Climate change - the POLITICAL debate. Vol 2
Discussion
TransverseTight said:
Will have to get back to you on insurance. I was asking the question originally in case someone else knew if there were studies done. MY assumption being people with billions tied up on property assets and offering to cover risks, would also be keen to understand the future risks using their own models. Not necessarily climate models, but what if the climate does this, that or the other. There needs to be no proof it will, just a chance it might and some kind of probability score. Especially as that's how they make a profit - charging a fair bit more than they expect to pay out. That's what the job of an actuary is...
I'm fairly sure that in the US none of the insurance companies bothered making their own models, they simply heard what we all heard about an increase in extreme weather and so they put their prices up accordingly. Then despite the dire predictions the US went for about 7 years without any hurricanes making landfall but the cost of hurricane insurance still went through the roof. Some people are apparently a bit upset by this.Otispunkmeyer said:
Whilst I agree passenger cars will probably mostly be EV by that year. I still think larger vehicles will use large diesel engines as their prime movers. This is actually roadmapped for beyond 2070.
The grid to EV storage does sound nice in theory, but I don't think it will the miracle you say it is. There are a few hurdles.
1) some people simply won't allow that type of use regardless of the benefits. So you miss out on some storage capacity.
2) You're shifting the subsidy problem from windfarms to motorists. While it would be nice to get a slice of the pie, its the subsidy that is creating the high prices. Also, without being paid not to generate when it is windy (because the energy can now be stored) will the economic viability of windfarms disappear?...hence they no longer get built or maintained. Would we then have to continue subsidising wind farms and also the motorists who allow their EV battery to used by the grid? What will that do to energy prices?
3) you're also shifting the uncertainty from wind farms to motorists. When the wind blows will there be enough cars connected to store the energy? Mid day, people at work, not as many hooked up to charge points as there would be if people were home.
When the grid wants its power back, will there be enough people connected to do so? if they need it at 5:30 pm, when everyone is parked on the M1 and M25 then its not so useful. If it needs it at 7 PM when people are in eating their tea, then it works. But what if, like me, you are then off out most evenings? I'd want my car ready to go with full range.
4) How will they deal with not leaving motorists stranded? Say they need the juice at 4 pm and the owner comes back at 5pm to drive home, only to find his EV flat as a pancake? Will there have to be agreements in place that the car will be attached always between X am and Y pm? If its removed during that time, will there be a penalty payment?
Nice idea but its going to take some serious critical thinking to make sure it works in practice and everyone is going to have to be in on it and change the way they use their cars. There would be danger of whilst making power from renewables more of a known quantity, you'd end up restricting peoples mobility. That isn't beneficial to the economy either.
Then just imaging what your powerbill will look like when its full of sales and buy backs!
Ah I supposed to be working... never mind last week on this job ;-)The grid to EV storage does sound nice in theory, but I don't think it will the miracle you say it is. There are a few hurdles.
1) some people simply won't allow that type of use regardless of the benefits. So you miss out on some storage capacity.
2) You're shifting the subsidy problem from windfarms to motorists. While it would be nice to get a slice of the pie, its the subsidy that is creating the high prices. Also, without being paid not to generate when it is windy (because the energy can now be stored) will the economic viability of windfarms disappear?...hence they no longer get built or maintained. Would we then have to continue subsidising wind farms and also the motorists who allow their EV battery to used by the grid? What will that do to energy prices?
3) you're also shifting the uncertainty from wind farms to motorists. When the wind blows will there be enough cars connected to store the energy? Mid day, people at work, not as many hooked up to charge points as there would be if people were home.
When the grid wants its power back, will there be enough people connected to do so? if they need it at 5:30 pm, when everyone is parked on the M1 and M25 then its not so useful. If it needs it at 7 PM when people are in eating their tea, then it works. But what if, like me, you are then off out most evenings? I'd want my car ready to go with full range.
4) How will they deal with not leaving motorists stranded? Say they need the juice at 4 pm and the owner comes back at 5pm to drive home, only to find his EV flat as a pancake? Will there have to be agreements in place that the car will be attached always between X am and Y pm? If its removed during that time, will there be a penalty payment?
Nice idea but its going to take some serious critical thinking to make sure it works in practice and everyone is going to have to be in on it and change the way they use their cars. There would be danger of whilst making power from renewables more of a known quantity, you'd end up restricting peoples mobility. That isn't beneficial to the economy either.
Then just imaging what your powerbill will look like when its full of sales and buy backs!
you raise some good questions:
1) Yes agree. Some people won't, Until they realise they can make more money buying and selling electric using their car battery than what they used to spend on buying petrol.
2) No - it's the opposite of subsidy. 1/2 hourly energy prices already fluctuate between pennies and almost pounds. Thikn the figure is somethinn like 2p to all time peak of over £1 /kWh. But would have to go get some link to back that up. IT's how Dnowig Powerstation makes their money - went to visit last year and it was the figures they gave. No as a single EV owners you won't be getting the wholesale rates they get, but there will be a big enough spread. Say you buy at the standard E7 rate of 8p, you should be able to get at least 40p/kWH if not more than 50p. I think the headline rate is about 80p.
3) This is the one that probably needs government intervention rather than not just leaving it to the market. They need to get employers to bring online EV charging points so you can be absorbing the wind excess in the day. (LOL) The thing is - whoever is there is there. If they're not there it's not a problem. But you are dealing with averages. So on most days there may be only 10% there by 5pm, but 50% by 6pm, then a peak of 60% by 7pm, but it then drops off again as people have had their dinner, and start going out doing stuff. The other thing having 4 helps with planning and bringing gas and coal plants on steam ...
4) Is easy.. Just build a calendar into the car. Accessible from your smart phone in case you change your mind. Co-incidentally - Telsa just did that into their v6.0 software update. Nothing to do with VTG yet, think it was more to do with getting the autopilot to pick you up at the front door and have the car pre warmed. But the idea used for VTG is simple.. you stick your planned regular and one off journeys in, let the car work out how many kWh you have spare, plus a margin. Personally.. my new job is a 120 mile round trip. So will use up the whole i3 battery by the time I get 1/4 of the way home - so can't offer any... unless they give me a charging spot at work. When I get home there would be about 4kWh left in the battery. Unless it was a Wednesday when I go out. Beside - I might be one of the useless EV owners - who happens to be commuting for about 50% of the evening peak anyway. The point is, you don't need everyone. Just some. The first person I knew to get an EVs was retired. Presumably not worried about the commuting range!
I think we'll see ICE drop from being connected to the wheels to be used simply as a decent efficiency generator. Why lug a huge V8 and gearbox around when a small capacity bike engine can buffer the power in a small battery to be unleashed by a small pair of AWD Variable frequency AC Induction motors when required. 691hp is less than they could have gone for in the Telsa Model S. But I think is limited by the 500kW the battery can supply (for now). That's half a flippin megawatt! From 10 years of battery development! Imagine if they stuck a pair of the 470hp motors at the rear, and two 180 hp at the front Nearly 1400hp. You can do it efficiently with an EV as they aren't continuously having to compress 4+ litres of air - even when you don't need the power. In fact as Telsa have just shown it actually gets more efficient to have AWD as the motors can be geared different and then you use the one that's most efficient for the current cruise speed when you don't need full power. Cake and eat it, with sprinkles.
[quick edit to add.. energy billing is one of my speciality area... 10 years in teh industry. You'd get an extra line with "VTG Exports £150", along with the usual, Standard Rate Units and Night Units. The EVSE chargers have built in meters with GPRS modems that wire the usage data back to a central site. So you can cross check your purchasing vs exports.]
Edited by TransverseTight on Tuesday 28th October 16:11
Scuffers said:
the levels of in-efficiency in doing this are frankly staggeringly bad - as in you looking at lower than 25% efficiency in electricity turn-round.
ie, a total waste of time/effort/money and does not actually solve the problem - bit like wind farms!
Yes I forgot about transmission losses.ie, a total waste of time/effort/money and does not actually solve the problem - bit like wind farms!
I am not au fait with those kinds of things, how would you work out transmission loss from Turbine -> step up -> transmit long distance -> step down -> rectify -> charge car -> discharge car -> inverter -> step up -> transmit long distance -> step down to where ever it is used.
There is a loss associated with every step there. I assume the biggest losses will come from AC/DC conversion (whether that is on the wall charger or in the car itself). Also don't items such as motors and transformers, anything with an inductor, place some kind of phantom load on the grid?
Be cool if someone could work that out. Entropy's a b
h!TransverseTight said:
Ah I supposed to be working... never mind last week on this job ;-)
you raise some good questions:
1) Yes agree. Some people won't, Until they realise they can make more money buying and selling electric using their car battery than what they used to spend on buying petrol.
2) No - it's the opposite of subsidy. 1/2 hourly energy prices already fluctuate between pennies and almost pounds. Thikn the figure is somethinn like 2p to all time peak of over £1 /kWh. But would have to go get some link to back that up. IT's how Dnowig Powerstation makes their money - went to visit last year and it was the figures they gave. No as a single EV owners you won't be getting the wholesale rates they get, but there will be a big enough spread. Say you buy at the standard E7 rate of 8p, you should be able to get at least 40p/kWH if not more than 50p. I think the headline rate is about 80p.
3) This is the one that probably needs government intervention rather than not just leaving it to the market. They need to get employers to bring online EV charging points so you can be absorbing the wind excess in the day. (LOL) The thing is - whoever is there is there. If they're not there it's not a problem. But you are dealing with averages. So on most days there may be only 10% there by 5pm, but 50% by 6pm, then a peak of 60% by 7pm, but it then drops off again as people have had their dinner, and start going out doing stuff. The other thing having 4 helps with planning and bringing gas and coal plants on steam ...
4) Is easy.. Just build a calendar into the car. Accessible from your smart phone in case you change your mind. Co-incidentally - Telsa just did that into their v6.0 software update. Nothing to do with VTG yet, think it was more to do with getting the autopilot to pick you up at the front door and have the car pre warmed. But the idea used for VTG is simple.. you stick your planned regular and one off journeys in, let the car work out how many kWh you have spare, plus a margin. Personally.. my new job is a 120 mile round trip. So will use up the whole i3 battery by the time I get 1/4 of the way home - so can't offer any... unless they give me a charging spot at work. When I get home there would be about 4kWh left in the battery. Unless it was a Wednesday when I go out. Beside - I might be one of the useless EV owners - who happens to be commuting for about 50% of the evening peak anyway. The point is, you don't need everyone. Just some. The first person I knew to get an EVs was retired. Presumably not worried about the commuting range!
I think we'll see ICE drop from being connected to the wheels to be used simply as a decent efficiency generator. Why lug a huge V8 and gearbox around when a small capacity bike engine can buffer the power in a small battery to be unleashed by a small pair of AWD Variable frequency AC Induction motors when required. 691hp is less than they could have gone for in the Telsa Model S. But I think is limited by the 500kW the battery can supply (for now). That's half a flippin megawatt! From 10 years of battery development! Imagine if they stuck a pair of the 470hp motors at the rear, and two 180 hp at the front Nearly 1400hp. You can do it efficiently with an EV as they aren't continuously having to compress 4+ litres of air - even when you don't need the power. In fact as Telsa have just shown it actually gets more efficient to have AWD as the motors can be geared different and then you use the one that's most efficient for the current cruise speed when you don't need full power. Cake and eat it, with sprinkles.
[quick edit to add.. energy billing is one of my speciality area... 10 years in teh industry. You'd get an extra line with "VTG Exports £150", along with the usual, Standard Rate Units and Night Units. The EVSE chargers have built in meters with GPRS modems that wire the usage data back to a central site. So you can cross check your purchasing vs exports.]
thanks for that . i really have been wondering at the type of mindset that has led us to where we are today.all those ifs ,buts and maybes must have sounded mightily impressive to someone as thick as ed davey ,especially with no one to offer a word or two of caution . this will be an interesting topic in say 20 years ,once the ideologists learn the error of their ways.you raise some good questions:
1) Yes agree. Some people won't, Until they realise they can make more money buying and selling electric using their car battery than what they used to spend on buying petrol.
2) No - it's the opposite of subsidy. 1/2 hourly energy prices already fluctuate between pennies and almost pounds. Thikn the figure is somethinn like 2p to all time peak of over £1 /kWh. But would have to go get some link to back that up. IT's how Dnowig Powerstation makes their money - went to visit last year and it was the figures they gave. No as a single EV owners you won't be getting the wholesale rates they get, but there will be a big enough spread. Say you buy at the standard E7 rate of 8p, you should be able to get at least 40p/kWH if not more than 50p. I think the headline rate is about 80p.
3) This is the one that probably needs government intervention rather than not just leaving it to the market. They need to get employers to bring online EV charging points so you can be absorbing the wind excess in the day. (LOL) The thing is - whoever is there is there. If they're not there it's not a problem. But you are dealing with averages. So on most days there may be only 10% there by 5pm, but 50% by 6pm, then a peak of 60% by 7pm, but it then drops off again as people have had their dinner, and start going out doing stuff. The other thing having 4 helps with planning and bringing gas and coal plants on steam ...
4) Is easy.. Just build a calendar into the car. Accessible from your smart phone in case you change your mind. Co-incidentally - Telsa just did that into their v6.0 software update. Nothing to do with VTG yet, think it was more to do with getting the autopilot to pick you up at the front door and have the car pre warmed. But the idea used for VTG is simple.. you stick your planned regular and one off journeys in, let the car work out how many kWh you have spare, plus a margin. Personally.. my new job is a 120 mile round trip. So will use up the whole i3 battery by the time I get 1/4 of the way home - so can't offer any... unless they give me a charging spot at work. When I get home there would be about 4kWh left in the battery. Unless it was a Wednesday when I go out. Beside - I might be one of the useless EV owners - who happens to be commuting for about 50% of the evening peak anyway. The point is, you don't need everyone. Just some. The first person I knew to get an EVs was retired. Presumably not worried about the commuting range!
I think we'll see ICE drop from being connected to the wheels to be used simply as a decent efficiency generator. Why lug a huge V8 and gearbox around when a small capacity bike engine can buffer the power in a small battery to be unleashed by a small pair of AWD Variable frequency AC Induction motors when required. 691hp is less than they could have gone for in the Telsa Model S. But I think is limited by the 500kW the battery can supply (for now). That's half a flippin megawatt! From 10 years of battery development! Imagine if they stuck a pair of the 470hp motors at the rear, and two 180 hp at the front Nearly 1400hp. You can do it efficiently with an EV as they aren't continuously having to compress 4+ litres of air - even when you don't need the power. In fact as Telsa have just shown it actually gets more efficient to have AWD as the motors can be geared different and then you use the one that's most efficient for the current cruise speed when you don't need full power. Cake and eat it, with sprinkles.
[quick edit to add.. energy billing is one of my speciality area... 10 years in teh industry. You'd get an extra line with "VTG Exports £150", along with the usual, Standard Rate Units and Night Units. The EVSE chargers have built in meters with GPRS modems that wire the usage data back to a central site. So you can cross check your purchasing vs exports.]
Edited by TransverseTight on Tuesday 28th October 16:11
LongQ said:
Would it not be much easier and a tad more predictable if households could store energy should they wish to using just the battery technology not the whole car? That would assume, of course, that the battery technology was somewhat improved compared to what is available today ... which might happen.
I really can't see the point in mobile cycling batteries as a proposed 'solution' when there are more obvious and realistic ways to deal with the challenges.
As for CCS (mentioned earlier by TT) ... yep, sure. Maybe Elon Musk, miracle worker in residence, can come up with something. Perhaps use the captured carbon as fuel to transport his 1 million population of humans to Mars.
Mind you looking at what seems likely to be be possible in an optimistic way today some decades ahead of the "must exist to be a viable solution" date ... I wouldn't want to make a large bet on a successful development.
So, what is plan B?
Plan B must be to build lots of nuclear power stations, like the grinning warmonger should have done 15 years ago if it was such a national and global emergency to slash carbon dioxide emissions.I really can't see the point in mobile cycling batteries as a proposed 'solution' when there are more obvious and realistic ways to deal with the challenges.
As for CCS (mentioned earlier by TT) ... yep, sure. Maybe Elon Musk, miracle worker in residence, can come up with something. Perhaps use the captured carbon as fuel to transport his 1 million population of humans to Mars.
Mind you looking at what seems likely to be be possible in an optimistic way today some decades ahead of the "must exist to be a viable solution" date ... I wouldn't want to make a large bet on a successful development.
So, what is plan B?
Otispunkmeyer said:
Then just imaging what your powerbill will look like when its full of sales and buy backs!
Has anyone tried to do some sums to calculate what the parasitic losses are going to be with all this charge flowing hither and yon? We already know wind power is expensive, this is just going to make it more so. Not to mention the potential for harmonics in the grid from all these inverters in homes.Blib said:
Otispunkmeyer said:
chris watton said:
Just to be clear here - we (the UK) have both the technology and resources to ensure every single home and business has plenty of energy (it is 2014 after all..), but, because of ideological dogma, homes and businesses may have to be energy rationed, as there isn't, or will not be enough energy produced?
That would be correct.The people running this country are as thick as mince.
Anyone remember green jobs? Where the hell are they?
As regards 'battery' cars of any description, the Hyundai ix35 Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle is already manifestly far more practical/cost effective than a charge up battery or hybrid car. It's obvious that if 'dirty' internal combustion engined cars are going to be replaced in large numbers, it is this technology that will leave battery cars for dead, if something even better (without batteries!) doesn't come along.
TransverseTight said:
Talking CCS- my favorite is an idea in USA. They capture the carbon in some slurry stuff and use the resulting carbonate or whatever it's called to replace part of the the cement in concrete. Cuts out the process of baking limestone to get the same product. I don't think it can be a complete replacement - something like 25% slop to 75% cement ratio. Thought I better check up on it as it might be one of those companies that has an idea and then goes under... They actually have a pilot up and running for 2 years.. http://www.calera.com/beneficial-reuse-of-co2/scal...
What I love about this one.. it not only means you can connect up your gas / coal fired powerstation as an an input, but you are also reducing emissions from cement manufacturing, and ending up with a product you can sell. Cost to make is probably higher, but better than just trying to scrub CO2 with no output.
I have a better idea. Release the CO2. Costs less and is not a problem.What I love about this one.. it not only means you can connect up your gas / coal fired powerstation as an an input, but you are also reducing emissions from cement manufacturing, and ending up with a product you can sell. Cost to make is probably higher, but better than just trying to scrub CO2 with no output.
mybrainhurts said:
TransverseTight said:
Talking CCS- my favorite is an idea in USA. They capture the carbon in some slurry stuff and use the resulting carbonate or whatever it's called to replace part of the the cement in concrete. Cuts out the process of baking limestone to get the same product. I don't think it can be a complete replacement - something like 25% slop to 75% cement ratio. Thought I better check up on it as it might be one of those companies that has an idea and then goes under... They actually have a pilot up and running for 2 years.. http://www.calera.com/beneficial-reuse-of-co2/scal...
What I love about this one.. it not only means you can connect up your gas / coal fired powerstation as an an input, but you are also reducing emissions from cement manufacturing, and ending up with a product you can sell. Cost to make is probably higher, but better than just trying to scrub CO2 with no output.
I have a better idea. Release the CO2. Costs less and is not a problem.What I love about this one.. it not only means you can connect up your gas / coal fired powerstation as an an input, but you are also reducing emissions from cement manufacturing, and ending up with a product you can sell. Cost to make is probably higher, but better than just trying to scrub CO2 with no output.
Mr GrimNasty said:
As regards 'battery' cars of any description, the Hyundai ix35 Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle is already manifestly far more practical/cost effective than a charge up battery or hybrid car. It's obvious that if 'dirty' internal combustion engined cars are going to be replaced in large numbers, it is this technology that will leave battery cars for dead, if something even better (without batteries!) doesn't come along.
Yes, if you happen to have a hydrogen fuelling station in your garage. Otherwise you've got to go queue up and pay unleaded prices or more - given the cost of producing hydrogen. Even assuming that there will be a hydrogen station in every town in 10 years time. The costs of this are much higher than sticking a 13 pin lead into an outlet in your garage. Which already exists. In justs the Off peak 7 hours you can get most of what you need to do a days commute. If you want more, stick in a 32amp EVSE box. Currently free from some suppliers, but real world price about £800 installed.I don't see hydrogen as an either/or with batteries. Justs another tech that might work. I think we may even see see hydrogen / battery hybrids, given the FC outputs electricity. You want some regen so need a battery store. May as well start the day with a cheap supply off your E7 and when that runs out, use the H2 in the tank.
A BIG IF .... IF they can work out how to do the infrastructure cheap enough and how to make hydrogen cheap enough. There's a famous quote that does the rounds with fuel cells... "they are the fuel of the future and always will be". I bought shares in Ballard Power systems in 1999 who were doing trials with Mercedes at the time. They've come a long way... from 2 huge tanks on the roof of a Sprinter Bus, to the A Class type demo, to the smallish systems they have now that fit in regular cars. As far as I know they still haven't cracked the cost of the Fuel cell itself. Current fleets are really a demo of what could be done, but sold/leased at a loss to learn about real world customer experience.
What you miss about batteries is most people on most days would take about 15-30 seconds to have a full tank ready for the next day. Jump out the car, open the frunk trunk thingy, Plug into the wall charger, done. No more visiting the gas station, and mileage costs are 1p mile. I don't have a figure for H2, but I bet reforming a gas stream into 99.99999% pure H2, compressing and or liquifying it, transporting it, and then storing it in tanks, which become brittle due to the tiny size of the particles permeating just about anything, aint going to be as cheap as using the electric infrastructure which is already avaialble in 99.999% of UK homes. And you still need to wait at the car for 10 minutes while the H2 transfers. Longer than Unleaded. That won't catch on. Hydrogen keeps customers in a sales model for their fuel that once they try the BEV route won't be aceptable. Except for long journeys. So they may have a short life as an alternative to ICE, in hybrid use, until battery capcity gets biggers and cheaper.
I'm not anti FC. Just after watching their snail like progress for nearly 2 decades, batterries are rapidly getting to the point where if FC don't get going soon it will be too late. Battery tech is dropping at 7% cost per year, whilst gaining in energy density at 8% per year - in lumps and bumps as new features like anode and cathode treatments come on stream.
I've got a little spreadsheet here that shows based on current 2014 price of about £280/kWh that means £181/kWh in 2020 and £87/kWh in 2030 . Using the Telsa as an example 85kWh is £23,800 now, £15,398 in 2020 and £7,453 in 2030.
Whilst energy density will go from todays 117 Wh/kg to 186 in 2020 401 in 2030. If you take Telsa's 85kWh pack - today would weigh 726kg, 2020 458 kg, 2030 212kg.
You other option is to make the pack bigger, as long as the "volumetric density" also increases. By that I mean how many kWh per litre you can store. Sometimes the tech jumps means more kWh per Kg. Sometimes more per litre, but with increased weight in that litre. the latest gen of LiIon 18650 cells increased in energy storage in the same size cell, but they also got heavier. Still wh/Kg went up overall.
Note these aren't actual OEM prices weights, just based on estimated figures I've collected from around the web which is a rough indicator of current pricing, and long term trends.
If we're going to look at "future nearly here tech" like hydrogen, a recent breakthrough is solid state batteries. Rather than a tube with spiral collector and anode and cathode at each end, they print them using depostion laying techniques - similar to semiconductor industry. Substrate, anode, electrolyte, cathode, substrate -> Repeated in stacks. You can smash the battery in two and the half still connected to the edge plate still produces power with no risk of thermal run away. Justs needs scaling up to Gigafactory levels now. But it was designed dfrom the ground up using mathematical modeling (as opossed to chemical compouind testing) to answer the question.. "Whats the best way to make a cheap, large capacity, high discharge rate battery". Check out Sakti3 around the web for analysis and commentary.
Otispunkmeyer said:
Yes I forgot about transmission losses.
I am not au fait with those kinds of things, how would you work out transmission loss from Turbine -> step up -> transmit long distance -> step down -> rectify -> charge car -> discharge car -> inverter -> step up -> transmit long distance -> step down to where ever it is used.
There is a loss associated with every step there. I assume the biggest losses will come from AC/DC conversion (whether that is on the wall charger or in the car itself). Also don't items such as motors and transformers, anything with an inductor, place some kind of phantom load on the grid?
Be cool if someone could work that out. Entropy's a bh!
You misunderstand hoiw the grid actually works. Say if you are foolish like me and think to get us onto sustainable (as in without resource extraction constraint issues , not in the CO2 free sense) people with a bit more money should pay up for "green" electric. I am not au fait with those kinds of things, how would you work out transmission loss from Turbine -> step up -> transmit long distance -> step down -> rectify -> charge car -> discharge car -> inverter -> step up -> transmit long distance -> step down to where ever it is used.
There is a loss associated with every step there. I assume the biggest losses will come from AC/DC conversion (whether that is on the wall charger or in the car itself). Also don't items such as motors and transformers, anything with an inductor, place some kind of phantom load on the grid?
Be cool if someone could work that out. Entropy's a b
h!I know full well those "Green" electrons being put into the grid in South Devon, and around the coast of Britain and in people's eye sore of a turbine in their "back yard", aren't the one coming out my plug sockets. I live about 10 miles from Rugely powersation (just north of Brum) so you can bet as it's several thhouasnd megawatts, my electrons are actually coming from coal.
But the way the grid works, is as a huge pool. For every customer, each supplier has to show they have bought electric into the pool to satisfy their customer usage profiles on a half hourly basis, and also their metered supply over the year. So the electrons from wind turbines will actually be getting burned up nearest where they are produced, and the electrons getting locked up for a couple of hours in Telsa's i3 and Leafs, will be from whatever is near by. There may be some balancing of supply and use which is what all the HV transmission lines are for.
Once the peak comes along, those battery stored electrons will get let lose, and whoever is nearest to them will get to have spaghetti hoops on toast, or watch some hugely entertaining soap opera. It will save some energy from elsewhere on the grid having to move down the wires the net benefit being less transmission loss, as long as the EV owners don't live on farms, somewhere in West Central Wales.
Thre is still a loss of about 10-20% on the round trip of plug>battery>plug. Depending on the charger type, battery chemistry etc. But the economics of trying to balance the peak evening grid have always existed - long before there were loads of wind turbines. The daily ramp up from afternoon to winter evening has a slew rate much higher than if all the wind turbines across the UK suddenly stopped spinning within an hour (which doesn't happen but could). The difference is... they can plan minute by minute what the typical grid demand will be, but not what wind will do. However - the grid, or more specifically people, don't always do what they expected minute by minute, hence why powerstations have "throttles" and they keep some on spinning reserve, and can kick some offline with a few seconds notice.
If you look at http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ you can see how the CCGTs pick up most of the variable load... going from 12.5GW at 4pm, to nearly 20GW by 5.30 pm and back down to 5GW overnight, ramping back up from about 6am. In the day I'm writing this... there's been between 2 and 5GW of wind output. Meaning we don't have to burn the equivalent of 2GW-5GW of gas, meaning supplies will last a bit longer and prices will stay a bit lower in the long term. The grid can quite happily cope with that much variation - as seen by the daily usage patterns. Just that it has to be reacted to rather than planned for - although they do use quite sophisticated wind prediction and monitoring tools now.
Edited by TransverseTight on Tuesday 28th October 23:55
One thing I've often wodnered and never found the answer too... when it comes to grid balancing. Say we are all watching the winter olympics, and there's loads of snow in the picture. All those LEDs and plasma screens will be outputting full brightness. It then cuts to the adverts and there's the new Lexus advert, all dark and moody. Does the grid frequency suddnely spike - as the LEDs in say 10 million homes, suddenly only draw 50W instead of 100W? Makes you think! Vice cersa would be everyone watching Star Wars and the Cut seens on Episode 5, where they are going from Hoth to space and back, could be playing havoc. Especially people like me running HD projectors using about 300W!
Other examples of difficult to plan for events are National foootball events. When exactly will the penatliy shoot out finish? And does everyone swtich of the TV, or stay wathing but make a cup of tea in the kitchen. I think the potential for BEV s is not just the evning peak, but sudden demand changes, which is what Dnowig in Wales is meant to do. They specifally mentions world cups and cornation steet as events they have to be on standby for. Bascailly they get the turbines spinning in air, using the generator as a motor, and then in 6 seconds can open the sluice gates and have an extra 300MW hitting the grid. And they have 6 of them. Well worth a visit if you are nearby in north Wales, Electric Mountain is the visitor centre name. You actually get to go in the turbine hall and stand 6 ft from the generators and the big yellow flow valves
Noisy as there's always one spinning in standby mode.
Other examples of difficult to plan for events are National foootball events. When exactly will the penatliy shoot out finish? And does everyone swtich of the TV, or stay wathing but make a cup of tea in the kitchen. I think the potential for BEV s is not just the evning peak, but sudden demand changes, which is what Dnowig in Wales is meant to do. They specifally mentions world cups and cornation steet as events they have to be on standby for. Bascailly they get the turbines spinning in air, using the generator as a motor, and then in 6 seconds can open the sluice gates and have an extra 300MW hitting the grid. And they have 6 of them. Well worth a visit if you are nearby in north Wales, Electric Mountain is the visitor centre name. You actually get to go in the turbine hall and stand 6 ft from the generators and the big yellow flow valves
Noisy as there's always one spinning in standby mode.Two observations TT.
Look at the volatility of the forecasts of wind output vs actual metered production and see just how difficult it is to predict anything like accurately much of the time. Then check the frequency variations in the system which, as I understand it, are averaged across the monitored grid so local variations could be dealing with much greater spikes.
Pretty much any 'renewable' in the existing mix that can be persuaded to produce any useful amount of output is subject to such fluctuations in or part of the world. Less so in other places - like Arizona or some desert regions.
Secondly the economics you describe seem to be based largely on the 'now' market costs and sales pricing based on today's demands and imbalances of supply. To project the benefits into the future with your proposed extended use of electric power replacing fossil fuels for transport looks rather like you have to ignore the considerable changes to the market that altered consumption patterns will induce.
Existing policy, such as it is, seems intent on managing demand on the one hand and changing the balance of production on the other with some attempt to smooth out utilisation in the middle. All this to be achieved against a background the will still require significant investment in new plant and to refresh existing capacity.
Having established that we the taxpayers can be robbed to pay well over the going rate for heavily subsidised facilities of pretty much all types the investors are in a strong position to blackmail future governments to hand over huge amounts of dosh to build facilities AND guarantee a premium price for whatever they manage to produce. Better yet they can negotiate clauses that require them to be paid for not generating anything due to the need to have capacity and to be somewhat available to deliver it for a few months of each year over the winter period.
The government could make that absurd situation look better by smoothing demand over th esummer period as well. Perhaps they should mandate the required use of aircon in all buildings for H&S reasons thus creating demand for more energy during the summer months.
Either way the current demand and supply model with the claimed options to store energy when it's cheap and sell it back when it is expensive is not likely to be sustainable if government objective for uptake are achieved. The predicted "cheap" energy available at certain times due to low demand will just not exist once demand is smoothed and, most likely, before that should people buy in to the concept.
With wind produced electricity costing far more than almost any other source, even ignoring the need for investment and maintenance of alternative back up sources, the only thing guaranteed is that energy will become ever more expensive and even the plug in car "winners" will lose in the longer term.
More practically I really struggle to see how certain locations, even with enough wealth to buy in to the early period of, say, Tesla market growth (Tesla technology representing something worth considering where many of the others, by comparison, do not) would be able to deploy the infrastructure required.
Streets full of terraced houses and parking wherever you can are not obvious locations for electric car charging success stories to appear. Likewise families with multiple vehicles might be challenged to get them all charged - or discharged even if tariffs are favourable.
To make these things work in a mass market mass uptake sense may require far more effort with infrastructure development than anyone cares to admit. If the market does not spread the wider objective (irrespective of its validity) will fail and at best those at the poor end of society will become poorer whilst the ability of wealthier people to milk the system of supporting tariffs is likely to creep to lower levels of the social pyramid but not that much lower than the current opportunities for land owners to take advantage of Government largesse. (One might also think of it as a legalised tax avoidance scheme with bonuses attached.)
So I don't think your proposed model works on a fiscal or a social basis for future projections. Moreover the potential for drastic re-distribution of energy production around the world (not just the provision of fuel for energy production deployment where needed) could fundamentally change the socio economic world model that we currently have. Many think that may in fact be the driving force behind most of the decisions the the "lawmakers" come up with. If that comes to pass our discussion about the minutiae of ways and means to 'manage' the electricity grid in the UK will look pretty pointless in hindsight.
Look at the volatility of the forecasts of wind output vs actual metered production and see just how difficult it is to predict anything like accurately much of the time. Then check the frequency variations in the system which, as I understand it, are averaged across the monitored grid so local variations could be dealing with much greater spikes.
Pretty much any 'renewable' in the existing mix that can be persuaded to produce any useful amount of output is subject to such fluctuations in or part of the world. Less so in other places - like Arizona or some desert regions.
Secondly the economics you describe seem to be based largely on the 'now' market costs and sales pricing based on today's demands and imbalances of supply. To project the benefits into the future with your proposed extended use of electric power replacing fossil fuels for transport looks rather like you have to ignore the considerable changes to the market that altered consumption patterns will induce.
Existing policy, such as it is, seems intent on managing demand on the one hand and changing the balance of production on the other with some attempt to smooth out utilisation in the middle. All this to be achieved against a background the will still require significant investment in new plant and to refresh existing capacity.
Having established that we the taxpayers can be robbed to pay well over the going rate for heavily subsidised facilities of pretty much all types the investors are in a strong position to blackmail future governments to hand over huge amounts of dosh to build facilities AND guarantee a premium price for whatever they manage to produce. Better yet they can negotiate clauses that require them to be paid for not generating anything due to the need to have capacity and to be somewhat available to deliver it for a few months of each year over the winter period.
The government could make that absurd situation look better by smoothing demand over th esummer period as well. Perhaps they should mandate the required use of aircon in all buildings for H&S reasons thus creating demand for more energy during the summer months.
Either way the current demand and supply model with the claimed options to store energy when it's cheap and sell it back when it is expensive is not likely to be sustainable if government objective for uptake are achieved. The predicted "cheap" energy available at certain times due to low demand will just not exist once demand is smoothed and, most likely, before that should people buy in to the concept.
With wind produced electricity costing far more than almost any other source, even ignoring the need for investment and maintenance of alternative back up sources, the only thing guaranteed is that energy will become ever more expensive and even the plug in car "winners" will lose in the longer term.
More practically I really struggle to see how certain locations, even with enough wealth to buy in to the early period of, say, Tesla market growth (Tesla technology representing something worth considering where many of the others, by comparison, do not) would be able to deploy the infrastructure required.
Streets full of terraced houses and parking wherever you can are not obvious locations for electric car charging success stories to appear. Likewise families with multiple vehicles might be challenged to get them all charged - or discharged even if tariffs are favourable.
To make these things work in a mass market mass uptake sense may require far more effort with infrastructure development than anyone cares to admit. If the market does not spread the wider objective (irrespective of its validity) will fail and at best those at the poor end of society will become poorer whilst the ability of wealthier people to milk the system of supporting tariffs is likely to creep to lower levels of the social pyramid but not that much lower than the current opportunities for land owners to take advantage of Government largesse. (One might also think of it as a legalised tax avoidance scheme with bonuses attached.)
So I don't think your proposed model works on a fiscal or a social basis for future projections. Moreover the potential for drastic re-distribution of energy production around the world (not just the provision of fuel for energy production deployment where needed) could fundamentally change the socio economic world model that we currently have. Many think that may in fact be the driving force behind most of the decisions the the "lawmakers" come up with. If that comes to pass our discussion about the minutiae of ways and means to 'manage' the electricity grid in the UK will look pretty pointless in hindsight.
TransverseTight said:
Thre is still a loss of about 10-20% on the round trip of plug>battery>plug. Depending on the charger type, battery chemistry etc.
in your dreams...ignoring the charger/inverter/etc looses, just at the battery level, your never going to get down to 10-20% cycle looses with current battery tech.
TransverseTight said:
You misunderstand hoiw the grid actually works. Say if you are foolish like me and think to get us onto sustainable (as in without resource extraction constraint issues , not in the CO2 free sense) people with a bit more money should pay up for "green" electric.
I know full well those "Green" electrons being put into the grid in South Devon, and around the coast of Britain and in people's eye sore of a turbine in their "back yard", aren't the one coming out my plug sockets. I live about 10 miles from Rugely powersation (just north of Brum) so you can bet as it's several thhouasnd megawatts, my electrons are actually coming from coal.
But the way the grid works, is as a huge pool. For every customer, each supplier has to show they have bought electric into the pool to satisfy their customer usage profiles on a half hourly basis, and also their metered supply over the year. So the electrons from wind turbines will actually be getting burned up nearest where they are produced, and the electrons getting locked up for a couple of hours in Telsa's i3 and Leafs, will be from whatever is near by. There may be some balancing of supply and use which is what all the HV transmission lines are for.
Once the peak comes along, those battery stored electrons will get let lose, and whoever is nearest to them will get to have spaghetti hoops on toast, or watch some hugely entertaining soap opera. It will save some energy from elsewhere on the grid having to move down the wires the net benefit being less transmission loss, as long as the EV owners don't live on farms, somewhere in West Central Wales.
Thre is still a loss of about 10-20% on the round trip of plug>battery>plug. Depending on the charger type, battery chemistry etc. But the economics of trying to balance the peak evening grid have always existed - long before there were loads of wind turbines. The daily ramp up from afternoon to winter evening has a slew rate much higher than if all the wind turbines across the UK suddenly stopped spinning within an hour (which doesn't happen but could). The difference is... they can plan minute by minute what the typical grid demand will be, but not what wind will do. However - the grid, or more specifically people, don't always do what they expected minute by minute, hence why powerstations have "throttles" and they keep some on spinning reserve, and can kick some offline with a few seconds notice.
If you look at http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ you can see how the CCGTs pick up most of the variable load... going from 12.5GW at 4pm, to nearly 20GW by 5.30 pm and back down to 5GW overnight, ramping back up from about 6am. In the day I'm writing this... there's been between 2 and 5GW of wind output. Meaning we don't have to burn the equivalent of 2GW-5GW of gas, meaning supplies will last a bit longer and prices will stay a bit lower in the long term. The grid can quite happily cope with that much variation - as seen by the daily usage patterns. Just that it has to be reacted to rather than planned for - although they do use quite sophisticated wind prediction and monitoring tools now.
Thanks for the explanation.I know full well those "Green" electrons being put into the grid in South Devon, and around the coast of Britain and in people's eye sore of a turbine in their "back yard", aren't the one coming out my plug sockets. I live about 10 miles from Rugely powersation (just north of Brum) so you can bet as it's several thhouasnd megawatts, my electrons are actually coming from coal.
But the way the grid works, is as a huge pool. For every customer, each supplier has to show they have bought electric into the pool to satisfy their customer usage profiles on a half hourly basis, and also their metered supply over the year. So the electrons from wind turbines will actually be getting burned up nearest where they are produced, and the electrons getting locked up for a couple of hours in Telsa's i3 and Leafs, will be from whatever is near by. There may be some balancing of supply and use which is what all the HV transmission lines are for.
Once the peak comes along, those battery stored electrons will get let lose, and whoever is nearest to them will get to have spaghetti hoops on toast, or watch some hugely entertaining soap opera. It will save some energy from elsewhere on the grid having to move down the wires the net benefit being less transmission loss, as long as the EV owners don't live on farms, somewhere in West Central Wales.
Thre is still a loss of about 10-20% on the round trip of plug>battery>plug. Depending on the charger type, battery chemistry etc. But the economics of trying to balance the peak evening grid have always existed - long before there were loads of wind turbines. The daily ramp up from afternoon to winter evening has a slew rate much higher than if all the wind turbines across the UK suddenly stopped spinning within an hour (which doesn't happen but could). The difference is... they can plan minute by minute what the typical grid demand will be, but not what wind will do. However - the grid, or more specifically people, don't always do what they expected minute by minute, hence why powerstations have "throttles" and they keep some on spinning reserve, and can kick some offline with a few seconds notice.
If you look at http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ you can see how the CCGTs pick up most of the variable load... going from 12.5GW at 4pm, to nearly 20GW by 5.30 pm and back down to 5GW overnight, ramping back up from about 6am. In the day I'm writing this... there's been between 2 and 5GW of wind output. Meaning we don't have to burn the equivalent of 2GW-5GW of gas, meaning supplies will last a bit longer and prices will stay a bit lower in the long term. The grid can quite happily cope with that much variation - as seen by the daily usage patterns. Just that it has to be reacted to rather than planned for - although they do use quite sophisticated wind prediction and monitoring tools now.
Edited by TransverseTight on Tuesday 28th October 23:55
LongQ said:
Two observations TT.
Look at the volatility of the forecasts of wind output vs actual metered production and see just how difficult it is to predict anything like accurately much of the time. Then check the frequency variations in the system which, as I understand it, are averaged across the monitored grid so local variations could be dealing with much greater spikes.
Pretty much any 'renewable' in the existing mix that can be persuaded to produce any useful amount of output is subject to such fluctuations in or part of the world. Less so in other places - like Arizona or some desert regions.
Secondly the economics you describe seem to be based largely on the 'now' market costs and sales pricing based on today's demands and imbalances of supply. To project the benefits into the future with your proposed extended use of electric power replacing fossil fuels for transport looks rather like you have to ignore the considerable changes to the market that altered consumption patterns will induce.
Existing policy, such as it is, seems intent on managing demand on the one hand and changing the balance of production on the other with some attempt to smooth out utilisation in the middle. All this to be achieved against a background the will still require significant investment in new plant and to refresh existing capacity.
Having established that we the taxpayers can be robbed to pay well over the going rate for heavily subsidised facilities of pretty much all types the investors are in a strong position to blackmail future governments to hand over huge amounts of dosh to build facilities AND guarantee a premium price for whatever they manage to produce. Better yet they can negotiate clauses that require them to be paid for not generating anything due to the need to have capacity and to be somewhat available to deliver it for a few months of each year over the winter period.
The government could make that absurd situation look better by smoothing demand over th esummer period as well. Perhaps they should mandate the required use of aircon in all buildings for H&S reasons thus creating demand for more energy during the summer months.
Either way the current demand and supply model with the claimed options to store energy when it's cheap and sell it back when it is expensive is not likely to be sustainable if government objective for uptake are achieved. The predicted "cheap" energy available at certain times due to low demand will just not exist once demand is smoothed and, most likely, before that should people buy in to the concept.
With wind produced electricity costing far more than almost any other source, even ignoring the need for investment and maintenance of alternative back up sources, the only thing guaranteed is that energy will become ever more expensive and even the plug in car "winners" will lose in the longer term.
More practically I really struggle to see how certain locations, even with enough wealth to buy in to the early period of, say, Tesla market growth (Tesla technology representing something worth considering where many of the others, by comparison, do not) would be able to deploy the infrastructure required.
Streets full of terraced houses and parking wherever you can are not obvious locations for electric car charging success stories to appear. Likewise families with multiple vehicles might be challenged to get them all charged - or discharged even if tariffs are favourable.
To make these things work in a mass market mass uptake sense may require far more effort with infrastructure development than anyone cares to admit. If the market does not spread the wider objective (irrespective of its validity) will fail and at best those at the poor end of society will become poorer whilst the ability of wealthier people to milk the system of supporting tariffs is likely to creep to lower levels of the social pyramid but not that much lower than the current opportunities for land owners to take advantage of Government largesse. (One might also think of it as a legalised tax avoidance scheme with bonuses attached.)
So I don't think your proposed model works on a fiscal or a social basis for future projections. Moreover the potential for drastic re-distribution of energy production around the world (not just the provision of fuel for energy production deployment where needed) could fundamentally change the socio economic world model that we currently have. Many think that may in fact be the driving force behind most of the decisions the the "lawmakers" come up with. If that comes to pass our discussion about the minutiae of ways and means to 'manage' the electricity grid in the UK will look pretty pointless in hindsight.
The demand will always fluctuate, always has done always will. The only way to change this is if you can get more people working over night and staying up to do the cooking between midnight and 6am.Look at the volatility of the forecasts of wind output vs actual metered production and see just how difficult it is to predict anything like accurately much of the time. Then check the frequency variations in the system which, as I understand it, are averaged across the monitored grid so local variations could be dealing with much greater spikes.
Pretty much any 'renewable' in the existing mix that can be persuaded to produce any useful amount of output is subject to such fluctuations in or part of the world. Less so in other places - like Arizona or some desert regions.
Secondly the economics you describe seem to be based largely on the 'now' market costs and sales pricing based on today's demands and imbalances of supply. To project the benefits into the future with your proposed extended use of electric power replacing fossil fuels for transport looks rather like you have to ignore the considerable changes to the market that altered consumption patterns will induce.
Existing policy, such as it is, seems intent on managing demand on the one hand and changing the balance of production on the other with some attempt to smooth out utilisation in the middle. All this to be achieved against a background the will still require significant investment in new plant and to refresh existing capacity.
Having established that we the taxpayers can be robbed to pay well over the going rate for heavily subsidised facilities of pretty much all types the investors are in a strong position to blackmail future governments to hand over huge amounts of dosh to build facilities AND guarantee a premium price for whatever they manage to produce. Better yet they can negotiate clauses that require them to be paid for not generating anything due to the need to have capacity and to be somewhat available to deliver it for a few months of each year over the winter period.
The government could make that absurd situation look better by smoothing demand over th esummer period as well. Perhaps they should mandate the required use of aircon in all buildings for H&S reasons thus creating demand for more energy during the summer months.
Either way the current demand and supply model with the claimed options to store energy when it's cheap and sell it back when it is expensive is not likely to be sustainable if government objective for uptake are achieved. The predicted "cheap" energy available at certain times due to low demand will just not exist once demand is smoothed and, most likely, before that should people buy in to the concept.
With wind produced electricity costing far more than almost any other source, even ignoring the need for investment and maintenance of alternative back up sources, the only thing guaranteed is that energy will become ever more expensive and even the plug in car "winners" will lose in the longer term.
More practically I really struggle to see how certain locations, even with enough wealth to buy in to the early period of, say, Tesla market growth (Tesla technology representing something worth considering where many of the others, by comparison, do not) would be able to deploy the infrastructure required.
Streets full of terraced houses and parking wherever you can are not obvious locations for electric car charging success stories to appear. Likewise families with multiple vehicles might be challenged to get them all charged - or discharged even if tariffs are favourable.
To make these things work in a mass market mass uptake sense may require far more effort with infrastructure development than anyone cares to admit. If the market does not spread the wider objective (irrespective of its validity) will fail and at best those at the poor end of society will become poorer whilst the ability of wealthier people to milk the system of supporting tariffs is likely to creep to lower levels of the social pyramid but not that much lower than the current opportunities for land owners to take advantage of Government largesse. (One might also think of it as a legalised tax avoidance scheme with bonuses attached.)
So I don't think your proposed model works on a fiscal or a social basis for future projections. Moreover the potential for drastic re-distribution of energy production around the world (not just the provision of fuel for energy production deployment where needed) could fundamentally change the socio economic world model that we currently have. Many think that may in fact be the driving force behind most of the decisions the the "lawmakers" come up with. If that comes to pass our discussion about the minutiae of ways and means to 'manage' the electricity grid in the UK will look pretty pointless in hindsight.
There is one way you could utilise the spare overnight capacity - making current power stations more efficient, as they don't need to keep starting up and shutting down which wastes fuel and increases maintenance requirements. That would be to load them up charging EV batteries. I've previously worked out that for the average daily mileage, there's enough spare grid capacity at night to charge the whole UK car fleet if they were EVs. That's assuming something like 40 miles a day and 0.3kWh/mile. There's over 20GW spare between midnight and 6am. Even if you used coal to charge the EVs there would be a decrease in emissions from "well to wheel".
You correct not all houses have off street parking. Lets just assume half do. About 11 million. If we get them done first we can worry about the off street parking later. You do have the right currently to ask for an on street charging stop to be fitted. Though that kind of assumed you have a reserved space. So that model works best for apartments.
There is another option for wind which I haven't discussed - and that to make them deal with the fluctuationA. Instead of using pooled EV batteries, make it a requirement that they can only offer up wind to the grid once they have a quantified capacity to sell. Rather than forcing the grid to purchase from them as a priority , I think we are nearing the point where you could force wind operators to buffer their supply locally and only release during the peak. Rather than being part of the problem, they then become part of the solution. They get paid much more for selling in the peak and hopefully won't need subsidies. There's several test sites, but I don't have real world cost figures for the stationary storage. But assuming it's not that much difference to a Telsa battery or about £280 / kWh. Expensisve - but it raises the price of electric sold from 4p to 50p kWh.
Scuffers said:
in your dreams...
ignoring the charger/inverter/etc looses, just at the battery level, your never going to get down to 10-20% cycle looses with current battery tech.
Can you provide a more realistice figure then? That's a number floating around my head from "something I read somewhere once". ignoring the charger/inverter/etc looses, just at the battery level, your never going to get down to 10-20% cycle looses with current battery tech.
The key thing - even if it's 25% you still make money. And provide a means of balancing supply and demand.
TransverseTight said:
LongQ said:
Two observations TT.
Look at the volatility of the forecasts of wind output vs actual metered production and see just how difficult it is to predict anything like accurately much of the time. Then check the frequency variations in the system which, as I understand it, are averaged across the monitored grid so local variations could be dealing with much greater spikes.
Pretty much any 'renewable' in the existing mix that can be persuaded to produce any useful amount of output is subject to such fluctuations in or part of the world. Less so in other places - like Arizona or some desert regions.
Secondly the economics you describe seem to be based largely on the 'now' market costs and sales pricing based on today's demands and imbalances of supply. To project the benefits into the future with your proposed extended use of electric power replacing fossil fuels for transport looks rather like you have to ignore the considerable changes to the market that altered consumption patterns will induce.
Existing policy, such as it is, seems intent on managing demand on the one hand and changing the balance of production on the other with some attempt to smooth out utilisation in the middle. All this to be achieved against a background the will still require significant investment in new plant and to refresh existing capacity.
Having established that we the taxpayers can be robbed to pay well over the going rate for heavily subsidised facilities of pretty much all types the investors are in a strong position to blackmail future governments to hand over huge amounts of dosh to build facilities AND guarantee a premium price for whatever they manage to produce. Better yet they can negotiate clauses that require them to be paid for not generating anything due to the need to have capacity and to be somewhat available to deliver it for a few months of each year over the winter period.
The government could make that absurd situation look better by smoothing demand over th esummer period as well. Perhaps they should mandate the required use of aircon in all buildings for H&S reasons thus creating demand for more energy during the summer months.
Either way the current demand and supply model with the claimed options to store energy when it's cheap and sell it back when it is expensive is not likely to be sustainable if government objective for uptake are achieved. The predicted "cheap" energy available at certain times due to low demand will just not exist once demand is smoothed and, most likely, before that should people buy in to the concept.
With wind produced electricity costing far more than almost any other source, even ignoring the need for investment and maintenance of alternative back up sources, the only thing guaranteed is that energy will become ever more expensive and even the plug in car "winners" will lose in the longer term.
More practically I really struggle to see how certain locations, even with enough wealth to buy in to the early period of, say, Tesla market growth (Tesla technology representing something worth considering where many of the others, by comparison, do not) would be able to deploy the infrastructure required.
Streets full of terraced houses and parking wherever you can are not obvious locations for electric car charging success stories to appear. Likewise families with multiple vehicles might be challenged to get them all charged - or discharged even if tariffs are favourable.
To make these things work in a mass market mass uptake sense may require far more effort with infrastructure development than anyone cares to admit. If the market does not spread the wider objective (irrespective of its validity) will fail and at best those at the poor end of society will become poorer whilst the ability of wealthier people to milk the system of supporting tariffs is likely to creep to lower levels of the social pyramid but not that much lower than the current opportunities for land owners to take advantage of Government largesse. (One might also think of it as a legalised tax avoidance scheme with bonuses attached.)
So I don't think your proposed model works on a fiscal or a social basis for future projections. Moreover the potential for drastic re-distribution of energy production around the world (not just the provision of fuel for energy production deployment where needed) could fundamentally change the socio economic world model that we currently have. Many think that may in fact be the driving force behind most of the decisions the the "lawmakers" come up with. If that comes to pass our discussion about the minutiae of ways and means to 'manage' the electricity grid in the UK will look pretty pointless in hindsight.
The demand will always fluctuate, always has done always will. The only way to change this is if you can get more people working over night and staying up to do the cooking between midnight and 6am.Look at the volatility of the forecasts of wind output vs actual metered production and see just how difficult it is to predict anything like accurately much of the time. Then check the frequency variations in the system which, as I understand it, are averaged across the monitored grid so local variations could be dealing with much greater spikes.
Pretty much any 'renewable' in the existing mix that can be persuaded to produce any useful amount of output is subject to such fluctuations in or part of the world. Less so in other places - like Arizona or some desert regions.
Secondly the economics you describe seem to be based largely on the 'now' market costs and sales pricing based on today's demands and imbalances of supply. To project the benefits into the future with your proposed extended use of electric power replacing fossil fuels for transport looks rather like you have to ignore the considerable changes to the market that altered consumption patterns will induce.
Existing policy, such as it is, seems intent on managing demand on the one hand and changing the balance of production on the other with some attempt to smooth out utilisation in the middle. All this to be achieved against a background the will still require significant investment in new plant and to refresh existing capacity.
Having established that we the taxpayers can be robbed to pay well over the going rate for heavily subsidised facilities of pretty much all types the investors are in a strong position to blackmail future governments to hand over huge amounts of dosh to build facilities AND guarantee a premium price for whatever they manage to produce. Better yet they can negotiate clauses that require them to be paid for not generating anything due to the need to have capacity and to be somewhat available to deliver it for a few months of each year over the winter period.
The government could make that absurd situation look better by smoothing demand over th esummer period as well. Perhaps they should mandate the required use of aircon in all buildings for H&S reasons thus creating demand for more energy during the summer months.
Either way the current demand and supply model with the claimed options to store energy when it's cheap and sell it back when it is expensive is not likely to be sustainable if government objective for uptake are achieved. The predicted "cheap" energy available at certain times due to low demand will just not exist once demand is smoothed and, most likely, before that should people buy in to the concept.
With wind produced electricity costing far more than almost any other source, even ignoring the need for investment and maintenance of alternative back up sources, the only thing guaranteed is that energy will become ever more expensive and even the plug in car "winners" will lose in the longer term.
More practically I really struggle to see how certain locations, even with enough wealth to buy in to the early period of, say, Tesla market growth (Tesla technology representing something worth considering where many of the others, by comparison, do not) would be able to deploy the infrastructure required.
Streets full of terraced houses and parking wherever you can are not obvious locations for electric car charging success stories to appear. Likewise families with multiple vehicles might be challenged to get them all charged - or discharged even if tariffs are favourable.
To make these things work in a mass market mass uptake sense may require far more effort with infrastructure development than anyone cares to admit. If the market does not spread the wider objective (irrespective of its validity) will fail and at best those at the poor end of society will become poorer whilst the ability of wealthier people to milk the system of supporting tariffs is likely to creep to lower levels of the social pyramid but not that much lower than the current opportunities for land owners to take advantage of Government largesse. (One might also think of it as a legalised tax avoidance scheme with bonuses attached.)
So I don't think your proposed model works on a fiscal or a social basis for future projections. Moreover the potential for drastic re-distribution of energy production around the world (not just the provision of fuel for energy production deployment where needed) could fundamentally change the socio economic world model that we currently have. Many think that may in fact be the driving force behind most of the decisions the the "lawmakers" come up with. If that comes to pass our discussion about the minutiae of ways and means to 'manage' the electricity grid in the UK will look pretty pointless in hindsight.
There is one way you could utilise the spare overnight capacity - making current power stations more efficient, as they don't need to keep starting up and shutting down which wastes fuel and increases maintenance requirements. That would be to load them up charging EV batteries. I've previously worked out that for the average daily mileage, there's enough spare grid capacity at night to charge the whole UK car fleet if they were EVs. That's assuming something like 40 miles a day and 0.3kWh/mile. There's over 20GW spare between midnight and 6am. Even if you used coal to charge the EVs there would be a decrease in emissions from "well to wheel".
You correct not all houses have off street parking. Lets just assume half do. About 11 million. If we get them done first we can worry about the off street parking later. You do have the right currently to ask for an on street charging stop to be fitted. Though that kind of assumed you have a reserved space. So that model works best for apartments.
There is another option for wind which I haven't discussed - and that to make them deal with the fluctuationA. Instead of using pooled EV batteries, make it a requirement that they can only offer up wind to the grid once they have a quantified capacity to sell. Rather than forcing the grid to purchase from them as a priority , I think we are nearing the point where you could force wind operators to buffer their supply locally and only release during the peak. Rather than being part of the problem, they then become part of the solution. They get paid much more for selling in the peak and hopefully won't need subsidies. There's several test sites, but I don't have real world cost figures for the stationary storage. But assuming it's not that much difference to a Telsa battery or about £280 / kWh. Expensisve - but it raises the price of electric sold from 4p to 50p kWh.
Scuffers said:
in your dreams...
ignoring the charger/inverter/etc looses, just at the battery level, your never going to get down to 10-20% cycle looses with current battery tech.
Can you provide a more realistice figure then? That's a number floating around my head from "something I read somewhere once". ignoring the charger/inverter/etc looses, just at the battery level, your never going to get down to 10-20% cycle looses with current battery tech.
The key thing - even if it's 25% you still make money. And provide a means of balancing supply and demand.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-...
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