Will electricity prices start to kill off EV's?
Discussion
where is the hydrogen going to come from to blend with nat gas? if the answer is excess renewables, it's the wrong answer. if the answer is steam reformation of nat gas, why on earth would you bother with that step. so what's left? nukes built to only crack water?
nothing about hydrogen for energy/ heating in a domestic situation makes any sense.
nothing about hydrogen for energy/ heating in a domestic situation makes any sense.
Why is excess renewable resource the wrong answer ?
not trying to be facetious , honestly
as if you have solar panels on the roof and your EV is out at work with you then during the day, then your panels can be cracking water to hydrogen to store in your domestic tank to either burn in a boiler or put into a fuel cell later to run the home in the evening
or the solar panels could be filling up a battery bank instead of course which is probably more efficent
the main issue is this rush to to go 100% BEV before we are all ready for it
just let it happen naturally
market forces will dictate the solution as they always do
however it may not be the solution you like....
not trying to be facetious , honestly
as if you have solar panels on the roof and your EV is out at work with you then during the day, then your panels can be cracking water to hydrogen to store in your domestic tank to either burn in a boiler or put into a fuel cell later to run the home in the evening
or the solar panels could be filling up a battery bank instead of course which is probably more efficent
the main issue is this rush to to go 100% BEV before we are all ready for it
just let it happen naturally
market forces will dictate the solution as they always do
however it may not be the solution you like....
350Matt said:
Why is excess renewable resource the wrong answer ?
not trying to be facetious , honestly
as if you have solar panels on the roof and your EV is out at work with you then during the day, then your panels can be cracking water to hydrogen to store in your domestic tank to either burn in a boiler or put into a fuel cell later to run the home in the evening
or the solar panels could be filling up a battery bank instead of course which is probably more efficent
the main issue is this rush to to go 100% BEV before we are all ready for it
just let it happen naturally
market forces will dictate the solution as they always do
however it may not be the solution you like....
Agree. Excess sustainable energy is key. Today we are only using 15% gas for our needs. With so many alternatives coming online over the next decade and onwards we will have huge excess capacity. not trying to be facetious , honestly
as if you have solar panels on the roof and your EV is out at work with you then during the day, then your panels can be cracking water to hydrogen to store in your domestic tank to either burn in a boiler or put into a fuel cell later to run the home in the evening
or the solar panels could be filling up a battery bank instead of course which is probably more efficent
the main issue is this rush to to go 100% BEV before we are all ready for it
just let it happen naturally
market forces will dictate the solution as they always do
however it may not be the solution you like....
350Matt said:
Why is excess renewable resource the wrong answer ?
not trying to be facetious , honestly
as if you have solar panels on the roof and your EV is out at work with you then during the day, then your panels can be cracking water to hydrogen to store in your domestic tank to either burn in a boiler or put into a fuel cell later to run the home in the evening
or the solar panels could be filling up a battery bank instead of course which is probably more efficent
the main issue is this rush to to go 100% BEV before we are all ready for it
just let it happen naturally
market forces will dictate the solution as they always do
however it may not be the solution you like....
You didn't responded on the efuels thread to my post about solar panels to produce hydrogen.not trying to be facetious , honestly
as if you have solar panels on the roof and your EV is out at work with you then during the day, then your panels can be cracking water to hydrogen to store in your domestic tank to either burn in a boiler or put into a fuel cell later to run the home in the evening
or the solar panels could be filling up a battery bank instead of course which is probably more efficent
the main issue is this rush to to go 100% BEV before we are all ready for it
just let it happen naturally
market forces will dictate the solution as they always do
however it may not be the solution you like....
Converting solar energy to hydrogen for an average car in the UK would require around 20 kW of solar installation, way more than you can get on most roofs. You re also looking at £25k+ for just the panels.
Let's just say for now you could afford the cost and you have enough space for the panels.
The electrical energy yield would be roughly 1000 kWh per month.
Now if you were to use that energy to heat your home, that would be sufficient to displace nearly all of the gas you were using, IF you can make use of all of it.
The problem with converting it to hydrogen, compressing it and storing it is that you will lose a fair chunk of it.
Which brings us back to to your final sentence, i.e. it's far better to use a battery to preserve whatever renewable energy you can actually get hold of.
In practice, most homes are only going to be able to afford, and have space for, a solar array in the region of 4 kW or less.
So we are talking about a yield of 200 kWh per month or 2400 kWh per annum..
If you could store that in a battery to then transfer to an EV battery, then it would probably yield enough energy to run an EV for average mileage.
It would also yield enough energy to maybe power a heat pump system, assuming you can get that to work as intended.
The EV is the far more sensible and useful option though.
The only way you are going to make use of solar panels is if you generate, store and use the energy as electricity.
Hydrogen will completely screw the maths, making it both too expensive and too large to either run a car or heat the house.
it's 'excess' i'm questioning. we are so far away from having excess renewable electricity to do anything meaningful with. then if we do get to that point, hydrogen production, storage and transport is hideously inefficient. way better to figure out how to store that excess electrical energy and release it on demand. be it V2G, sand batteries, iron/air, or any of the other grid scale tech being developed. (in reality a combination of anything proven at grid scale)
hydrogen has a vital role as a process gas in industry. domestic fuel or passenger road transport? ner.
and as for every house producing and storing hydrogen from solar pv. i don't even know where to start.
hydrogen has a vital role as a process gas in industry. domestic fuel or passenger road transport? ner.
and as for every house producing and storing hydrogen from solar pv. i don't even know where to start.
Edited by tamore on Saturday 17th September 11:11
delta0 said:
Agree. Excess sustainable energy is key. Today we are only using 15% gas for our needs. With so many alternatives coming online over the next decade and onwards we will have huge excess capacity.
You can see that this is on the cards though. It's merely a function of time. The economics simply don't work as of yet (by that I mean the presence of 'man maths' is the most overt warning that a product only fits some scenarios not all) but solar will become cheaper and cheaper to install, as will batteries and it seems very likely that long before 2050 these prices will be low enough for home generation and storage to be a no brainer. Just at the moment the crude figures of a decade to get one's capex back, plus the opportunity cost and for that to then put you slap bang into the end of life run down just doesn't make sense, especially as almost all U.K. households would need to be borrowing money for that capex. People are even borrowing today which strikes me as utter lunacy but that's by the by, it's just another industry that has its roots in door to door miss selling and dumb customers. That won't last much longer.
My guess is that by 2035 things will have Sterlex down a lot and home generation and storage along with energy trading will be pretty normal practice and growing steadily.
tamore said:
it's 'excess' i'm questioning. we are so far away from having excess renewable electricity to do anything meaningful with. then if we do get to that point, hydrogen production, storage and transport is hideously inefficient. way better to figure out how to store that excess electrical energy and release it on demand. be it V2G, sand batteries, iron/air, or any of the other grid scale tech being developed. (in reality a combination of anything proven at grid scale)
hydrogen has a vital role as a process gas in industry. domestic fuel or passenger road transport? ner.
and as for every house producing and storing hydrogen from solar pv. i don't even know where to start.
By it's very definition excess electricity is very inefficient. There is no need to transport hydrogen,. Simply store and convert back electricity when we require it. Thats much like a hydro, but a lot cheaper and quicker to build. Therefore efficiencies don't come into, but commercially viability does. All indications are it's viable, just needs the investment.hydrogen has a vital role as a process gas in industry. domestic fuel or passenger road transport? ner.
and as for every house producing and storing hydrogen from solar pv. i don't even know where to start.
Edited by tamore on Saturday 17th September 11:11
ashenfie said:
By it's very definition excess electricity is very inefficient. There is no need to transport hydrogen,. Simply store and convert back electricity when we require it. Thats much like a hydro, but a lot cheaper and quicker to build. Therefore efficiencies don't come into, but commercially viability does. All indications are it's viable, just needs the investment.
well only time will tell (that you're wrong 
) as far as i can see the only ones really banging the hydrogen drum are the 'blue hydrogen' lobby.ashenfie said:
By it's very definition excess electricity is very inefficient. There is no need to transport hydrogen,. Simply store and convert back electricity when we require it. Thats much like a hydro, but a lot cheaper and quicker to build. Therefore efficiencies don't come into, but commercially viability does. All indications are it's viable, just needs the investment.
That isn't correct I'm afraid. The cost is huge and so are the losses. There is potential in certain situations for it to be better than a medieval water battery but it's still a long way from being proven. The big issue is that a real battery is just much better for storing random flows of excess electricity production and releasing it back on demand. The issue there being cost but long before GH is proven we are likely to be on to the next generation of industrial battery so that's why the investment capital is flowing in that direction.
The GH market place is really being driven by Germany and that's because they are historically stuck in the mindset of using engineering to solve all problems at the expense of investing in technology.
There's a reason why the largest companies in Germany tend to be engineering firms and subsequently why German companies have dropped out of global indices which are now mainly driven by technology firms. They tend to be stuck focusing on 19th and 20th century engineering solutions over adopting technology to solve 21st century needs.
The U.K. isn't likely to do much with GH in the long run and we don't really need to.
tamore said:
ashenfie said:
By it's very definition excess electricity is very inefficient. There is no need to transport hydrogen,. Simply store and convert back electricity when we require it. Thats much like a hydro, but a lot cheaper and quicker to build. Therefore efficiencies don't come into, but commercially viability does. All indications are it's viable, just needs the investment.
well only time will tell (that you're wrong ) as far as i can see the only ones really banging the hydrogen drum are the 'blue hydrogen' lobby.ashenfie said:
Like many things Norway is well ahead of us, having a white paper in place for 2030, https://h2cluster.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/H2...
I think you mean Finland.A Nordic country with a very cold climate and just 5.5 million people living in an area 50% larger than the UK.
Their energy burden is an order of magnitude less than ours, hydrogen makes far more sense there than it does here.
DonkeyApple said:
That isn't correct I'm afraid. The cost is huge and so are the losses. There is potential in certain situations for it to be better than a medieval water battery but it's still a long way from being proven.
The big issue is that a real battery is just much better for storing random flows of excess electricity production and releasing it back on demand. The issue there being cost but long before GH is proven we are likely to be on to the next generation of industrial battery so that's why the investment capital is flowing in that direction.
The GH market place is really being driven by Germany and that's because they are historically stuck in the mindset of using engineering to solve all problems at the expense of investing in technology.
There's a reason why the largest companies in Germany tend to be engineering firms and subsequently why German companies have dropped out of global indices which are now mainly driven by technology firms. They tend to be stuck focusing on 19th and 20th century engineering solutions over adopting technology to solve 21st century needs.
The U.K. isn't likely to do much with GH in the long run and we don't really need to.
Need to take your blinkers off buddy, the government has stepped in to save us all the pound is on the edge of collapse at what point do you suggest doing anything?The big issue is that a real battery is just much better for storing random flows of excess electricity production and releasing it back on demand. The issue there being cost but long before GH is proven we are likely to be on to the next generation of industrial battery so that's why the investment capital is flowing in that direction.
The GH market place is really being driven by Germany and that's because they are historically stuck in the mindset of using engineering to solve all problems at the expense of investing in technology.
There's a reason why the largest companies in Germany tend to be engineering firms and subsequently why German companies have dropped out of global indices which are now mainly driven by technology firms. They tend to be stuck focusing on 19th and 20th century engineering solutions over adopting technology to solve 21st century needs.
The U.K. isn't likely to do much with GH in the long run and we don't really need to.
Isn't the thing that if everyone who had space and spare capital added a 4-6kW solar array and battery to their roofs, then while they wouldn't probably be able to go totally off grid, it could potentially reduce demand on the national grid by a very significant amount (maybe 50%)?
That in turn would go a long way to reducing the need for gas etc. Whether you use that green electricity for domestic uses, heating water, or a BEV is secondary surely as you're still likely to use some imported electricity?
I'm disappointed that the government aren't providing greater incentives than the modest cut in VAT (5%) to encourage this.
My breakeven is still around 8-10 years based on what I'm being quoted, it would be nice if incentives could bring that down to 5 years or so.
That in turn would go a long way to reducing the need for gas etc. Whether you use that green electricity for domestic uses, heating water, or a BEV is secondary surely as you're still likely to use some imported electricity?
I'm disappointed that the government aren't providing greater incentives than the modest cut in VAT (5%) to encourage this.
My breakeven is still around 8-10 years based on what I'm being quoted, it would be nice if incentives could bring that down to 5 years or so.
Tobermory said:
Isn't the thing that if everyone who had space and spare capital added a 4-6kW solar array and battery to their roofs, then while they wouldn't probably be able to go totally off grid, it could potentially reduce demand on the national grid by a very significant amount (maybe 50%)?
.....
Not really......
Peak load on the grid is about 5 or 6 PM.
When solar is not going to do much.
If batteries are a solution, we should be installing them at grid level, where the costs can be very much lower.
We can't do without the grid and we should be strengthening it not weakening it.
It has to be good enough for a week of no sun in February.
So making proper use of the grid in the Summer doesn't cost very much in infrastructure.
Yes we should be installing more solar. But we need a sensible market for export of solar power and we need investment in other power sources and the grid.
We need to be careful of people opting out of paying for the grid when it suits them, yet expecting support from the grid on the bad days.
We could end up with more subsidy to the wrong people.
Yes, it would obviously make much more sense to have batteries at grid level and to export domestic spare energy but the rates offered are too low, even the Octopus 15p rate is half the current cap. At an individual level therefore it makes sense to have your own batter therefore over the medium term.
The resource we all have is our roof spaces and surely the incentives should be higher to encourage everyone to use them?
The cost of installation of domestic solar panels makes us the marginal supplier and so the export tariff needs to reflect this, minus a small amount to offset the fact that the network woudl be funding the storage capacity.
I'm still going o go ahead with at least a 6kW system on our South facing roof (as it seems silly not to use the resource and it will make me feel I'm doing something even if that's a bit spurious), even if it is only cost neutral over a decade or so. With better incentives I could be tempted to use our other available roofs which could amount to around 20kW though.
The resource we all have is our roof spaces and surely the incentives should be higher to encourage everyone to use them?
The cost of installation of domestic solar panels makes us the marginal supplier and so the export tariff needs to reflect this, minus a small amount to offset the fact that the network woudl be funding the storage capacity.
I'm still going o go ahead with at least a 6kW system on our South facing roof (as it seems silly not to use the resource and it will make me feel I'm doing something even if that's a bit spurious), even if it is only cost neutral over a decade or so. With better incentives I could be tempted to use our other available roofs which could amount to around 20kW though.
Tobermory said:
Yes, it would obviously make much more sense to have batteries at grid level and to export domestic spare energy but the rates offered are too low, even the Octopus 15p rate is half the current cap. At an individual level therefore it makes sense to have your own batter therefore over the medium term.
The resource we all have is our roof spaces and surely the incentives should be higher to encourage everyone to use them?.....
Why do you expect 'incentives' to profit from what's worth doing?The resource we all have is our roof spaces and surely the incentives should be higher to encourage everyone to use them?.....
It's a bit of a leap to say export rates being half the cap rate imply it makes sense to have a battery.
Better to do a proper costing.
Fact is that electricity when you want it is a lot more valuable than 'surplus' electricity you can't plan for.
Things went badly wrong years ago with excessive subsidy of FIT.
Rushing in to further subsidies will likely only benefit salesweasels and trades.
We need a balanced, considered approach involving more wind and nuclear ASAP, possibly investment in gas storage and transport too.
OutInTheShed said:
Not really.
Peak load on the grid is about 5 or 6 PM.
When solar is not going to do much.
If batteries are a solution, we should be installing them at grid level, where the costs can be very much lower.
We can't do without the grid and we should be strengthening it not weakening it.
It has to be good enough for a week of no sun in February.
So making proper use of the grid in the Summer doesn't cost very much in infrastructure.
Yes we should be installing more solar. But we need a sensible market for export of solar power and we need investment in other power sources and the grid.
We need to be careful of people opting out of paying for the grid when it suits them, yet expecting support from the grid on the bad days.
We could end up with more subsidy to the wrong people.
I’ve been going through this with a consultant friend, he thinks vehicle to grid is now on the horizon, which will mean an electric car can be used to store surplus energy, the problem in his view is poor infrastructure and intransigence. His calculations now suggest a pay back period of 4-5 years (without V2G), when I built the house 5 years ago the payback was 15-17 years so I didn’t bother with solar as build costs were spiralling. If I can charge my car for free over spring and summer I suspect payback will be shorter, though too many variables to accurately predict.Peak load on the grid is about 5 or 6 PM.
When solar is not going to do much.
If batteries are a solution, we should be installing them at grid level, where the costs can be very much lower.
We can't do without the grid and we should be strengthening it not weakening it.
It has to be good enough for a week of no sun in February.
So making proper use of the grid in the Summer doesn't cost very much in infrastructure.
Yes we should be installing more solar. But we need a sensible market for export of solar power and we need investment in other power sources and the grid.
We need to be careful of people opting out of paying for the grid when it suits them, yet expecting support from the grid on the bad days.
We could end up with more subsidy to the wrong people.
Blue62 said:
OutInTheShed said:
Not really.
Peak load on the grid is about 5 or 6 PM.
When solar is not going to do much.
If batteries are a solution, we should be installing them at grid level, where the costs can be very much lower.
We can't do without the grid and we should be strengthening it not weakening it.
It has to be good enough for a week of no sun in February.
So making proper use of the grid in the Summer doesn't cost very much in infrastructure.
Yes we should be installing more solar. But we need a sensible market for export of solar power and we need investment in other power sources and the grid.
We need to be careful of people opting out of paying for the grid when it suits them, yet expecting support from the grid on the bad days.
We could end up with more subsidy to the wrong people.
I’ve been going through this with a consultant friend, he thinks vehicle to grid is now on the horizon, which will mean an electric car can be used to store surplus energy, the problem in his view is poor infrastructure and intransigence. His calculations now suggest a pay back period of 4-5 years (without V2G), when I built the house 5 years ago the payback was 15-17 years so I didn’t bother with solar as build costs were spiralling. If I can charge my car for free over spring and summer I suspect payback will be shorter, though too many variables to accurately predict.Peak load on the grid is about 5 or 6 PM.
When solar is not going to do much.
If batteries are a solution, we should be installing them at grid level, where the costs can be very much lower.
We can't do without the grid and we should be strengthening it not weakening it.
It has to be good enough for a week of no sun in February.
So making proper use of the grid in the Summer doesn't cost very much in infrastructure.
Yes we should be installing more solar. But we need a sensible market for export of solar power and we need investment in other power sources and the grid.
We need to be careful of people opting out of paying for the grid when it suits them, yet expecting support from the grid on the bad days.
We could end up with more subsidy to the wrong people.
Batteries may well work for home users, but at grid level I suspect they would be expensive due to relatively short life span.
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