When are you going fully electric?

The short answer is yes, don’t worry about it.

There will need to be some upgrades, no one is denying that but in the grand schemes of the grid they are pretty minor. These will mainly be for installing rapid charging hubs rather than home chargers.

The grid (aka the distribution part of the network) is sized to go well beyond our peek demand which is only a couple of hours a day. Outside of that peek there is huge amounts of capacity in the network. If everyone plugged in their cars are 5pm, then yes there will be a problem but that is not a realistic scenario and it can be easily mitigated with behavioural nudges and incentives (e.g. cheaper rates at night).

If you also look at the UKs electricity consumption over the last couple of decades, it’s been dropping steadily for years despite adding about 5 million to the population in that time and things like electric cars starting to come onboard.

Generation is a slightly different conversation, at peak times there have been a few instances where things have been a bit tight following a perfect storm of circumstances, the interconnect to France caught fire, the wind dropped dramatically and a few power stations were unexpectedly down for maintenance. Otherwise it’s generally fine and outside of peak times there is generally a huge amount of capacity.

This is something with is evolving all the time, with new interconnects to the continent coming online, huge wind farms going up in the North Sea, new nuclear but also some of fossil plants being mothballed.

Likewise if there is a power cut, you can’t also get petrol. Most people drive less than 25 miles a day, even the EVs with the smallest battery on the market now have an average of 4-5 days of charge in them.
 
Freefaller said:
For people in the know I have a question.

Can current infrastructure cope with 30m+ electric cars? I know this is a false challenge as there will never be 30m EVs in a short time frame, and by the time everyone has gone to electric the infrastructure will hopefully be addressed. (I also don't believe electric to be the future, I think it's a stepping stone to something more sustainable.).

From my albeit limited knowledge, the grid / power stations wouldn't be able to cope with 30m+ cars being electric as it stands.

I'm still contemplating an EV - but they're still prohibitively expensive for our lifestyle, and the extra wiring needed to the house is another pain to consider.
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National Grid are predicting there will be 37.4 million EV's on the road by 2050.

There are two aspects to whether NG has the capacity to manage lots of EVs being plugged in at once
1 : Whether there is enough energy
2 : Does NG have sufficient capacity on the wires that carry that energy to where it’s needed.


With the first of these - the energy element.
The most demand for electricity NG has had in recent years in the UK was for 62GW in 2002. Since then due to improved energy efficiency such as the installation of solar panels, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16 per cent. Even if the impossible happened and everyone all switched to EVs overnight, NG think demand would only increase by around 10 per cent. So we would still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002.


On the second point : Could the current Grid cope with all of these connecting at the same time - no.

When matters, not just 'how much'
The traditional evening peak of electricity demand is between 6 and 8pm and this might coincide with people returning from their commute and plugging in their cars. If NG want to provide sufficient infrastructure and energy for EVs as cheaply as possible for consumers, they ideally don’t want to add to that evening peak and need to spread that demand better.

When it comes to the capacity of the wires required to deliver that power to the nation’s EV charging points. The NG transmission system is ever-evolving and suitably robust to cope with the forecast uptake in EVs.

Also, things like smart charging, ‘vehicle to grid’ and charging behaviour will all need to be considered.
 
Freefaller said:
(I also don't believe electric to be the future, I think it's a stepping stone to something more sustainable.).
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Care to share what is more sustainable that doesn't require electricity or fossil fuels to produce.

Freefaller said:
I'm still contemplating an EV - but they're still prohibitively expensive for our lifestyle, and the extra wiring needed to the house is another pain to consider
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Assuming you do very little mileage in an older car right now then, with no plans to change it often. Extra wiring? I mean if your house can support an electric shower it can support an EV charger.
 
Most of our growth is capacity is expected to come from renewables but we all know recently how unreliable that supply can be. Interesting to see more and more GW is expected to come from gas and nuclear power stations by as we approach 2040

https://www.statista.com/statistics/496283/total-electricity-generation-capacity-uk/

If renewables are having a bad day, there will be no where near enough electric to meet demand
 
Greebo said:
If renewables are having a bad day, there will be no where near enough electric to meet demand
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National Grid have mapped scenarios to support times where there is lower renewable generation.

Two scenarios relevant to this thread are:
- Smart Charging
- Vehicle to Grid

Smart Charging
Where EV owners release some control on the best time to charge to third parties or automation based on price signals, will be an effective tool to support the local and national electricity networks.

Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G)
This will enable BEVs to provide energy storage services to the electricity networks. Consumers will be able to plug their BEV in to charge and potentially sell any surplus electricity back to the local and national networks at times of peak demand. To enable this, consumers will need to purchase a bi-directional BEV charger to allow power flows from and to the electricity grid.
 
SDK^ said:
National Grid have mapped scenarios to support times where there is lower renewable generation.

Smart Charging
Where EV owners release some control on the best time to charge to third parties or automation based on price signals, will be an effective tool to support the local and national electricity networks.
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Assume the consumer will be able to manually override this in the case of an emergency or a situation of "forgotten to charge last night, but need the car soon"? :)
 
Jez said:
Assume the consumer will be able to manually override this in the case of an emergency or a situation of "forgotten to charge last night, but need the car soon"? :)
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Of course - people will be able charge whenever they like. Charging at times of peak demand will just carry a higher cost.
 
Journey said:
Care to share what is more sustainable that doesn't require electricity or fossil fuels to produce.



Assuming you do very little mileage in an older car right now then, with no plans to change it often. Extra wiring? I mean if your house can support an electric shower it can support an EV charger.
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I still think there's a lot of opportunity for the hydrogen sector (yes I realise you need energy to create the fuel, but that could become easily mitigated through bi-product of other activities - a lot of industrial chimneys now are able to recycle waste products into use). I don;'t have a crystal ball, but working in the infrastructure and innovation research space (BEIS and other NGOs), I just get a feeling there will be something better. Will it be in my lifetime (I'm old) no, but I still think something else will arise.

the cost of an ev is prohibitive and even with a government grant, having to wire a loom to the outside of my home is not insignificant. Whilst I live in the countryside and ev wouldn't be a problem, but it's not something I'm willing to fork out for. The 2 diesel cars we have currently cost around the same as it would for running an ev - for our situation at least. That said, I do love evs having driven several, I'm just not ready for one yet.
 
In terms of renewables and the grid that simply comes down to storage solutions that are getting cheaper and larger, wind power in the UK is frankly incredible at times, then lookat the Oxford hub with 50MWh, at I'm already allowing a 3rd party to manage my charging within the scope of a target by a certain time, the app then can pick and choose what hours to charge to assist the grid and for every kWh manged via smart charging I get 1p into my account - there about £28 payable in there and its caused zero hassle. Check out JEDLIX

In terms of the grid view just watch the Graeme Cooper videos on National Grid standpoint - two videos here:


 
SDK^ said:
Yes !!!
There is 40GW of wind energy connecting in the next 6-8 years. When there isn't demand for that clean generated power, (e.g. overnight) it can be used to produce hydrogen.
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Spot on.

As I said, I'm not anti eV - I just think it's a nice stepping stone into a more sustainable future. I do want to get into the ev world, but for my situation, I'm not quite ready. But it's definitely an active area of interest.

That said... there's still something beautiful about a v8!
 
My main issue with hydrogen isn't so much how it's generated, but the environmental impact of transporting it, storing it and countering the wastage and inefficiencies. Until we get H2 powered tankers, ships etc then that is going to fall to fossil fuels to do the heavy lifting which partially negates the benefit of using sustainable power. If you think about the end to end cycle it's only the generation part of making hydrogen that is clean, the rest of it is as dirty as fossil fuels.
 
nsmalley said:
My main issue with hydrogen isn't so much how it's generated, but the environmental impact of transporting it, storing it and countering the wastage and inefficiencies. Until we get H2 powered tankers, ships etc then that is going to fall to fossil fuels to do the heavy lifting which partially negates the benefit of using sustainable power. If you think about the end to end cycle it's only the generation part of making hydrogen that is clean, the rest of it is as dirty as fossil fuels.
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Hydrogen is the perfect fuel for heavy transport. It’s very energy dense so it will replace the battery for this sector. I.e you don’t need a 2+ ton battery to make it work.
Once Hydroden production becomes cheaper and greener (as a country we still have to meet net zero targets) then tankers, ships etc will naturally move to hydrogen as the fuel source. Which then means it’s less polluting (cleaner) to move hydrogen around.
 
The issue with hydrogen is that it isn’t cheap and can’t really see it ever getting cheap compared to just using the electricity.

It currently costs more to fill up a hydrogen car then a petrol one and that’s at retail where most of the cost of petrol is tax.

Most commercially available hydrogen is a byproduct of fossil fuel production and isn’t a clean fuel (often referred to as brown hydrogen). Yes it’s possible to make ‘green’ hydrogen but the energy required is astronomical and only about 30% efficient. So for every 3 units of energy you put in, you get less than 1 out. Then you have to factor in distribution (e.g. trucking it everywhere), storage of a volatile gas at very high pressure), retail etc.

It’s just never going to come close to price of sending electricity through the existing energy grid to batteries in people cars.

Battery prices are fraction of the cost compared to when hydrogen was fabled as the next big thing, hydrogen costs are still astronomical.

For passenger cars, where energy density and recharge speeds are already more than good enough, I just can’t see it happening. We are far better off concentrating on solutions that we can deploy, right now, quickly and are economically viable. BEVs tick all of those boxes (the total lifecycle costs have dropped below ICE cars).

Shipping, aviation etc. is a different matter.
 
I hear a few saying EV is a stepping stone to something more sustainable, and that could well be true. However the duration of the stepping stone IMO is likely to be 20-30 years. The investment that every single car manufacturer is putting into EVs at the moment is immense, they are going to demand from worldwide govs that they get a return on this investment, which requires EVs to grow all the way down to entry level cars and volume uptake. And from pretty much a standing start, how long will it be before the infrastructure and all the complexities of hydrogen inside a car are ironed out to where EVs are today, which of course requires the car manufacturers to find another incredible amount of money to invest again.

So anyone <60 year old, I surmise (and it's just my own thoughts), the overwhelming majority are going to drive an EV for several years ..and once it really takes hold, it'll be around for 20-30 years.

the cost of an ev is prohibitive and even with a government grant, having to wire a loom to the outside of my home is not insignificant.
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So your position will change if ICEs start to become prohibitive due to dis-incentives either on the vehicles themselves or the fuel. Also I accept that in many urban areas of the UK, people do not have their own off-street facilities, so a home charger just isn't doable at all.

I've just ordered a KIA EV6. For me the required location of my home charger is really handy, it'll cost about £700-800 to install after the grant. In real terms that's a small number compared to the cost of a new car. *currently* ( and I emphasis that) the saving in "fueling" costs in a year will cancel that out for me.

In relation to the national grid being able to cope, I think we will ultimately see home charging being an entirely separate meter and systems in place to stop it from being charged from the regular meter.. The gov is clearly going to need to replace the massive fuel revenue with another source of income, so I suspect there will be a levy on units used for charging cars. I think if there are early signed that the grid is not coping, car charging will become prohibitively expensive during the day time.

I think EV is close to the sweet spot, not mature enough for the gov to start thinking about getting their pound of flesh, and hence zero road tax and no "fuel" levy, and yet getting to the point where the options of vehicles and the ability to charge is making switching more attractive and viable.
 
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tangey said:
In relation to the national grid being able to cope, I think we will ultimately see home charging being an entirely separate meter and systems in place to stop it from being charged from the regular meter.. The gov is clearly going to need to replace the massive fuel revenue with another source of income, so I suspect there will be a levy on units used for charging cars. I think if there are early signed that the grid is not coping, car charging will become prohibitively expensive during the day time.
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I doubt that will happen, certainly not for tax. Nearly all road users with off street parking can do just fine with charging their car from a 3 pin plug or better yet a blue 32a commando socket which can be installed in any domestic property. Any extra levy’s on home charging can and will just be bypassed.

In terms of hydrogen cars, nearly all car makers poured billions into developing vehicles and fuels cells, most gave up or massively scaled back investment years ago now which says enough really. The tech is good and it works great, it’s just not an economically via product that can be sold to the mass market.

The only main holdout is Toyota who are now in a bit of a pinch and falling behind on zero emission vehicles very quickly. Given they are responsible for the Prius, it’s a massive shame really.
 
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