Cheap EV’s on the way

[VicParticipant @vic]

Derek,

https://neonresearch.nl/copper-scarcity-will-not-materially-slow-down-the-energy-transition/

[derek hall 1]

On derek hall 1 Said:

On Vic Said:

On derek hall 1 Said:

On Vic Said:

On derek hall 1 Said:

 

 

Makes one think a little more deeper about the supposed green credentials of EV’s doesn’t it?

 

 

…

…

…

 

…
Vic, I am not anti EV! I am just expressing some wariness about the supposed green credentials that EV’s are supposed to have that’s all.

…

Not sure what’s meant by “supposed green credentials“!  Sounds like propaganda to me.   Everything made by man is damaging to some degree or other, daft to believe otherwise.  Our job is to maximise the benefit and to minimise the damage, not to provide perfect solutions.

IC engines have many disadvantages, including polluting city centres and contributing substantially to global warming.   In both respects, EVs are clearly more green, despite needing Copper, Lithium and Rare Earth metals.  Oil has even more disadvantages, for example it has to be extracted, refined and transported around the globe, dirty, wastes energy, and prone to spillages.  For many energy needs renewable electricity wins again : not perfect by far, but better than burning oil.

I think EVs are part of the way ahead, but don’t expect them to last.  All technologies peak and then fall away.  Quite likely in 30 years the world will be full of next generation old farts whinging that ‘globalists’ or some other mysterious ‘them’ are plotting to take away their much loved irreplaceable EVs.      Lesson from history: what horsey folk had to say about the arrival of the motor car between 1890 and 1924 follows the same pattern.   The horse lobby did everything in their power to stop ‘horseless carriages’, pointing out the roads were unsuitable, the vehicles unreliable, too many horrible accidents, fuel impossible to buy, and that Ostlers and purveyors of hay would stop paying tax.  All true at the time, yet we know what happened next…

Dave

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Resurrecting this topic, to include a ‘Guardian’ story on second-hand prices:

https://apple.news/A3x4XCJ0RSdymrXwVaWNpvw

I suppose much depends on how you spin it

MichaelG.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

I wonder if your local network could stand the strain if you all charged at home???

[bernard towers]

On bernard towers Said:

I wonder if your local network could stand the strain if you all charged at home???

The National Grid seem to be confident?

https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero-stories/can-grid-cope-extra-demand-electric-cars#

From figures I’ve seen only up to around 70% of BEV drivers would be able to easily charge at home with current (pun intended) technology, but this could obviously change. Assuming most would be charging over night at a cheap rate then the other 30% would presumably be charging at work, supermarkets car parks etc during the day? It’s far too early to predict though really as there are only 1,190,000 BEV’s on the road in the UK so far, another 40 million to go. It’s my belief though that if Cybercabs or Robotaxis become a thing at the right price, many younger people won’t even bother getting a driving licence. Have you seen how much it costs for youngsters to get car insurance?

[bernard towers]

On bernard towers Said:

I wonder if your local network could stand the strain if you all charged at home???

No problem provided the necessary work is done in a timely manner.  If everyone slow-charged overnight, relatively little upgrading at the domestic end is needed.  Not quite that easy, and providing the necessary connectivity between renewable sources and the grid is more difficult.

Nonetheless, in contrast with the obstacles faced by early motor-cars, beefing up the electricity network to recharge EVs is a doddle – no new technology required.   The hard part is persuading folk who can’t cope with change to get out of the way.

Bernhard’s great-great-grandad no doubt would have done his absolute best to discourage Mrs Benz from taking famous drive in 1888.  No tarmaced roads anywhere in the world, no garages, no mechanics, no insurance, no highway code, no driving schools,  and refuelling required one to find a pharmacy and buy their entire stock of nit lotion!   To a Victorian nay-sayer internal combustion was clearly impossible!   But poor old great-great-grandad was wrong.   Nothing new about that – seniors ceasing to comprehend the art of the possible as time marches on is a common problem: the Romans noticed it!

Dave

 

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

If children go back to walking and cycling to school, with some home workers and people moving back to be near their place of work the daily recharge for most will be less than cooking dinner, and both activities could be done from the solar panels on their roof. The real problem is the people heating their entire house to 75C on gas who will be converting to heat pumps.

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

deleted

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

No Dave, the hard part is persuading somebody to pay for the new infrastructure. Often it’s not just difficult, but impossible and so the improvement(debatable in many cases) doesn’t happen.

[Nick Wheeler]

On Nick Wheeler Said:

No Dave, the hard part is persuading somebody to pay for the new infrastructure. Often it’s not just difficult, but impossible and so the improvement(debatable in many cases) doesn’t happen.

Failing to invest in new infrastructure always ends badly!

In the case of EVs, the National Grid website says: ‘Even if we all switched to EVs overnight, we estimate demand would only increase by around 10%. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002 and this is well within the range the grid can capably handle.’  Hardly “impossible”.

Ideally, large expenditures should be spread over many years.   That’s a good reason for starting in good time.  Unfortunately, the nay-sayers are doing a marvellous job slowing down change.   If cost is a concern, might like to remember that British Gas and Oil reserves are running down, and that in future it will all have to be imported and paid for.

Fossil-fuel fans seem to assume the stability in prices we’ve enjoyed since the 1970s will last forever.  In fact, bad things are happening already:  “In the 12 months to April 2022, imports of fuels from non-EU countries totalled £64.7 billion; an increase of £42.6 billion (193%) compared with 2021, and an increase of £21.8 billion (51%) compared with 2018.”

Given that costs are already in the high tens of billions, it makes sense to switch to cheaper renewables that don’t depend on foreign imports.

Personally, I find talk of investment being impossible smacks of defeatism. Change is terrifying and expensive, but I hope my many faults don’t include being an ostrich.  Problems are there to be fixed, not ignored in hope they will go away.

Dave

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

My last mad idea was catenary over the motorway, but the dastardly Germans have done it, so here’s another flight of fancy. If you’re going further than the range of your car, pull into a service station after 100 miles or so and hook up a trailer full of charged batteries. Then every 200 miles, simply swap it for another until you’re nearly there, when you drop it off.

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/innovative-thinking/does-germanys-electric-motorway-hold-the-key-to-decarbonising-road-freight-30-11-2022/

[Paul KempParticipant @paulkemp46892]

Dave (SOD),

I admire your optimism in your constant posting of the prospect of cheap power coming over the horizon any time soon.

GB PLC has actually done pretty well in the move toward renewable energy.  In 2000 renewable sources provided 2.3% of the total power demand, in Q1 2024 renewables provided 50.9% of the total (source .gov.uk and surely they don’t lie?) Ok, it’s taken 20 years to get halfway but that doesn’t suggest to me there has been a significant lack of investment?  Also although 20 years sounds a long time, to transition half the country’s demand in that time is not really slow progress.

However, we all know what has happened to electricity prices over the same period?  With 50% of the commodity coming from “cheap” sources why has the cost to the end user not even at least stayed the same given that only half of the market has been affected by global events and the cost of gas?  You may find part of the answer in the way the energy market in the UK is structured and how electricity is bought and sold.

National Grid / UKPN are not terribly transparent with their claims and like a statement quoted by Vic recently if you read it carefully the language is very “careful” and clever and it only infers, it does not categorically state!  If we look at your quote;

Even if we all switched to EVs overnight, we estimate demand would only increase by around 10%.  Emphasis is mine.  How was this “estimated”?  If you take the number of cars registered in the UK (available from ONS) and give them a battery capacity of 30kWh, quite a low figure in terms of EV’s and then apply a fudge factor that they will not all be charging at the same time “around 10%” is pie in the sky.  So how this is estimated is very important.

Now you are going to tell me I am a naysayer and not willing to change.  Over the past 5 years in my professional “life” I have been involved in electricfication projects for waterborne public and light freight transport.  I have been involved in trying to secure points of connection from UKPN in 5 locations, only one of those locations had the power required available.  Due to the lack of capacity in the grid we have had to invest in a very expensive battery bank at one location to act as a buffer to be able to get the required fast charge.

Trust me, what is holding progress back is grid capacity, certainly on the local level, planning constraints and heritage / environmental (would you believe?) objections and lastly the commercial price of electricity.  For two full electric projects which are being delivered in Q1 2025 the opex and capex costs are much higher than an equivalent diesel operation.

So to your favourite point of cheap and plentiful power.  It may be possible to generate electricity “cheaply” from wind and solar – you would think so, wouldn’t you and you clearly do.  The problem is the cost to generate is not the end of the story and in the UK transmission costs are very high.  The reality is the benefit of generating cheaply goes to the investors, not the customer.  Investors invest for one reason, a return!  They will put their money into whatever gives the highest return.  One reason why offshore wind attracted funding in past years, because of the return, the ROI on an offshore wind farm previously has been 5 years – very attractive.  The last offering of new wind farm licences you may recall attracted no bids.  Why, because the latest power price guarantee on the licence was so low as to make it uneconomic.  How happy we would be if we could buy our electricity at those prices!  Dream on!  Even when we are generating all our power from wind, solar and hydrogen the p/kWh to us will never be cheap until there is a complete reform of the market.

Yes, I did mention hydrogen – probably the most inefficient method there is but actually the only truly zero emission means of storing energy when the wind blows too much for when the sun goes down and the wind isn’t blowing at all – until that is someone invents a decent battery which is scalable without the use of rare elements….

The only way to capitalise on cheap power now is to generate it yourself off the grid.

Paul.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Wrong again, Paul.

That 50 % figure does not include the ~15-20% nuclear.  Much of the rest might be nuclear imported from France – who knows?

The 30kWh figure is rubbish, too.  The average mileage for Uk vehicles is ~8000/annum.  My EV Iis currently recording close to 4 miles/kWh.  It is by no means the most economical EV on the market.

2000kWh/ annum is, by my calculation, just 5.5kWh/day.  I predominantly charge overnight during a 5 hour period tariff, with a 7kW charger, so not a lot.  I rarely charge while away from home.

I reckon that could equate to less than 60p/day, averaged over the year, for the average UK driver.

Most EV batteries will soon not contain Copper.  Copper is used in the oil refinery of petrol, btw.

EVs are only a little into the second decade of mass production.  Technology improvements are occurring at a rapid rate.  The National Grid is improving their infra-structure, which will lead to more renewables usage (less constrainment) from the existing suppliers), let alone from the new-builds.

I buy my leccy from a company that is actually <b>giving away</b> electricity at certain times of excess renewables supply and actually paying customers to use electricity at other times (depending on the tariff and energy demand).

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

Unfortunatly the “2024 renewables provided 50.9% of the total (source .gov.uk and surely they don’t lie?) ” includes the UK’s biggest power station, Drax. This currently burns wood pellets so counts as “renewable”. The fact that:

A. Wood pellets produce more CO2 per kWh than natural gas.

B. Mos of the wood is produced overseas, including the USA. The energy used and CO2 produced making and transporting the pellets are ignored.

As I’ve said before there are real infrastructure issues. These include not enough homes having access to charge at home. If you don’t have a dedicated parking space you can’t charge on your own supply. People talk about kerbside and lamp post chargers. These however do not allow access to cheap rates.
When lots of people do have EV’s the “smart” function of the >3kW chargers will be activated and the electricity supplier will decide when you can charge or at least vary the cost according to demand.
If you have parking on your property, a big roof for solar panels and the funds its nirvana. If you live in a flat with no dedicated parking its a nightmare.

No I’m not an EV naysayer I drive a plug in hybrid.

Robert.

[mgnbukParticipant @mgnbuk]

Most EV batteries will soon not contain Copper.

Myabe not, but all the high current cabling within the car + the motor windings will still be copper ?

Insulated with plastics manufactured from oil ?

Can’t build electric cars without oil products at the moment – maybe never.

I’m not “anti electric car” – I considered & test drove one when I bought my current car 2 years ago but the numbers couldn’t be made to add up for me. I will consider one when my wife’s car comes up for replacement in a couple of years, but the reported very high insurance premiums (quoted in the Guardian article referenced above) and reported high service costs (for some models) make me wary. More to the cost of running a vehicle than just fuelling it.

Nigel B.

 

 

 

[Paul KempParticipant @paulkemp46892]

NDIY, correct the 50% does not include nuclear which this morning was 19.1% of the total (gas was 8.2%) so allegedly the most expensive commodity used to generate power is currently responsible for less than 10% of the total demand and generators were being paid £3.68 per MWh.  I will leave the maths to you to compare what the grid is paying for power compared to what you are currently paying or being paid.  I think you will see though that even your energy company is not giving anything away!  I would comment that you are in a fortunate and definitely not average position as regards your costs, think of those on pre payment meters for example, you are not the average or even the median case.

The 30kWh I quoted was off the top of my head based on car useable battery capacity from a piece of work I did a couple of years ago and deliberately skewed to the low end of the range I think the Nissan Leaf was the lowest and Tesla the highest at that time.  The current average EV power consumption is 0.346 m/kWh (source Lectron EV) At 4 m/kWh your car is exceptionally efficient.  Using your figure of 5.5 kWh per day, the average household electricity use per day based on property size / occupancy is 4.93 kWh per day for a flat, single occupancy to 11.78 kWh per day for a 4-5 bed property with multiple occupants.  So your car uses between 50 and 100% of the daily household average power usage.  If you want to work it out another way nationally per annum, there are 33.73 million cars in the UK (not including vans, trucks, motorcycles etc).  Neither figure gives an increase in demand as low as 10%!

The average cost of electricity per day is 24.5p/kWh, this excludes the standing charge.  Obviously you have a beneficial tariff but joe average using a mix of home and public charging will struggle to get a charge for 60p a day.  Those that cannot charge at home will pay much more.  You cannot extend your advantageous case to the masses, your case is not average or representative of what a large number of the population will experience.

Lastly I have no idea where you live but just for fun you could make a POC application to UKPN for a connection capacity of 2MW (for commercial fast charging that is not an outlandish figure).  That will tell you the real capability of the grid as it stands today on your doorstep.

 

Paul.

[Paul Kemp]

On Paul Kemp Said:

…
So to your favourite point of cheap and plentiful power.  It may be possible to generate electricity “cheaply” from wind and solar – you would think so, wouldn’t you and you clearly do.  The problem is the cost to generate is not the end of the story and in the UK transmission costs are very high.  The reality is the benefit of generating cheaply goes to the investors, not the customer.  Investors invest for one reason, a return!  They will put their money into whatever gives the highest return.  One reason why offshore wind attracted funding in past years, because of the return, the ROI on an offshore wind farm previously has been 5 years – very attractive.  The last offering of new wind farm licences you may recall attracted no bids.  Why, because the latest power price guarantee on the licence was so low as to make it uneconomic.  How happy we would be if we could buy our electricity at those prices!  Dream on!  Even when we are generating all our power from wind, solar and hydrogen the p/kWh to us will never be cheap until there is a complete reform of the market.

…
Paul.

A long post from Paul who makes several good points!  I don’t think switching from fossil fuels to renewables is easy or particularly cheap, there is always a high-cost of introduction.

Nonetheless, I fear Paul may be out of date.  Consider this statement from the World Economic Forum, now 5 years old:

Look at the change in solar and wind energy in recent years. Just 10 years ago it wasn’t even close: it was much cheaper to build a new power plant that burns fossil fuels than to build a new solar photovoltaic (PV) or wind plant. Wind was 22%, and solar 223% more expensive than coal.  But in the last few years this has changed entirely.  Electricity from utility-scale solar photovoltaics cost $359 per MWh in 2009. Within just one decade the price declined by 89% and the relative price flipped: the electricity price that you need to charge to break even with the new average coal plant is now much higher than what you can offer your customers when you build a wind or solar plant.

This trend has continued:  the cheapest form of wholesale electricity is renewable.   And the cheapest road-miles are electric, not petrol or diesel.  Change is in the air, the main problem is the sluggards holding it back.

Paul’s greatest sin is asserting ‘The reality is the benefit of generating cheaply goes to the investors, not the customer’  as if that only applied to renewable energy.   I hadn’t realised l was buying petrol at the cheapest possible rate from a kindly multi-national, and that switching to an EV would lose that marvellous benefit!  Paul’s point is misleading because where the energy comes from doesn’t alter the nature of the market:  there will always be wholesalers, retailers, and governments taking a cut.  You can’t knock renewables for having exactly the same problem as fossil-fuels!

Although renewable electricity is already cheaper wholesale than other sources, that doesn’t mean the benefit will immediately pass to customers.  As Paul says there is a great deal to be done with the money such as decommissioning nuclear power plants!  Although the grid is man enough already to support domestic overnight car charging, the same can’t be said of connecting new sources!

But, in terms of the UK economy, it’s surely advantageous for us to utilise cheap local energy rather than buy it from abroad.   Local energy keeps money inside the country whilst the second spends it abroad.  If foreigners aren’t confident in the value of the pound supported by some other British activity, then the pound will lose value, and customers will pay more for energy.    Over the next 30 years, a lot more.

My big problem with naysayers is their failure to recognise change is inevitable.   In this example they favour ‘do nothing’ in the belief that oil will somehow last forever and that putting huge quantities of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere has no adverse consequences.   These assumptions are not supported by evidence.   The era of cheap oil is ending and the next generation will be forced to tackle the consequences; it’s extremely unlikely that ‘do nothing options’ will help.   ‘Green’ isn’t unnecessary tree-hugging, it’s key to maintaining our standard of living.  I believe it’s better to work towards a soft-landing now rather than wait for the pain to start, and then put up with it until the answer comes through.   Unfortunately, many politicians know it’s much easier to sell change to voters who are already hurting.  Everyone hates change!

Dave

 

 

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Paul,

 

Where on earth did you get that figure of £3.68/MWh from?  It is an order of magnitude out!

I do not purchase my electricity from the National Grid.  I buy it from a DNO, like most domestic users.  Those companies have overheads and need to make a profit (many went belly-up when the energy prices sky-rocketed after the russian invasion of Ukraine).

As I (sort of) stated, at times the energy cost to the grid can be negative.  It is why power is being given away or even users are being paid to use it.  The grid cannot store electrical power.  Likewise the maximum cost to the grid is generally between 16:00h and 20:00h, when some of the power generated for that period can be several times the average cost.

You also appear to have absolutely no idea for the power consumption of cars.

Let me enlighten you a little bit.  There is about 10kWh of energy in one litre of petrol. Let’s convert that to miles per gallon for you – it is around 45kWh.  A car, which might only return about 35mpg would consume approx 1.3kWh/mile.  Your ridiculous claim of  (quote) <i>0.346 m/kWh </i>(unquote) for EV electricity usage would translate to nearly 3kWh/mile.

I really think your figures come from somewhere other than ‘the top of your head’.

Are you really suggesting that BEVs use over twice as much energy than ICE vehicles?  I really think you need to avail yourself of some reliable information before making such outrageous claims as in your posts above.  That, or your ‘sums’ are in need of improvement.

Likewise you don’t appear to have a clue as to generation costs.  Gas-fired generation is only around 60% efficient (for ‘combined cycle’ generation), so are you suggesting gas prices are as low as your claims might suggest?  I somehow don’t think so.

My cost for electricity in July was 22.6p/kWh – and that included the standing charge.  Not quite fact as it was slightly lower than that – because my “smart” meter is over-recording my electricity cost, at the present time.

You can easily see my location, if only you cared to look for it, btw.

[TrickyParticipant @tricky]

I think the average household consumption quoted of less than 12kWh per day assumes that gas is used for heating and hot water.  When homes use heat pumps this figure is up to 5 times as much in cold weather and this will have more effect on the grid than EVs.

 

Richard

[Paul Kemp]

On Paul Kemp Said:

…

You cannot extend your advantageous case to the masses, your case is not average or representative of what a large number of the population will experience.

Lastly I have no idea where you live but just for fun you could make a POC application to UKPN for a connection capacity of 2MW (for commercial fast charging that is not an outlandish figure).  That will tell you the real capability of the grid as it stands today on your doorstep.

 

Paul.

Paul, I’m having trouble following your logic.   First you tell NDIY his case is not average or representative, then you suggest making a POC application to UKPN for a connection capacity of 2MW.

NDIY is relating his actual experience as an EV owner, whereas it’s extremely unlikely a domestic car owner would ever need a 2MW connection capacity.

You’re conflating two different cases: domestic and commercial.    In the commercial example, the cost of connecting a large user depends on how physically close the grid is and how much capacity it has locally.    Worst case, it’s necessary to install lots of transformers and pylons, perhaps closing a motorway whilst the work is done, and kicking off a planning dispute.   Best case, there’s a half used substation already on the estate, and the work is a doddle.    You can’t assume the state of the grid as a whole is good or bad based on a few experiences.

It may help to know that an EV can be charged slowly from an ordinary 13A socket.   Takes a long time, but that may not matter when the driver plugs in when he gets home at 6pm and leaves it charging for 12 hours before going to work in the morning.     On a 28kWh  NDIYs car will do about  115 miles, which covers most commutes.

Robert I think has a real problem which is what to do about cars that the owner can’t recharge at home due to not having a parking space.   He needs a fast charge point somewhere in the vicinity, or a hybrid.  Again this is a local problem, my village hall already has 3 fast chargers, and could accommodate more.   Been proposed that lampposts be fitted with charge points.    Given time, effort and good-will it’s not all too difficult!

Dave

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Our local council is installing kerbside chargers which look a bit like fire hydrants, chargers in public car parks and at railway stations. Trouble is they all use different apps. Why do you need an app? Just use your credit card like you do when buying petrol. And any charger should charge any car, not specific to one make. What we need is some joined up thinking, but as politicians are in charge I’m not holding my breath

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Duncan,

I believe all public DC chargers fitted these days <u>must</u> have a facility to pay by credit/debit card (some Tesla superchargers may not be fitted as they do not need to be open to other than Tesla vehicles).  I’m not sure about AC chargers like you describe.  Most of those will be for local car owners who would generally use a charger close to their home.  I can use a Tesla app to enable charging at many of the supercharger network.  Teslas simply plug into the supercharger network, the car charges, the driver disconnects and drives away – the simplest system that few have copied, so far!

If I were the “average” driver, travelling just 22 miles each day, 365 days a year I could charge my car with the supplied ‘granny charger’ (delivers approx 2.2kW from a 13A socket) in 5 hours in the worst case scenario (very cold or driving like a maniac?).

Unfortunately, my driving pattern is not quite fit that mathematical statistic – I often travel 150 miles in a day and occasionally over 250.

The only times the energy usage approached 2miles/kWh was rather urgent trips to hospital.  Currently, I find that driving at 53-54mph means I might be driving slightly slower, than some, on single carriageway roads but I catch up, with the vehicles ahead, at the next traffic constriction.  If roads are fairly empty I drive according to my needs, so speed may be altered to arrive at my destination on time.  I rarely drive at a steady 70mph on dual carriageways.  A little less speed conserves a lot of energy.

Nearly all cars/chargers in the UK utilise a type 2 CCS connector.  Some earlier Teslas used a different connector (requiring a simple adaptor).  Chademo chargers (most Nissan Leafs and some Renaults) are becoming less common (a bit like betamax and VHS video recorder formats, back in the 1970/80s).

Chademo charging rates are typically only up to 50kW.  CCS can deliver easily up to 350kW.  Higher rate chargers are becoming available at present, but these are only for those new battery types that can accept such a charge rate. My car uses 800V architecture, so can easily charge at over 250kW (but not for very long unless under ideal conditions).  No current Teslas exceed 250kW charge rate, at present, but the latest version of superchargers can be up-rated to as much as 400kW, I believe.

 

 

[Paul KempParticipant @paulkemp46892]

NDIY, I got the price from the National Grid live website this morning, it’s a spot price and their explanation is;

”As a market-traded commodity, electricity doesn’t have just one price: buyers and sellers can enter into contracts hours, days, weeks, or months in advance. This site shows the price on the APX spot market, which reflects the real-time wholesale price of electricity in Great Britain.

Higher prices encourage additional generation and discourage consumption, while lower prices have the opposite effect. Many forms of renewable power generation are subsidised through the Contracts For Difference scheme, and can continue to profitably generate power even if the price is below zero.”

Tonight it is £67/MWh.  I believe some suppliers offer free electricity on a Sunday during the day?  Spot price in combination with the above statement may be an indication of why?

Apologies, I wrote the units the wrong way round, the 0.346 should have been kWh/m, derived from 34.6kW to travel 100m, still puts yours at above average economy and has no bearing on the following figures for the increased demand if ALL cars switch to electricity.

I made no assertion about the actual cost of generation by gas, what I was stating is over the past 20 years electricity prices to the consumer have not dropped but the percentage of total power generated by gas has dropped significantly so the influence of more expensive gas on the overall price should be reduced.  Also consider efficiency’s of gas generation have improved over the same time frame, some newer CCGT plants are achieving over 60% now I believe?  If you look at historical global natural gas prices since 2004, while during the pandemic the price was almost double that of 2004, currently the price is actually lower than it was in 2004 (rigzone.com commodities historical prices in USD for natural gas).

SOD,

Whether you are a domestic or commercial customer it is the same power from the same grid.  The reason I suggested a POC application for 2MW capacity is you can only measure the available capacity by requesting a decent amount and 2MW really isn’t a heavy industrial supply it is only the capacity required to put 1MW of charge into a battery system in 30m and that is the kind of power required to move a small (sub 50m vessel) at 20kn for an hour.  Its not the kind of supply required by a steelworks or even a large data centre.  Remember the connection is sized on the predicted peak load, which may only occur for minutes or perhaps a couple of hours of each day although it has to be capable of supplying that peak load 24/7.  Requesting a 3ph supply for your shed is no indicator of available capacity.  NDIY individual circumstance has little bearing on the wider picture, yes there will certainly be others in a similar advantageous position but there will be many others in rented accomodation, those on pre payment meters and those without the ability to charge an EV at home.

Yes, electricity is a commodity that is traded, however you can’t equate it to oil or even natural gas.  Both of those are a global market where electricity is a regional and national market.  Where there is international trading (interconnections) the price is set by the nation supplying and can be very different to the prevailing price in the receiving nation.  There was a good example of this when the lights almost went out in UK PLC a couple of years back (I don’t remember the exact date) but the power the UK bought in from the French came at an astronomical price.

As usual this has drifted from the two points I was making, firstly the estimate of a 10% increase in demand if all cars convert to EV and the grid capacity to cope and my doubt this is the case.  I used NDIY own figures to illustrate that compared to the average daily house consumption.  Secondly that power that is generated cheaply will automatically cascade down to lower prices for the end user.  My doubt that prices will fall is based on the fact we have already got 50% of our power from renewable sources and that has made no difference to the end user cost over the last 20 years.  When do you envisage this utopia of cheap power will materialise?  Taking tonight’s figure of generators being paid £67/MWh (which is 6.7p/KWh) on the average UK cost of 25.4p/KWh excluding standing charge (validated in part by NDIY 22p/KWh inc the standing charge – we know he has a good deal so is on the positive side of the average) there is an average of 18.7p/KWh going to distribution / other accounts – 3 times the cost of the power.  You are an evidenced based fellow, convince me with some that these two claims are valid.

Paul.

 

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Once upon a time … in a land far away:

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/students/history-101/too-cheap-to-meter.html

[ not directly relevant, but we should learn from history, and good sound-bites ]

MichaelG.

[Paul Kemp]

On Paul Kemp Said:

…
SOD,

Whether you are a domestic or commercial customer it is the same power from the same grid.  The reason I suggested a POC application for 2MW capacity is you can only measure the available capacity by requesting a decent amount and 2MW really isn’t a heavy industrial supply it is only the capacity required to put 1MW of charge into a battery system in 30m and that is the kind of power required to move a small (sub 50m vessel) at 20kn for an hour.  Its not the kind of supply required by a steelworks or even a large data centre.  Remember the connection is sized on the predicted peak load, which may only occur for minutes or perhaps a couple of hours of each day although it has to be capable of supplying that peak load 24/7.  Requesting a 3ph supply for your shed is no indicator of available capacity.  …

I’m confused again Paul.  You believe requesting 3-phase for a shed doesn’t indicate available grid capacity, but a 2MW request somehow does?  Neither do!  They’re both dependent on the capacity of the local distribution network at the point of connection.  The connection will be cheaper when the local network is nearby and has spare capacity, and expensive if new wires have to be run long distances from a sub-station that has to be beefed up.   It does not measure grid capacity, that is the ability on average for the infrastructure to support most customers.

 

Yes, electricity is a commodity that is traded, however you can’t equate it to oil or even natural gas.  Both of those are a global market where electricity is a regional and national market.  Where there is international trading (interconnections) the price is set by the nation supplying and can be very different to the prevailing price in the receiving nation.  There was a good example of this when the lights almost went out in UK PLC a couple of years back (I don’t remember the exact date) but the power the UK bought in from the French came at an astronomical price.

Again, what’s the point?  Even if true, what difference does it make?   Actually misleading, in that the cost of electricity is directly related to the cost of oil and natural gas!  Even though far more of our electricity comes from renewable sources than naysayers thought possible only 10 years ago, the bulk is still generated by burning.   I find it hard to understand why traditionalists think it’s a good idea for the UK to pay foreigners for oil and gas when local renewable energy is cheaper and cleaner.   Surely decoupling the UK from international energy issues by switching to local renewables is a good thing?

As usual this has drifted from the two points I was making, firstly the estimate of a 10% increase in demand if all cars convert to EV and the grid capacity to cope and my doubt this is the case.

Unfortunately the words and figures don’t support Paul’s doubt.   There are problems, but not the ones he describes.

  Secondly that power that is generated cheaply will automatically cascade down to lower prices for the end user.  My doubt that prices will fall is based on the fact we have already got 50% of our power from renewable sources and that has made no difference to the end user cost over the last 20 years.  When do you envisage this utopia of cheap power will materialise?

I never said there would be a utopia resulting from the availability of cheap power!  Not impossible, but unlikely given the way society works.  I don’t know who promised it, and suspect it might be an impossible goal injected by the opposition to muddy the waters.  However, even though renewable energy won’t deliver paradise, it’s still cheaper, cleaner and sustainable than fossil burning.

 

Taking tonight’s figure of generators being paid £67/MWh (which is 6.7p/KWh) on the average UK cost of 25.4p/KWh excluding standing charge (validated in part by NDIY 22p/KWh inc the standing charge – we know he has a good deal so is on the positive side of the average) there is an average of 18.7p/KWh going to distribution / other accounts – 3 times the cost of the power.  You are an evidenced based fellow, convince me with some that these two claims are valid.

Again, I don’t know what Paul is after.  Electricity is bought and sold much like any other commodity, and wholesale costs are always much lower than Retail.    Electricity wholesalers cover the cost of generation, but little else.  Retailers cover a host of other costs: distribution, maintenance, metering, account management and more.   Is difference between retail and wholesale a surprise?    In the end the customer always pays for everything, plus tax!  The system is open to abuse, whether or not renewable energy is in the mix.   Green doesn’t alter the model.

Dave

[Author]

Posts