Electric Cars - Look at the power grid

Brucepeter2007

hi all - a few days ago I was having a conversation with a couple of friends on the topic of electric vehicles and as the trend towards them is “politically correct “ at the moment I started to delve further into the problems of charging these vehicles... I must mention that my son has had the Tesla for about three years now and thinks it’s fantastic but at the price he paid for it I should think so!
Anyway back to topic - having looked at the obvious problems of charging your vehicle if you live in a high rise or are out visiting I then took a look at our National Grid and I got one hell of a shock.
Take a look at the link and you can update it with a refresh.
Bottom line is if we get lots of electric cars sold your going to have power cuts.
Check out the link which I hope will work here. Regards Peter
G. B. National Grid status

dannnielll

It's a good point, but necessarily a red line issue.  If electric cars are being charged at night, which is the logical time, then the grid is underutilised at that time, so it just keeps the current up . What is important is that the grid can and will be allowed to scale up as demand increases. While it pains me to say so, it is inevitable that the uk will need replacement nuclear reactors, as well as having greater investment in wind and possibly tidal. With nuclear the logic of having more electric cars to soak the resource at night  is inescapable . Of course there are different types of reactor available, some of which are inherently safe and use materials more readily available eg thorium.

Brucepeter2007

As I look at all the gauges at 8pm tonight and see we are pulling 2Gw from France and 1.5Gw from the Dutch and we are near full capacity I can’t see how electric cars plugging in all over the country when you get home from work won’t push us over the top and we get power cuts.
Save the power grid link I posted to your desktop and look at the demand over a number of days - it’s a real inspiration as all the dials relate the demand in real time so you can see there is little room to plug in loads of electric cars. As for the nuclear power - should have started building something for power generation years ago but we still are fluffing about but wait for the screams when the lights go out.
Electric cars are seen as being politically correct at the moment by all politicians but as usual they never look to the infrastructure required.
Save the power grid link and monitor it and tell me I’m wrong.
Regards Peter

dannnielll

You need to understand how the elctrical power market operates,  the grid runs continual auctions and purchases power at the lowest cost based on predictions as to how much energy each supply can supply. There a penalty costs if any supplier fails to supply a contracted quantity.
What this means is that there may well be plenty of domestic suppliers available who were prepared to supply power at a higher price than the French or Dutch , so were  not allowed to contribute. Likewise if the price continued to rise, more external electrical power might be imported...
Just another of the benefits of a single European market for electricity, and an example of some other brexit related problem which may arise.

stiv674

Interesting that 75% of France's power is nuclear whereas ours is only 20%.

Sonic67

If France has a reactor go wrong we will be hit.

DOBLY

Surely a way to mitigate the peaks and troughs is to sell solar and home battery packages with cars (for those with their own roofs) - the Tesla/SolarRoof/PowerWall looks attractive, if a bit on the pricey side...

dannnielll

Absolutely but the major problem here is that people tend  to  to use the cars away from their base during the day and return home at night. Sun dont shine at night so that means effectively doubling the amount of battery storage devoted to car transport. A better use on the broader scale is to export the energy to the grid at daytime prices and buy back power at night rate. The grid wins by having a steadier power flow  without capital expendure on storage,  user wins by getting cheaper power  and less spent on storage.  economy wins . For the same tonnage of lithium you get twice the number of vechicles.

coolmp3

This will answer all http://fes.nationalgrid.com/media/1264/ev-myth-buster-v032.pdf

Frostytouch

Spot on!

There's also the role of V2G chargers that will be mainstream in less than 5 years,
Imagine if you can..... coming home and plug your car into the v2g charger system at 6 p.m.

It will empty you car battery (I know not all will have surplus, but most will) into the UK grid at peak time down to the reserve level you choose.
Then when your smart v2g charger knows the cheapest time to charge (0vernight) it will fill your car up again, so you charge the car battery for less than it pays you to discharge it.

Even without V2G, most ev users are already moving to time of use energy tariffs like Green Energy. You can set your car to charge at the right time to benefit or your smart charger app can do this too. It's like plugging your iphone in and paying £5 to charge now or press 1 button (if app existed) and it will cost you 5p by delaying the charge time whilst it's sat on your bedside table.