep and eat by candlelight.

 

[AM9]

Hotels !. Well that could be unpopular with customers. Imagine going to your hotel at end of day (in the 16:00-19:00 risky time zone) only to find you cannot charge your laptop or mobile, wi-fi is down and evening meal is a candle lit salad.

It's a lot less than your presumption. For a hotel, it would involve major loads such as laundry, some catering equipment, possibly more efficient heating/air conditioning modes, etc. and all managed into normal operations. Given that almost all lighting in commercial premises is LED, mobile charging and laptop demand in rooms is minimal, I doubt that clients would even notice the difference for the odd half-hour periods.
I used to work at an engineering establishment where aside from general energy use on lighting, heating and a/c, environmental test and laboratory equipment was in use with a totla load of 5MW, Iin 12 years there, I don't remember any distrubance to normal operations, yet the company benefitted from reduce industrial energy costs.

 

[simonw]

I have only been looking at the bus routes under my nose - the one I use (119) and the first one I saw switch to electric (312).

From what you say it seems the electric buses on my local route (119) must have migrated to the 264 route - my hunch is that is a flatter route ?.

There seems to be a newer version of the electric bus I was familiar with on the 119 route now appearing on the 64 (which is quite a hilly route).
I cannot find the 64 route on the list but I suppose it might be a different company ?.

Any clues as to where the electric buses from the 312 route have gone/done ?.

Makes me think. If I had an electric car I would be using it so infrequently I might end up charging on the cheap and then discharging back to the grid before I need to use it. The incentive might be that the car is making me money !. That is a complicated scenario but I do tend to buy supplies of food/drink based on price rather then when I need them anyway. Trouble is I do not fancy checking the weather forecast (possibly long range) and trying to plan my car use around it. I prefer the car to be there ready for when I need it but then avoid use where I can. Ideally I would mainly use the car in the sunnier part of the year - quite possible because I vaguely make an effort to avoid car use in the winter so as to avoid road salt (easier for a leisure traveller like me compared to a commuter).

That is a good point. The batteries in a bus must be working a lot harder than for a car. Maybe not much scope for anything other than fast charging.

For lorries I suspect the load is heavier so more batteries required but perhaps scope for slower charging compared to buses on a night bus route.

If I remember correctly using gas to generate electricity is a new thing. I am sure it was not done last century and is why the cost of gas has risen.

The,dash for gas started in 1990

Dash for Gas - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Bald Rick]

Hotels !. Well that could be unpopular with customers. Imagine going to your hotel at end of day (in the 16:00-19:00 risky time zone) only to find you cannot charge your laptop or mobile, wi-fi is down and evening meal is a candle lit salad.

As per AM9’s comment. Its the major loads, esp heating / aircon, where they will be cycled off across rooms during the period of supression. I’m looking at a hotel right now that does this, it has over 1000 bedrooms, a massive ballroom and dozens of function suites. Reducing heating / aircon in each of them for 20 mins or so, cycled over a period of 2 hours when the peak demand is will be completely unnoticed by guests. Add in some other high draw kit and it can reduce power demand by a MW or more. 1000 similar (on average) businesses across the country, and you supress peak demand by 1GW.

It's a lot less than your presumption. For a hotel, it would involve major loads such as laundry, some catering equipment, possibly more efficient heating/air conditioning modes, etc. and all managed into normal operations. Given that almost all lighting in commercial premises is LED, mobile charging and laptop demand in rooms is minimal, I doubt that clients would even notice the difference for the odd half-hour periods.
I used to work at an engineering establishment where aside from general energy use on lighting, heating and a/c, environmental test and laboratory equipment was in use with a totla load of 5MW, Iin 12 years there, I don't remember any distrubance to normal operations, yet the company benefitted from reduce industrial energy costs.

 

[Noddy]

And in news from Norway in October 94% of new cars were EV, 3.2% were hybrid, 2.2% were diesel and less than 0.5% were petrol. And yet we worry about cold temperatures and what to do about people living in flats.

The sale of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) across October in Norway accounted for 94 per cent of all new car sales, with hybrids accounting for barely over 3 per cent and – ironically – Toyota claiming top spot for the best selling EV.

New figures from Norway’s Road Traffic Information Council (OFV) showed that a total of 11,552 new passenger cars were registered in October, 2,627 more than in October 2023, an increase of 29.4 per cent.

Of that total, 10,862 were BEVs, representing a share of 94 per cent of new car sales, well up on the 84.2 per cent that BEVs accounted for in October 2023.


Hybrid cars accounted for only 3.2 per cent of all new car sales in October, including hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and diesel plug-in hybrids. In total, only 370 hybrid models were sold for the month, well down on the 1,124 sold in October 2023.

Sales of internal combustion engine (ICE) models were well and truly in the minority, with only 257 diesel models sold and 63 petrol models, accounting for 2.2 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively….Continues

Toyota takes surprise lead as battery EVs account for 94 pct of new car sales in Norway

EVs account for 94 per cent of new car sales in Norway, with the list of best sellers topped by a global car giant that has focused on hybrids.

thedriven.io

Also interesting is that you have to look down to 18th place on the bestseller list before you find a pure Chinese car (Xpeng G6). Perhaps if other countries were as far ahead as Norway, the incumbent car companies would be in a better place.

 

[BingMan]

I just wish those Cargo bikes would stay off the pavement and respect the highway code - As a pedestrian I am really getting a lot of near misses these last few years.

For me I mainly walk or use the bus (it is a 20 minute walk into town which trumps the variable bus frequency - actual not planned). For further afield it is train into London then coach for the rest of even longer trips. But my car is used if I have too much to carry. I am quite proud of the fact I use my car as little as possible. It will be a long time before an EV becomes cheap enough for me to buy secondhand but I see progress.

For me I see ecology as avoiding car use as much as possible - that to me is simpler. The car is there for when I really need it.

Same here. I suspect that it will a long time before I can get a reliable second hand EV for under £5K which is my budget.
Doing only £2K miles a year the saving in fuel and servicing costs are not a great incentive to change.

If I remember correctly using gas to generate electricity is a new thing. I am sure it was not done last century and is why the cost of gas has risen.

It most certainly was when i worked for the CEGB in the seventies.
Mainly as "Peak Lopping". It was cheaper to have a local gas plant in, for example, Stockport to meet part of the peak load than to upgrade the cables to cope with that peak load.
And gas could be started and brought up to full power very quickly very quickly

 

[bspahh]

Same here. I suspect that it will a long time before I can get a reliable second hand EV for under £5K which is my budget.
Doing only £2K miles a year the saving in fuel and servicing costs are not a great incentive to change.

I don't know about that.

At the moment the market is quite compressed. For £20k you can get a brand new MG4. For £10k its a 5 year old 100k mile Hyundai Kona. £5k is an 8 or 10 year old Nissan Leaf or Renault Zoe.

I think that is because there is a limited supply of cheap used electric cars, and they are popular with people who want to use them in a city. That pushes up the price. An influx of cheap new cars is going to depress the value in the second hand market, so the quality of a £5k used electric car is going to improve quite quickly.

 

[MotCO]

Also interesting is that you have to look down to 18th place on the bestseller list before you find a pure Chinese car (Xpeng G6). Perhaps if other countries were as far ahead as Norway, the incumbent car companies would be in a better place.

I wonder if car tax or VAT are at lower rates than in the UK. That would mean that the price differential between ICE and EV cars would be less. Or does Norway subsidise the cost of EVs?

 

[Bald Rick]

I wonder if car tax or VAT are at lower rates than in the UK. That would mean that the price differential between ICE and EV cars would be less. Or does Norway subsidise the cost of EVs?

They used to, but not now.

Norwegian EV policy

elbil.no

The Norwegian EV incentives:​

• No purchase/import tax on EVs (1990-2022). From 2023 some purchase tax based on the cars’ weight on all new EVs.
• Exemption from 25% VAT on purchase (2001-2022). From 2023, Norway will implement a 25% VAT on the purchase price from 500 000 Norwegian Kroner and over
• No annual road tax (1996-2021). Reduced tax from 2021. Full tax from 2022.
• No charges on toll roads (1997- 2017).
• No charges on ferries (2009- 2017).
• Maximum 50% of the total amount on ferry fares for electric vehicles (2018)
• Maximum 50% of the total amount on toll roads (2018-2022). From 2023 70%
• Free municipal parking (1999- 2017)
• Access to bus lanes (2005-). New rules allow local authorities to limit the access to only include EVs that carry one or more passengers (2016-)
• 25% reduced company car tax (2000-2008). 50% reduced company car tax (2009-2017). Company car tax reduction reduced to 40% (2018-2021) and 20 percent from 2022.
• Exemption from 25% VAT on leasing (2015-)
• The Norwegian Parliament decided on a national goal that all new cars sold by 2025 should be zero-emission (electric or hydrogen) (2017).
• «Charging right» for people living in apartment buildings was established (2017-)
• Public procurement: From 2022 cars needs to be ZEV. From 2025 the same applies to city buses

Also petrol is more expensive than here (tax), while electricity is cheaper (lots of hydro). Albeit their electricity prices have risen recently mostly for the same reasons as ours have, but also partly because they have a new customer taking about 6% of their electricity production just across the north sea…

 

[Peter Sarf]

They used to, but not now.

Norwegian EV policy

elbil.no

Also petrol is more expensive than here (tax), while electricity is cheaper (lots of hydro). Albeit their electricity prices have risen recently mostly for the same reasons as ours have, but also partly because they have a new customer taking about 6% of their electricity production just across the north sea…

I remember my Father saying Norway was very heavily Hydro Electric (he probably said that in the 1970s). Compared to Denmark which is flat so not really any scope for hydro electric - hence the monster diesel generators. So I am not surprised Norway is exporting electricity to the UK.

 

[Bald Rick]

I remember my Father saying Norway was very heavily Hydro Electric (he probably said that in the 1970s). Compared to Denmark which is flat so not really any scope for hydro electric - hence the monster diesel generators. So I am not surprised Norway is exporting electricity to the UK.

err, so is Denmark (albeit not this precise second).

 

[Peter Sarf]

err, so is Denmark (albeit not this precise second).

I assume Denmark must have a lot of wind farms generating electricity ?.
Or solar ?.