Hydrogen availability

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Discussion

SWoll

18,206 posts

257 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
phil4 said:
GT119 said:
As an aside I started a thread a while ago stating (somewhat tongue in cheek) that the EV manufacturers have missed a trick by not using Megajoules to define their battery sizes.

Mainly because it just sounds so much more sexy that kWh, and yes I know kWh is how we buy electricity, but it's still very boring and doesn't really mean anything to most people.
It'd be even better than sounding good. It'd add a level of obfuscation, in the same way that ICE cars are all quoted in miles per gallon, but we buy fuel in litres. Yes it can be worked out, quite easily... but it makes it an extra step, less obvious and thus better for selling.

This sounds like they really did miss a trick, as would have achieved the same.
Not sure anyone would care. For ICE cars the question is always "How many miles do you get for £10 of fuel", with EV's it's always "How far does it go on a full charge".


anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
GT119 said:
anonymous said:
[redacted]
20 million is just a reference point for the halfway point or thereabouts, when we are fully BEV (you know you just uttered those words right!) we might have 40 million - 50 million cars, or 12-15 GW. That's going to take at least 20 years, plenty of time to see how other likely load reductions compensate for this and then add a bit here or there as required.

To work out the power, an easy rule of thumb is to consider a BEV (when there are millions of them to smooth charging loads) as a continuous 300 W load on the grid. Yes, just 300 W per car, I think this rule of thumb is really useful for making the penny drop just how efficient BEVs are compared to what we know and love.

This value is derived from 8000 miles p.a. (today's average) at a nominal 3 miles/kWh (a very conservative estimate for a Leaf/Model 3 etc.), requiring 2667 kWh per annum per car. Divide that by the 8760 hours in the year, and you get 0.3 kW.

In practice journey lengths and annual milages are dropping every year, so it's likely to be less than this, but let's use it though as a round number, multiply it by 20 million and you get 6 GW.


Edited by GT119 on Tuesday 27th October 23:59
Cheers!
The quote from the National Grid, early this year, was:

"With the first of these, the energy element, the most demand for electricity we’ve had in recent years in the UK was for 62GW in 2002. Since then, due to improved energy efficiency such as the installation of solar panels, the nation’s peak demand has fallen by roughly 16 per cent. Even if the impossible happened and we all switched to EVs overnight, we think demand would only increase by around 10 per cent. So we’d still be using less power as a nation than we did in 2002 and this is well within the range of manageable load fluctuation".

Your calculated result of 6GW is more than that 10%.
If there are 40 million cars on our roads at the moment then I think, in the context of their comment about if we all went EV tomorrow, 20 million is too low a figure, 30 million more likely, I believe. That blows their 10% comment to hell.
Now none of that suggests any belief in grid meltdown hehe but it does question whether the scenario is shifting and that they might be a little conservative with their figures.

But, looking at a EU study, that is trying to project public charging points for BEV, it suggests that one public charging point will be needed per every ten BEVs.
So 3 million public BEV charging points compared to 80,000 (estimate) ICE fuel pumps.
Listening to comment from Gary and Landcrab, that's some feat! To find/allocate the space, to manufacture the sheer number of charging points, to ensure they'll be served sufficiently on a localised basis, to ensure they're distributed to serve localised and seasonal demand sufficiently, to pay for them and to make them pay!

Now I'm not saying you've suggested this at all but they ain't for free and they don't get put in by magic!

RemarkLima

2,366 posts

211 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
If we take that the 16% drop from the 62GW peak, then 16% of 62GW = 9.92GW

So we have just shy of 10GW to "play" with so the 6GW fits OK right?

For the 3 million charging points, is that absolutely correct that's it's public ones? Or does it include home / driveways? I'd think it must include home charging given that for the vast majority of EV owners rarely, if ever, charge out in the wild. Otherwise, I'd seem like a lot of extra capacity?

98elise

26,376 posts

160 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
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Landcrab_Six said:
98elise said:
That doesn't mean capacity isn't there, or it can't be done. It's just more expensive than the client wants to pay for a fast charger. The cost of a petrol or hydrogen pump would me magnitudes more.
Hydrogen - possibly, petrol - no.

Some of the DNO quotes are in the millions.

I think ITM say £2m for an electrolysis install.

Eurogarages can build a big new station for similar, with a dozen pumps and a big Sainsbury's shop.
That's a lot for a 50 or 150kWh charger. The only ones I've been remotely involved in (destination chargers at our sites) have been very much cheaper. Certainly not in the millions. Most of those would have HV and their own substations though.

anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
98elise said:
That's a lot for a 50 or 150kWh charger. The only ones I've been remotely involved in (destination chargers at our sites) have been very much cheaper. Certainly not in the millions. Most of those would have HV and their own substations though.
50kW is about £60-£80k installed. 150kW is pushing £200k.

But this assumes the feed to the location can cope.

If it's on the wrong side of a road / railway / river / canal, then the quotes to get the power to you can get very silly, very quickly.

I spoke to some clients who were almost in a bidding war to get hold of the local capacity before a competitor. The competitor wasn't going to install chargers at that point, either - they were just ensuring it was secured for them first.

anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
RemarkLima said:
anonymous said:
[redacted]
If we take that the 16% drop from the 62GW peak, then 16% of 62GW = 9.92GW

So we have just shy of 10GW to "play" with so the 6GW fits OK right?

For the 3 million charging points, is that absolutely correct that's it's public ones? Or does it include home / driveways? I'd think it must include home charging given that for the vast majority of EV owners rarely, if ever, charge out in the wild. Otherwise, I'd seem like a lot of extra capacity?
62 (2002) drops 16% over time to 52 (now).
The 10% increase they suggest would be only 5GW.

It's public chargers. 1 public charger per 10 BEVs. If home chargers were in the equation then the ratio would be very, very different!
wink

leef44

4,359 posts

152 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
GT119 said:
Yeah I'm slightly amused that he refuses to engage with me on any of the EV power consumption numbers I've posted, either for the discussion about the importance of weight or the load on the grid.

As an aside I started a thread a while ago stating (somewhat tongue in cheek) that the EV manufacturers have missed a trick by not using Megajoules to define their battery sizes.

Mainly because it just sounds so much more sexy that kWh, and yes I know kWh is how we buy electricity, but it's still very boring and doesn't really mean anything to most people.

If we were using MJ, the metrics are actually quite easy to remember.

A typical 200 mile range EV will have a 200 MJ battery pack, travel 1 mile per MJ, and a MJ costs about 5p to buy.

So for the average 20 mile journey, the cost is 20 MJ or £1 and uses 10% of the battery. Easy peasy!
I think you're onto something here. It's the next generation iPhone mob who will be the consumer not petrolheads. Buying a car will be like replacing your laptop: megabytes and megajoules will be the language.

GT119

6,350 posts

171 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
I was being conservative using today's EV technology and state of play, however for more accurate future predictions, these are the things that need to be considered:

- Continued independent reduction in demand elsewhere, as observed since 2002, around 1 GW per annum or maybe a little bit less.

- BEV energy consumption per mile will improve marginally due to small improvements in aerodynamics, rolling resistance and improved on-board efficiencies for both the prime mover system and the auxiliary loads.

- The average of 8000 miles per year per car will drop due to less need or desire to travel longer distances, something that is already happening.

- A large reduction in grid load due to reduced fossil fuel extraction, production and distribution. The numbers here are pretty big and are likely to be measured in GWs. This would be where they are making the most energy savings in an 'overnight switch' scenario. It could be as high as a 50% offset of the total new EV demand. If that is the case, 10% increase in total demand is a pretty good number to work with.

Overnight switch is obviously not realistic. If we were to model a 25 year switch then all of the factors listed above could result in a close to zero net increase throughout that period of time.

Which really does bury the whole 'grid can't cope' argument as far as generation is concerned.

As others have pointed out, small-scale shortfalls in capacity in local distribution is where attention is required.



Gary C

12,313 posts

178 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
RemarkLima said:
So we have just shy of 10GW to "play" with so the 6GW fits OK right?
Not really, we have lost that in stations being shutdown and we are going to loose all but two of the nuclear stations within 10 years (first AGR goes in 18 months)

Ignore the 132/400KV grid. Thats not really a big problem.

Oh, and the drop isn't all down to 'efficiency' but local embedded generation (roof panels, small wind etc) that never appears on the grid.

98elise

26,376 posts

160 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
phil4 said:
GT119 said:
As an aside I started a thread a while ago stating (somewhat tongue in cheek) that the EV manufacturers have missed a trick by not using Megajoules to define their battery sizes.

Mainly because it just sounds so much more sexy that kWh, and yes I know kWh is how we buy electricity, but it's still very boring and doesn't really mean anything to most people.
It'd be even better than sounding good. It'd add a level of obfuscation, in the same way that ICE cars are all quoted in miles per gallon, but we buy fuel in litres. Yes it can be worked out, quite easily... but it makes it an extra step, less obvious and thus better for selling.

This sounds like they really did miss a trick, as would have achieved the same.
Mpg is from when we bought petrol by the gallon. Its not obfuscation, it's just resistance to change. Same reason we still use miles.


Edited by 98elise on Wednesday 28th October 17:08

GT119

6,350 posts

171 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
Ha ha, I forgot to add probably the most contentious factor for future scenario planning.....reduced vehicle speeds. Energy consumption is exponential to speed, for the same journey, we can knock probably 25% off the energy consumed with just a 10% reduction in speed. Anyone up for that?

anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
GT119 said:
Ha ha, I forgot to add probably the most contentious factor for future scenario planning.....reduced vehicle speeds. Energy consumption is exponential to speed, for the same journey, we can knock probably 25% off the energy consumed with just a 10% reduction in speed. Anyone up for that?
No! fk that! hehe

GT119

6,350 posts

171 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Yeah, I was exaggerating anyway, it's closer to a 15% reduction required to achieve 25% lower energy. Let's park that.

rscott

14,690 posts

190 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
UK currently refines 50+million tonnes of petrol a year, which requires a fair amount of electricity. If we all go EV, then a lot of that power could be available to charge BEVs...


anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
That's what GT said.

But it doesn't have any bearing on the points raised by Gary and Landcrab, about work needed in localised infrastructure and the associated costs.
It doesn't have any bearing on what I've said about how 3 million public BEV charging points are going to be addressed in the hypothetical scenario that we all go BEV.

To find or allocate space.
The units themselves, to make them all.
Connecting them.
Distributing them effectively for localised and seasonal demand.
Paying for this!
Making them profitable or feasible.

None of this grows on trees.

Have you any figures or details on any of this?

GT119

6,350 posts

171 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
Infrastructure costs money, yes.

The big question is what infrastructure do we install. There can be little doubt that EV is the most obvious candidate.
Do we throw all of the money towards this and leave hydrogen for commercial applications? Or do we hedge our bets and install both EV charging and hydrogen for passenger cars? Is there any point in doing that? Can we afford to do both?

The argument for putting all the eggs in the EV basket is very strong (not going to go over old ground) but I can understand why to some that might seem risky right now.

If the main challenge is capital investment and not safety related or questionable on grounds of efficiency and the impact on operating costs, then than makes it that much easier to stomach for decision makers.

I personally am not too concerned where we get the money, it’ll come. Reducing and eventually eliminating the majority of fossil fuel production and usage for passenger cars will allow money to be channeled towards the new infrastructure required. The vastly inferior efficiency of fossil fuels comes at huge cost, both directly and indirectly. For example there’s a ton of cash currently being spent in protecting and repairing the environment and dealing with the healthcare impact of fossil fuels and associated pollution. The money will come.



anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
We do have to counter some of the refining arguments here - we don't just make fuel from crude. It's a massive and complex chemicals industry, too.

One of the downsides of cutting fossil fuel production is that many other everyday objects will rise in price significantly as they're essentially using the waste products from making fuels.

We also know that large vehicles are unlikely to be a good fit for BEV - and may transition to FCEV.

This then gives you a ready infrastructure of hydrogen to fuel passenger cars, too.

Neither is the ultimate answer - a blend of both BEV and FCEV is probably where we will end up in 2050.

GT119

6,350 posts

171 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
Landcrab_Six said:
We do have to counter some of the refining arguments here - we don't just make fuel from crude. It's a massive and complex chemicals industry, too.

One of the downsides of cutting fossil fuel production is that many other everyday objects will rise in price significantly as they're essentially using the waste products from making fuels.

We also know that large vehicles are unlikely to be a good fit for BEV - and may transition to FCEV.

This then gives you a ready infrastructure of hydrogen to fuel passenger cars, too.

Neither is the ultimate answer - a blend of both BEV and FCEV is probably where we will end up in 2050.
I am aware of the overlap between chemicals/plastics and liquid fuels but I’m going to leave that for someone else to deal with!

Regarding the issue of hydrogen infrastructure, my take on this is that it makes a lot more sense for these to be solely dedicated to commercial applications, kept well away from consumers.

The equipment design for both the vehicles and the infrastructure, the number of infrastructure installations, and the usage/maintenance protocols can all be optimised at a much more cost effective scale.

For the UK at least, given the downward trends I mentioned earlier about annual mileages and probably speed limits as well, I think there is a very strong possibility that in 2040 an EV can be built at a size, range and price point that will satisfy the 99%. Until then, ICEs can cover the shortfall.

The question is whether and how we cater for the 1% after that? A nationwide ‘fit for passenger car purpose’ hydrogen infrastructure strikes me as a wrecking ball to crush a nut.


rscott

14,690 posts

190 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
If we build a hydrogen infrastructure, then it either needs local production, with huge power demands at filling stations, not so different from the requirements for charging stations, or large production facilities and distribution by road. That'll lower the total efficiency and raise costs..

RemarkLima

2,366 posts

211 months

Wednesday 28th October 2020
quotequote all
GT119 said:
I am aware of the overlap between chemicals/plastics and liquid fuels but I’m going to leave that for someone else to deal with!

Regarding the issue of hydrogen infrastructure, my take on this is that it makes a lot more sense for these to be solely dedicated to commercial applications, kept well away from consumers.

The equipment design for both the vehicles and the infrastructure, the number of infrastructure installations, and the usage/maintenance protocols can all be optimised at a much more cost effective scale.

For the UK at least, given the downward trends I mentioned earlier about annual mileages and probably speed limits as well, I think there is a very strong possibility that in 2040 an EV can be built at a size, range and price point that will satisfy the 99%. Until then, ICEs can cover the shortfall.

The question is whether and how we cater for the 1% after that? A nationwide ‘fit for passenger car purpose’ hydrogen infrastructure strikes me as a wrecking ball to crush a nut.
Surely transport, and long haul stuff will just move to bio-diesel or something of that ilk? Then key hubs maintain a filling infrastructure as before just with E100 or B100?

And although ICE will be banned from sale, there'll still be a large number around to require fuel - it could just be 100% green (maybe mono-culture deforestation, species crushing to get it made but...). Would the production and distribution of hydrogen be any different to bio-fuels?