Has JCB saved engines?
Discussion
Volvolover said:
Another clue Braddy my sarcastic little flower is that neither v2g or hydrogen solutions to smooth the demand spike in the grid in the evening happening any time soon so that’s all good then isn’t it….and then when things are in place legislation will drive take up. Do keep up dear boy
Odd. V2G is already being used. Interesting numbers from those doing it 
Killboy said:
Why would you not want a smart meter?
Genuine question - why would I want a smart meter?My current electricity meter is in an outside cupboard and was replaced by a digital one years ago, so we just read two numbers and send the readings in when asked to by our electricity supplier. As far as I can tell, a smart meter will just replace something outside that we mostly ignore with something indoors that we will mostly ignore but which will take up a bit of space on the worktop or whichever cupboard we shove it into.
We're already on a split day/night tariff and so the washing machine, dishwasher and tumble dryer are generally put on timer operation overnight, we don't leave lights on unnecessarily and I'm not one of those misguided audiophiles who leaves my hi-fi on all the time.
So other than some pretty graphics and maybe a couple of initial "Wow - look how much electricity the hairdryer/toaster/kettle uses" moments, I'm not seeing the supposed 'advantages'...
Deranged Rover said:
Genuine question - why would I want a smart meter?
My current electricity meter is in an outside cupboard and was replaced by a digital one years ago, so we just read two numbers and send the readings in when asked to by our electricity supplier. As far as I can tell, a smart meter will just replace something outside that we mostly ignore with something indoors that we will mostly ignore but which will take up a bit of space on the worktop or whichever cupboard we shove it into.
We're already on a split day/night tariff and so the washing machine, dishwasher and tumble dryer are generally put on timer operation overnight, we don't leave lights on unnecessarily and I'm not one of those misguided audiophiles who leaves my hi-fi on all the time.
So other than some pretty graphics and maybe a couple of initial "Wow - look how much electricity the hairdryer/toaster/kettle uses" moments, I'm not seeing the supposed 'advantages'...
It's so you can have "dynamic pricing" in the future...not sure that is an advantage, though...My current electricity meter is in an outside cupboard and was replaced by a digital one years ago, so we just read two numbers and send the readings in when asked to by our electricity supplier. As far as I can tell, a smart meter will just replace something outside that we mostly ignore with something indoors that we will mostly ignore but which will take up a bit of space on the worktop or whichever cupboard we shove it into.
We're already on a split day/night tariff and so the washing machine, dishwasher and tumble dryer are generally put on timer operation overnight, we don't leave lights on unnecessarily and I'm not one of those misguided audiophiles who leaves my hi-fi on all the time.
So other than some pretty graphics and maybe a couple of initial "Wow - look how much electricity the hairdryer/toaster/kettle uses" moments, I'm not seeing the supposed 'advantages'...
Legislation is the only thing driving EV take up. Without legislation there is zero adoption.
And we can expect legislation to increase not decrease over the coming decade.
But, the overriding and dominant criteria is the new car turnover rate. This is around 2m units a year and generally ebbs and flows with GDP per capita. As such, given the current economy you would not be surprised to see this fall below 2m potentially for much of this decade.
EVs this year should be around 10% of this 2m. Doubled from last year's 100k due to the new legislation on BIK primarily. Interestingly it took the entire ten years before 2020 to deliver 100k EVs into UK roads. So we are currently looking at roughly 400k EVs out of almost 40m vehicles. So after a decade of hard legislation and promotion we have a market penetration of 1%.
We know that turnover rate will only increase. It's only a matter of relatively short time within this decade that half of new cars each year will be EVs. Let's actually say that this occurs next year and we have 1m of new EV/annum to 2030. That's still only around 25% of the UK fleet being pure EV.
We have an enormous level of hype regarding EVs at present. Growing choice etc but this is all out of step with the true rate of change which is defined by quite basic economics. Without a step change in battery technology it will be decades before a dominant percentage of the UK fleet will be pure EV.
Even then people aren't suddenly going to be driving more. The trend is actually clearly for falling mileages. With the average daily mileage in the UK being under 10 miles the power required from the grid per vehicle per day is very small and easily manageable. And that's before we recognise that almost all top up charging will be in the early hours of the morning.
But the very big change to consider is that EVs are enormous, mobile stores of excess energy. You're typical EV will have a 300 mile range but be using just 10 miles a day. What this means is that wherever an EV is parked is a potential supply of energy. This is the bit that often gets missed.
The non domestic refuelling network for EVs will be constructed around where cars park for long periods away from home. That means car parks. In due course car parks will expand from having just a few chargers to entice high spending EV consumers to hundreds of chargers to simply enable normal consumers. This is seen as an issue superficially as the power lines to car parks can't handle handle hundreds of cars all rapid charging from flat but that misses the point that most EVs will be arriving fully charged and loaded with excess energy while the remaining majority will only be requiring a bit of a top up. Only a few will be arriving empty and need a big refuel. The point being that the energy needed to refuel and top up those cars will be arriving all day long in the cars that have excess energy.
Put simply, one customer will arrive and plug in to sell an allocation of their cheap overnight electricity at a big premium into that mini car park grid while others will be arriving to buy that electricity. The actual external demand will not be anywhere near what some are imagining. And again, pricing forms the pivotal role in terms of bringing in that supply and demand and matching them.
The eventual key to EVs lies in efficient energy pricing to utilise all the excess megawatts stored in them, whether to smooth the domestic peak demand or to deliver supply off site.
And we can expect legislation to increase not decrease over the coming decade.
But, the overriding and dominant criteria is the new car turnover rate. This is around 2m units a year and generally ebbs and flows with GDP per capita. As such, given the current economy you would not be surprised to see this fall below 2m potentially for much of this decade.
EVs this year should be around 10% of this 2m. Doubled from last year's 100k due to the new legislation on BIK primarily. Interestingly it took the entire ten years before 2020 to deliver 100k EVs into UK roads. So we are currently looking at roughly 400k EVs out of almost 40m vehicles. So after a decade of hard legislation and promotion we have a market penetration of 1%.
We know that turnover rate will only increase. It's only a matter of relatively short time within this decade that half of new cars each year will be EVs. Let's actually say that this occurs next year and we have 1m of new EV/annum to 2030. That's still only around 25% of the UK fleet being pure EV.
We have an enormous level of hype regarding EVs at present. Growing choice etc but this is all out of step with the true rate of change which is defined by quite basic economics. Without a step change in battery technology it will be decades before a dominant percentage of the UK fleet will be pure EV.
Even then people aren't suddenly going to be driving more. The trend is actually clearly for falling mileages. With the average daily mileage in the UK being under 10 miles the power required from the grid per vehicle per day is very small and easily manageable. And that's before we recognise that almost all top up charging will be in the early hours of the morning.
But the very big change to consider is that EVs are enormous, mobile stores of excess energy. You're typical EV will have a 300 mile range but be using just 10 miles a day. What this means is that wherever an EV is parked is a potential supply of energy. This is the bit that often gets missed.
The non domestic refuelling network for EVs will be constructed around where cars park for long periods away from home. That means car parks. In due course car parks will expand from having just a few chargers to entice high spending EV consumers to hundreds of chargers to simply enable normal consumers. This is seen as an issue superficially as the power lines to car parks can't handle handle hundreds of cars all rapid charging from flat but that misses the point that most EVs will be arriving fully charged and loaded with excess energy while the remaining majority will only be requiring a bit of a top up. Only a few will be arriving empty and need a big refuel. The point being that the energy needed to refuel and top up those cars will be arriving all day long in the cars that have excess energy.
Put simply, one customer will arrive and plug in to sell an allocation of their cheap overnight electricity at a big premium into that mini car park grid while others will be arriving to buy that electricity. The actual external demand will not be anywhere near what some are imagining. And again, pricing forms the pivotal role in terms of bringing in that supply and demand and matching them.
The eventual key to EVs lies in efficient energy pricing to utilise all the excess megawatts stored in them, whether to smooth the domestic peak demand or to deliver supply off site.
Deranged Rover said:
Genuine question - why would I want a smart meter?
............
so we just read two numbers and send the readings in when asked to by our electricity supplier.
Well that would be enough for me. ............
so we just read two numbers and send the readings in when asked to by our electricity supplier.
I get not everyone would like to be alerted to things like a sudden spike like a leak in the gas or sudden boiler inefficiency - and some people like to get sudden surprises from their electricity provider that they then need to squabble over for months.
But mostly, the data is pretty interesting. Combine it with the grid intensity figures and add some disaggregation and you can change your impact fairly substantially. It would be interesting when there are price plans available based on time of use and carbon intensity. Then imagine having something with a big battery that could smooth out your draw from the grid. Perhaps even sell green energy back to the grid for a profit. But no, its too hard.
Killboy said:
Volvolover said:
Another clue Braddy my sarcastic little flower is that neither v2g or hydrogen solutions to smooth the demand spike in the grid in the evening happening any time soon so that’s all good then isn’t it….and then when things are in place legislation will drive take up. Do keep up dear boy
Odd. V2G is already being used. Interesting numbers from those doing it (BTW I don't disagree at all that the technology exists and in principle 'could' eventually work nationally and in a small controlled sample does work now)
Deranged Rover said:
Killboy said:
Why would you not want a smart meter?
Genuine question - why would I want a smart meter?My current electricity meter is in an outside cupboard and was replaced by a digital one years ago, so we just read two numbers and send the readings in when asked to by our electricity supplier. As far as I can tell, a smart meter will just replace something outside that we mostly ignore with something indoors that we will mostly ignore but which will take up a bit of space on the worktop or whichever cupboard we shove it into.
We're already on a split day/night tariff and so the washing machine, dishwasher and tumble dryer are generally put on timer operation overnight, we don't leave lights on unnecessarily and I'm not one of those misguided audiophiles who leaves my hi-fi on all the time.
So other than some pretty graphics and maybe a couple of initial "Wow - look how much electricity the hairdryer/toaster/kettle uses" moments, I'm not seeing the supposed 'advantages'...
Volvolover said:
Why don't you tell us how many people in the UK are using it then.....
(BTW I don't disagree at all that the technology exists and in principle 'could' eventually work nationally and in a small controlled sample does work now)
I have no idea how many in total, but your mates at the National Grid should be able to tell you that. (BTW I don't disagree at all that the technology exists and in principle 'could' eventually work nationally and in a small controlled sample does work now)
Killboy said:
Well that would be enough for me.
I get not everyone would like to be alerted to things like a sudden spike like a leak in the gas or sudden boiler inefficiency...
We live out in the countryside - there's no mains gas supply out here and our boiler is oil-fired. I guess as far as being eco-friendly, we're a lost cause!I get not everyone would like to be alerted to things like a sudden spike like a leak in the gas or sudden boiler inefficiency...
Deranged Rover said:
We live out in the countryside - there's no mains gas supply out here and our boiler is oil-fired. I guess as far as being eco-friendly, we're a lost cause!
So do I. Mine is LPG powered, and I use 47kg propane cylinders. Which is a sodding expensive way of doing it, but there's no access to the rear and I'm not keen on giving up or digging up a chunk of my driveway.The green option for my house would be an air source heat pump and a lot of new insulation.
The 8 people in the UK who live off the core grids could burn car tyres and kittens 24/7 and not be remotely relevant as a pollution metric. It's the tens of millions who live in urban and suburban environments that just need to turn the heating down and put a jumper on. 
. And the quickest and most efficient means to get that done lies in either reducing their disposable income or increasing their energy costs to steer their usage how you want it!!! No one needs a fancy meter. We all know when peak usage is and we all know that if you nail people financially at that point they will change habits rapidly and permanently.
People need to remember that we got everyone in the UK to suddenly buy diesel cars just buy offering them a tiny discount on a tax. And that the only time people change their driving habits is during a recession or economic boom when money supply falls or rises.
. And the quickest and most efficient means to get that done lies in either reducing their disposable income or increasing their energy costs to steer their usage how you want it!!! No one needs a fancy meter. We all know when peak usage is and we all know that if you nail people financially at that point they will change habits rapidly and permanently. People need to remember that we got everyone in the UK to suddenly buy diesel cars just buy offering them a tiny discount on a tax. And that the only time people change their driving habits is during a recession or economic boom when money supply falls or rises.
Volvolover said:
Another clue Braddy my sarcastic little flower is that neither v2g or hydrogen solutions to smooth the demand spike in the grid in the evening happening any time soon so that’s all good then isn’t it….and then when things are in place legislation will drive take up. Do keep up dear boy
Main factor behind the evening spike will be EV charging - so just make smart meters mandatory for the tariffs which make EV charging affordable.Edited by Volvolover on Tuesday 8th June 09:49
Or even make it a requirement for having a fast charger at home.
Killboy said:
Volvolover said:
Why don't you tell us how many people in the UK are using it then.....
(BTW I don't disagree at all that the technology exists and in principle 'could' eventually work nationally and in a small controlled sample does work now)
I have no idea how many in total, but your mates at the National Grid should be able to tell you that. (BTW I don't disagree at all that the technology exists and in principle 'could' eventually work nationally and in a small controlled sample does work now)
rscott said:
Main factor behind the evening spike will be EV charging - so just make smart meters mandatory for the tariffs which make EV charging affordable.
Or even make it a requirement for having a fast charger at home.
Incidentally, that is the exact time that all consumption needs to be incentivised to be lower. Ergo, no Smart anything needed, just elevated charges on everyone so everyone is stimulated to make changes. For some that might be nothing at all as they live in a small home and don't consume enough to warrant investing any time or money in change but for the excess consumers such as large homes, prolific wasters or EV users the hefty premium will actively create change. Or even make it a requirement for having a fast charger at home.
For starters, no need to charge an EV at 8pm when it can be charged from 1am etc. A smart meter won't make a prolific consumer change from plugging their car in at 8pm to 1pm but punitive charges will.
DonkeyApple said:
rscott said:
Main factor behind the evening spike will be EV charging - so just make smart meters mandatory for the tariffs which make EV charging affordable.
Or even make it a requirement for having a fast charger at home.
Incidentally, that is the exact time that all consumption needs to be incentivised to be lower. Ergo, no Smart anything needed, just elevated charges on everyone so everyone is stimulated to make changes. For some that might be nothing at all as they live in a small home and don't consume enough to warrant investing any time or money in change but for the excess consumers such as large homes, prolific wasters or EV users the hefty premium will actively create change. Or even make it a requirement for having a fast charger at home.
For starters, no need to charge an EV at 8pm when it can be charged from 1am etc. A smart meter won't make a prolific consumer change from plugging their car in at 8pm to 1pm but punitive charges will.
I say "largely", as you'd still need the grid for longer periods of bleak weather or for faults, etc - but you'd be reasonably expecting to pay a lot less for that. Grid still needs to be funded though, so those charges will get spread across a smaller number of people - including those least able to pay.
Energy patterns and how we get our energy has a lot more change than just EV to deal with - but as long as there is money to be made: that change is coming...
DonkeyApple said:
rscott said:
Main factor behind the evening spike will be EV charging - so just make smart meters mandatory for the tariffs which make EV charging affordable.
Or even make it a requirement for having a fast charger at home.
Incidentally, that is the exact time that all consumption needs to be incentivised to be lower. Ergo, no Smart anything needed, just elevated charges on everyone so everyone is stimulated to make changes. For some that might be nothing at all as they live in a small home and don't consume enough to warrant investing any time or money in change but for the excess consumers such as large homes, prolific wasters or EV users the hefty premium will actively create change. Or even make it a requirement for having a fast charger at home.
For starters, no need to charge an EV at 8pm when it can be charged from 1am etc. A smart meter won't make a prolific consumer change from plugging their car in at 8pm to 1pm but punitive charges will.
rscott said:
But you can't offer that variable pricing easily without a smart meter..
Indeed. A smart meter will enable time based pricing, to do exactly what DA is suggesting. At the moment there is no incentive to reduce load at 7pm, even though your washing machine can wait an hour, your dishwasher can wait 2 hours and your EV can wait until 1am. Condi said:
rscott said:
But you can't offer that variable pricing easily without a smart meter..
Indeed. A smart meter will enable time based pricing, to do exactly what DA is suggesting. At the moment there is no incentive to reduce load at 7pm, even though your washing machine can wait an hour, your dishwasher can wait 2 hours and your EV can wait until 1am. eps said:
Condi said:
rscott said:
But you can't offer that variable pricing easily without a smart meter..
Indeed. A smart meter will enable time based pricing, to do exactly what DA is suggesting. At the moment there is no incentive to reduce load at 7pm, even though your washing machine can wait an hour, your dishwasher can wait 2 hours and your EV can wait until 1am. 
My E7 runs 12am -7am in GMT, then 1am-8am in BST.
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