The Future?
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National Grid is a private Company not government sponsored. If new power stations were required to meet EV charging they would be the first to shout. Anyway, nobody is suggesting this is going to happen overnight. There will be a gradual take-up and incremental improvements in charging infrastructure until one day fuel stations will become as rare as hens teeth (like trying to find LPG stations now).
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Interesting article from National Grid. It is looking ahead to a situation where very fast chargers are available and this seems a likely scenario based on current battery research. So filling stations become charging stations which seems logical, and maybe there will be the odd petrol pump for those that don’t believe we can have electric motorhomes or tow cars.
Although the electrical distribution will need to be enhanced to supply the charging stations there is no suggestion that the overall infrastructure would be inadequate. Time will tell.
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OK so current demand averages 32GW for the UK.
Gas 55%, Nuclear 25%, wind 4%, rest is sum of various import, biomass, solar etc.
EV battery 25KWh, assuming 5 hour full charge, that's 5KW demand when charging.
Assuming 50 million EV vehicles (50% UK carpark) then that is 10% on charge at any one time. 5 Million times 5KW is 25GW. Not far short of double current total demand.
Nuclear, currently max 10GW, all retired in 2025, may survive until 2030. New nuclear 19GW starting 2025, but forecast to be 10 years late at best estimate. Only one of the required 10 is currently being built. So no appreciable capacity increase for next 20 years.
Gas generation peaks out at max demand and again there is no planned additional capacity.
Being generous and assuming wind has 500% increase in the next 20years then that gives us 5GW from wind, when its blowing!
So where exactly is the additional 20GW coming from to charge all these cars? (and that's only for 50% of the current cars)
Fast chargers are fine but they still need to obey ohms law, the stored energy may be transferred faster but it is still the same 25KWh battery, the energy transfer is the same whether it is charged quickly or slowly. The only advantage is customer convenience.
To put it in a nutshell there are 100million little 100kw generators running around that we need to get rid of. The generating capacity, current, planned, and possible is a fraction of this.
If we are all to drive EVs then please explain where the missing 10s of GW is coming from!
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Won't need extra MW as globalisation progresses and the global average salary evens out the UK will become relatively poorer so we or more accurately our descendants won't be able to afford cars as we have done. I reackon it will be back to the 1960s ie a car to every 5+ people instead of a car to every 2 people at present. So public transport or rent your driverless car as needed (like a taxi now) will be the future IMO. Unless you are wealthy of course.
We are already renting more and more cars and houses so down the slippery slope we go.
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That’s not a sensible analysis at all. Assuming battery technology improves as anticipated then we are talking about just a few minutes to recharge so this could be done at existing fuel stations. Most EVs will not be totally recharging from a flat battery. Many vehicles are only used occasionally and perhaps topped up once a week, off peak. There will be very large incentives for off-peak charging so there will be a massive diversity in load usage. Of the vast number of cars on the road, how many fill up once a day? With a 300 to 400 mile range (the Jaguar iPace has 300 miles) most commuters will recharge once a week. To say 5 million cars will be recharges simultaneously is nonsense. Are there 5 million cars all filling petrol tanks at the same time in the UK?
Last time I read the National Grid analysis they were talking about possibly 10% increase in generation capacity but over a very long period. This may have changed so if you are interested enough you could look into it.
The reason I say “fake news” is that you are making up numbers of your own and not quoting any kind of scientific analysis; an approach all to common on these kind of forums. If you would like to quote a proper technical paper which proves your point then I would happily take note.
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Just to qualify my statement above, there are many different scenarios but Nationalgrid suggest that by 2050 EVs could represent 11% of total electricity demand. Apologies, I said 10%.
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National Grid state current demand is 32GW. Growth assumes we have new nuclear. This is now going to be 10 to 20 years late (at best), if it happens at all, there is no political will for this to happen.
An 11% increase (in todays terms) means that we now have 3.2GW to support our car charging. About 1/5th of the peak requirement even by the most conservative estimates from National Grid.
From National Grid the report that you got your 11% from "For example, our Consumer Power scenario suggests that EVs will create an extra 18GW of demand by 2050 – that’s equivalent to an extra 30% on top of today’s peak demand."
My estimate in the OP was 25GW )but I am happy to take the National Grid estimate) of 18GW.
So where is the extra 30% of generated power coming from.
Nuclear is delayed and only replaces the retired current nuclear plants.
We have no plans for new fossil power stations.
Wind can not be calculated for peak demand as it is not reliable.
Nobody builds solar since the tariff was cut, even if they did it is not significant.
From the same report "As the numbers of EVs increase, their peak time electricity demand is one of the challenges that will need to be met."
This is corporate speak for "we haven't got a scooby what to do about this".
Also form this report "You could argue that millions of motorists all needing to charge their electric vehicles would require lots of new power stations just to meet this surge in demand.(As I do!) But in fact this is where better consumer engagement and advances in technology both have a part to play".
More corporate gibberish, apparently more consumer engagement and advances in yet unknown technology will give us our extra 18MW.
We can have fast charging batteries, the issue with this is that they do not exist and the methods currently used for fast charging are not economically viable. This is despite the trillions of £ spent in this area. But, lets assume it happens and a commercially available fast charging battery is available. You still need to charge the same amount of KWh weather you do it slowly or fast, the energy transfer is the same. The only advantage is customer convenience. You still need the same amount of generated power to charge the battery! Generated power that I think you can see from the National Grid own report does not exist.
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Our EV battery can be charged very quickly at some charge points, particularly on motorways. Obviously you don't run the battery totally down and ours can be charged using a rex when mobile, regenerative breaking etc.
Aside from that, the OP is about motorhome development, which is interesting and along with new propulsion methods for many types of vehicles will be something to watch over the coming years. Just as fuel was not readily available for combustion engines at the beginning this became available as more vehicles were produced. Progress is not fast but changes are happening and I think we will adapt to these changes and have to accept change as a norm in life.
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As a nation we in the UK will adapt to not using Fossil Fuels for vehicle propulsion. As a short stopgap there will be an upsurge in hybrid vehicles and range extenders. But fully electric propelled vehicles are the ultimate wayforward. I am looking forward to the future.
K
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Please do not get worried that there will not be sufficient extra electricity available in the future to replace all the giga-watts of power currently generated from liquid fossil fuel in motor vehicles.
The Smart Meter will be the saviour!
This is because it can be controlled remotely by the power company. The power can be turrned off whenever they fancy. Such as when demand is begining to exceed supply. Consumers will be able to sign up to different schemes at different costs where the higher rate one pays give less likelyhood to be cut off.
The New Dark Ages commeth.
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As things stand it looks like electric will be the way forward and current research indicates that much larger battery capacity and very rapid charging times are possible. Tesla are working on EV lorries so anything is possible. This is based on batteries currently being researched and tested. If the technology fails to deliver then of course it may not happen.
Irrespective of EVs I agree that new power stations will be required.
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The Smart Meter will be the saviour!
Smart meters assume that you have your vehicle plugged in overnight to take advantage of the dip in demand. OK if the technology or infrastructure existed but it doesn't and even if it did the dips are not big enough to support the required energy needs.
Still its good to know that the roll out of domestic smart meters is only 10 years late and still giving no measurable benefit to the tiny proportion of those who have a working one! Rolling out smart chargers should be a doddle.
Regardless of all this the national grid only has one way of supplying this energy and that is by burning fossil fuels. This is less efficient than burning fossil fuels in engines as the energy chain losses mean more pollution. EVs are emission deferred vehicles not energy efficient vehicles, unless you live in France.
Renewable energy will save us! Well it could if we cover every square inch of our island with turbines and solar farms. But this not a solution as it is just not dependable.
I believe EVs have a substantial part in the future and will become the norm for urban travel.
I also think these will not be cars owned by the public.
Car ownership will be a thing of the past.
EVs can only happen if the UK builds more new nuclear reactors, any other solution is not reliable or is as polluting as internal combustion engines.
There is another way, build every new house with the highest energy rating and with a solar roof. This has two main benefits, the grid is supported by millions of small generators and the major source of city air pollution (gas boilers) are removed. Unfortunately the house building lobby keep this off the agenda.
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Still its good to know that the roll out of domestic smart meters is only 10 years late and still giving no measurable benefit to the tiny proportion of those who have a working one! Rolling out smart chargers should be a doddle.
Of course the roll out is slow, There is no compulsion and few want one.
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Yes but the whole concept of the smart meter was to make us all efficient and thus reduce the load on the grid. It was our wonderful government (cheap) solution to the inevitable fact that unless they invest in nuclear stations and infrastructure then we will run out of power within 20 years.
Now if EVs need 30% additional increase in demand then what?
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