Network Rail draws up list of ‘no regret’ electrification schemes - New Civil Engineer

[Bald Rick]

Does anybody have a link to an up to date status? Most of what Google refers to be is well out of date. It seems to suggest that at least 2 of the turbines have failed?
Where are we with the plans to proceed past the experimental phase?

Well, the CEO resigned last week!

 

[moggie]

Isn't the idea that EV cars would charge overnight and then discharge in the morning and evening peaks, which for obvious reasons are just before and just after the commute.

Err yes but one would hope that discharge to the grid wouldn't be happening just before you set off for your journey in the morning? Have I misunderstood your point?

Which got me thinking. A domestic 'smart' charger is effectively a transformer /rectifier set with some 'clever' control options. But looking at a few specs online none mention that they also need to be inverters to enable AC power to be returned to the grid? Can anyone with home charging facilities confirm if this is reality or more theory?

 

[InOban]

You mean that a new CEO has been appointed. Meygen is now part of a larger group. It is however clear that expansion of the tidal power project will require government backing. Meanwhile they've been exporting the tech to Japan.

 

[Bald Rick]

Can anyone with home charging facilities confirm if this is reality or more theory?

It depends on your set up. About half the people I know with car charging at home also have solar panels, for which you need an inverter anyway. I don’t think any of them have set up yet to export battery to the grid, but it’s certainly possible. Need a big inverter though, or just export at a lower power than when charging.

Tesla Powerwalls have the inverter built in, obviously.

 

[Greybeard33]

The Scottish rural lines are more difficult (not only economics, but that weather extremes and inaccessibility would mean OHLE would make the service rather unreliable....

What, as unreliable as the electrified services in the Swiss Alps and Norwegian mountains?

 

[Nottingham59]

enable AC power to be returned to the grid?

EDF offer V2G for business customers: https://www.edfenergy.com/electric-cars/vehicle-grid
I think domestic V2G is still at the trial stage, such as here: https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/vehicle-to-grid-charger

 

[A0wen]

There are 2 short single-track sections on the MV; one at Bedford St. Johns, the other at Fenny Stratford.

Yes, I'm aware of that, it's why I said it's double track "virtually all" its length. Whereas the Abbey line is single track - and that has a knock on effect on the costs of electrification.

 

[quantinghome]

Err yes but one would hope that discharge to the grid wouldn't be happening just before you set off for your journey in the morning? Have I misunderstood your point?

Yeah, I'm suggesting that we ensure everyone's battery is as flat as a pancake just before they set off to work...

Point is the vast majority of journeys do not require the battery to be fully charged so it's not going to ruin anyone's day if they set off with (say) 80% charge rather than 100%. I'm assuming that smart metering will allow a car owner to decide not to discharge to grid prior to a long journey.

EDIT:

Actually, looking at electricity demand through the day, there may not be much point using car batteries to infill peak demand:



There is no real peak in the morning - just a ramp up to a plateau. There's a bit of a peak in the evening which might be more promising. But the key take-home from this chart is to charge cars overnight.

 

[Bald Rick]

Yeah, I'm suggesting that we ensure everyone's battery is as flat as a pancake just before they set off to work...

Point is the vast majority of journeys do not require the battery to be fully charged so it's not going to ruin anyone's day if they set off with (say) 80% charge rather than 100%. I'm assuming that smart metering will allow a car owner to decide not to discharge to grid prior to a long journey.

EDIT:

Actually, looking at electricity demand through the day, there may not be much point using car batteries to infill peak demand:

View attachment 88672

There is no real peak in the morning - just a ramp up to a plateau. There's a bit of a peak in the evening which might be more promising. But the key take-home from this chart is to charge cars overnight.

Demand is only half the story. Supply is the other half. The point of battery storage is to fill the ‘tanks’ on cheap available wind power when you can, and discharge it during the day. On a cold winters day with little wind, even after all the new nuclear and interconnectors are on line, we are still going to need to find 10-15GW from somewhere to meet peak demand for a couple of hours in the evening if we are to get out of gas completely. Or we accept that we retain some gas power stations for those peak occasions.

Incidentally that graph is rather out of date. Whilst the lines are roughly the same shape, they have both moved down about 5 GW overnight and 10GW in the day.

 

[Nottingham59]

There's a bit of a peak in the evening

... corresponding to when people get home from work - and hopefully plug in their EVs to recharge. This gives a good opportunity for the smart grid (or smart home) to take a bit more energy from the car batteries to supplement the grid in the evening peak before recharging the EVs later that night.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Demand is only half the story. Supply is the other half. The point of battery storage is to fill the ‘tanks’ on cheap available wind power when you can, and discharge it during the day. On a cold winters day with little wind, even after all the new nuclear and interconnectors are on line, we are still going to need to find 10-15GW from somewhere to meet peak demand for a couple of hours in the evening if we are to get out of gas completely. Or we accept that we retain some gas power stations for those peak occasions.

Incidentally that graph is rather out of date. Whilst the lines are roughly the same shape, they have both moved down about 5 GW overnight and 10GW in the day.

So like today with gas supplying 50% of demand right now and wind languishing at 2% and with coal running at 7% (no ones shouting about coal free days now are they!) and it would be worse had Drax not got one of its units back on line overnight. Even when we get to 30 or 40GW of installed wind capacity it won't help on a day like today so CCGTs will need incentive payments to remain available. Also theres no way we are going to get 15GW battery that has the capacity to run at full load for 24hrs.

Finally the fact we had multiple electricity margin notices this year shows how fragile the system already is. As ive said on previous posts a grown up conversation is needed here that a net zero electricity system can't deliver the level of reliability we've been used to and actually a small flex in tolerance over frequency and voltage levels would give the system operator more flexibility.

 

[yorkie]

People are very welcome to continue the numerous different discussions that have arisen in this thread by creating a new thread in the appropriate forum section.

Please note that we absolutely do welcome speculative ideas being posted and we do not wish to put people off posting them at all however just a gentle reminder that the Infrastructure & Stations forum section is not for discussing Speculative Ideas; these belong in the Speculative Ideas section please.

Thanks

We may be able to split some of the posts in this thread into new threads elsewhere; if anyone wishes to request this, please press the report button on the first post to be moved. In your report please include details of any further posts (by providing post numbers), a proposed new thread title, and details of which forum section the new thread should be moved to, and we will be happy to consider any such request