Electric Cars - Look at the power grid

noiseboy72

I think we're unlikely to see domestic energy usage drop by much more than another 5-10%, as the majority of homes have energy saving light bulbs, lower energy TVs etc. We may see better insulation of a small number of homes and a limited uptake of more PV, but I don't think we will see huge decreases. Better heating - moving those on electric to gas would help, but again, it's a minority of properties that have storage heaters.

Industrial energy usage may also reduce by a similar amount, but IT - data centres, comms etc. have increased power consumption in these sectors. My specialization is warehousing and here, the changes are quite small. Smaller warehouses will continue to be consolidated into larger distribution centers - which normally have lower running costs and chillers are improving a little, but again it's a few %. Most warehouses already have LED or low energy lighting, as the pay back on this is about 3 years over sodium lighting, but many office spaces could benefit from occupancy sensors and smarter HVAC. Maybe there's another 10% here?

Pan European grids are all well and good, but the power loss on extended lines needs to be considered, as does the losses in the converters that bring the power into the UK. Renewables can provide the majority of load during optimum conditions, but I am not sure it's sufficiently developed to be the primary supply at the moment.

My concern would be more around gas. It's a finite supply and difficult to replace. LNG is quite expensive to ship in, so if / when the supplying countries decide to increase the wholesale price, I think we will see a large rise in price. This may push energy generation prices as well, due to the number of gas power stations. Hopefully we won't need to rely on fracking!

Waste to energy schemes are interesting. We are fitting small biomass converters and boilers at facilities, reducing transport of waste and allowing the generation of heat and power. Pay back is 6 - 12 years, so they are long term gains, but still worth doing.

Micro energy schemes might well be the way forward. How about a community wind turbine or biomass system?

Trollslayer

My roof runs North-South so I would probably need solar cells on both sides.

Brucepeter2007

Seems we are going a bit off topic now as my original concern was that if electric cars and eventually trucks and vans hit the grid to be charged our electricity generation just could not cope.
Forget everything else as it’s the demand for just the electric vehicles governments never look at but it would promote paying different tariffs for different times of the day which is what can be done very easily with the smart meters being installed.
Perhaps there is method in the governments / electric companies policy to promote electric vehicles - either way its more revenue from tax and variable electric rates. Life only gets harder so is electric vehicles the answer for poor old Joe who lives on the top floor of a block of flats with the extension lead running out of the window to his car...

Frostytouch

Why won't our grid cope?

There's 30 GW available most nights as surplus capacity with our current set up.

There will be more and more renewable installations added in the next 5 to 10 years, combined with solar, V2G, commercial and domestic battery storage systems becoming more common place.

Yes you'll say there are 30 million UK cars, but about half of them would only need to charge for 4 hours a week. You need to read the National Grid scenarios and look at the impact of smart charging technologies and then the trend for smart appliances that is coming our way in the next 5 years.

Time of use tariffs will be common place, driving consumers to look at their behaviours and choices in a more in depth way than we have seen before.

Brucepeter2007

If you monitor the grid you will find that at peak times during cold snaps there is very little spare capacity. I suggest you keep the link to the grid on your phone or computer and monitor it over time because the spare capacity is just not there. Various governments are to blame for this situation as none of them wanted to address the situation but they all knew about it. The current political correctness towards electric cars is not sustainable if drives went over to electric in a big way unless something is done not only about the lack of capacity but the distribution network. Not all is as good as it seems...
Monitor the grid and over time when the wind don’t blow you will see how bad it is...

dannnielll

While the situation is serious it is not as tight as you may believe.  There are a number of generating plants in mothballs and therefore will not figure in the listed reserve capacity.  As an example it has been postulated that ships while at port could be generating multiple megawatts and feeding this into the grid... However it is not currently economically feasible and the interconnection infrastructure not developed. Likewise larger industries in the smelting and cement production areas often have their own generating capacity, used for on site activity, where spot prices for grid energy to rise, they might curtail their own  industrial activity and sell into the electricity market.

Frostytouch

Yes, but you don't acknowledge other people's views and facts apart from look at the load on the grid when we're in a spell of very cold weather and we're still on winter clock times in the UK.... Most electric vehicles will charge overnight when there is loads of capacity, yet you talk about peak times and demand on the grid in response?

Then there is the energy that won't be consumed to convert oil to road fuel, 6KWH for a gallon seems to be the accepted energy consumption requirement.

You also quoted the Tesla semi, and no link to your claim about 4000 houses?

Agree energy security is vital to the UK, but you need to look at the numbers involved and how behaviours will change on time of use. Yes, it will be carrot and stick to force consumers to use energy at the best time but it is coming on a major scale over the next 10 years.

Can you post back when it's mid June on the grid demand?

sneakyweeone

Not wanting to reignite the debate but this is an interesting article.
www.theguardian.com/business/2018/mar/27/national-grid-backs-plan-for-earlier-petrol-and-diesel-ban

Kitch

Exactly! These guys will provide whatever we require! I have no concerns over power supply, its all down to supply and demand and if there is money to be made it WILL happen.
It also doesn't concern me that much as i am lucky enough to be going down the self sustainable route.