UK power generation and powering our Motorhomes.

[starquake]

Where is the lithium coming from to make the batteries and what environmental impact is it having in sourcing it ?

Unlike the additives added to petrol and diesel at least it isn't burnt up. They believe batteries are near infinitely reclyable, given they've already managed one generation of recycling already.

Additives addded to petrol and diesel which have similar, if not worse environmental impact are literally burnt to never be replaced. Demonstratably worse for the environment in my book. And yes I have a diesel motorhome.

I don't think lithium mining is really of any major concern, and we all want lithium batteries in our motorhomes right?

 

[Sewdhull]

I thought that conventional wisdom (oft spouted on various social media platforms) was that all batteries in a bank should be the same size, same age and same manufacturer.

Ian

You can parallel batteries which have a decent BMS, you wont over discharge or over charge them. You cant series batteries of different sizes etc regardless.

Keeping the battery specs close is a good idea of course, I would choose the same manufacturer and a decent BMS would keep the cells in good order.

Ideally you would have the same everything installed at the same time so the batteries degrade together. Two EVE 314Ah cells seperated by age and use wont be the same anymore for example.

 

[DandJ]

Yes, they have calculated 10% max remand.

If you were not aware Sunday is also the perfect time to charge with peak demadn on grid being 10GW less than on a weekday.
Doing numbers on that, 1 MW supports 138 EV's charging at 7.2kw. -> 1 GW is 1000MW. So 1GW supports 1.38 million EV's charging at max rate. 10GW supports 13.8 million EV's.

EditL I got the figures out a little, looks like 10 GW is 1.38 million simultaneous EV charging at max-ish rates. But the reality is overnight they won't be doing that, so it's nearer 2 million actual cars, and again not every car would need a full chagre.

My estimates are just on a Sunday the spare capacity from what is used on a weekday = about 2-3 million cars possible simultenously (as some cars need 5 hours, some 7, some 10 hours). Averaged thats around 2.5-3 million.

With a car on avaerage needing a charge every 10 days, means you can support 25-30 million cars as on average they won't all charge at once. My view is basic math holds up the grid 10% figure.

If you check overnight the net margin (spare generation) on any random night on the grid is more than 10GW.

https://bmrs.elexon.co.uk/loss-of-load-probability-and-derated-margin

^ is the actual grid dataset on this, and most nights looks to be about 25GW spare generation capacity. So the grid could cope quite adequately with around 3-6 million vehicles charging every night. I mean I could be talking rubbish, but the dataset is all on the grids own datasource above showing there is spare generation every single night. In plain english Derated Margin is the spare generation available to the grid operators.

Obviously you can remember if everyone did charge Sunday a large majority would then not need charges Monday (as full still)... the reality is it'll spread equally over week given as a herd humans are very predictable.

Our figures differ somewhat. My issue is with the comment made several years ago by the then head of decarbonisation at national Grid when he appeared on Top Gear which was the same one as on the NG website...the 10% quote. I thought it was rather low at the time so did a bit of research and what do you know...it was somewhat out.
The average EV currently has what battery capacity and what average kw per mile? It appears to be a c 70kw battery....
We will obviously need to factor in the 20% to 80% that most will need to run with most of the time so that puts the actual amount being used between charges as c 40kw...so they'll need charging perhaps every 6 days?
There are 33 million cars in the UK...round it down to 30 million...they average c 8k miles a year. Winter is worse for miles per kw than summer...so say 3.5miles per kw. A weeks driving is 160miles...at 3.5kw per mile...so c 45kwh. multiplied by 30 million vehicles is 1350 GW...per week.
From what I can gather from data...the UK produced c 285000 GWh of electric in 2023 and imported about another 24GWh...so total of c 310000GWh. My maths puts that at c 6000GWh per week. (all details come from the below website...seems as tho it should be accurate to me. https://www.iea.org/countries/united-kingdom/electricity
Statists show the output as lower. https://www.statista.com/statistics...-electricity-suppliers-in-the-united-kingdom/ )
So this is where the 10% starts to look a bit shaky to me as the 1350 GW which would be required to charge and run 30 million cars for their average weekly mileage seems to be more like 22/23% to me.

You may think I am coming across as the usual anti EV...I am not that, we bought a new car when we moved to France 30 mths ago...a 1.5 petrol as an EV just wouldn't have worked for us at that time or the first 18mths of living here. Now it would be absolutely perfect. (we have some 'plug in solar' and some is wasted daily....it could go in the car)
I just dislike organisations pissing up my back and telling me its raining....or lying....quite demonstrably.
(PS the shower analagy doesn't really wash with me (geddit..)...only c 30% of the UK have electric showers, most are not as high as 11 or 12kw..most being 7 to 9...and they're only in use for around 5 minutes...not several hours non stop.)

 

[oldiesontour]

Our figures differ somewhat. My issue is with the comment made several years ago by the then head of decarbonisation at national Grid when he appeared on Top Gear which was the same one as on the NG website...the 10% quote. I thought it was rather low at the time so did a bit of research and what do you know...it was somewhat out.
The average EV currently has what battery capacity and what average kw per mile? It appears to be a c 70kw battery....
We will obviously need to factor in the 20% to 80% that most will need to run with most of the time so that puts the actual amount being used between charges as c 40kw...so they'll need charging perhaps every 6 days?
There are 33 million cars in the UK...round it down to 30 million...they average c 8k miles a year. Winter is worse for miles per kw than summer...so say 3.5miles per kw. A weeks driving is 160miles...at 3.5kw per mile...so c 45kwh. multiplied by 30 million vehicles is 1350 GW...per week.
From what I can gather from data...the UK produced c 285000 GWh of electric in 2023 and imported about another 24GWh...so total of c 310000GWh. My maths puts that at c 6000GWh per week. (all details come from the below website...seems as tho it should be accurate to me. https://www.iea.org/countries/united-kingdom/electricity
Statists show the output as lower. https://www.statista.com/statistics...-electricity-suppliers-in-the-united-kingdom/ )
So this is where the 10% starts to look a bit shaky to me as the 1350 GW which would be required to charge and run 30 million cars for their average weekly mileage seems to be more like 22/23% to me.

You may think I am coming across as the usual anti EV...I am not that, we bought a new car when we moved to France 30 mths ago...a 1.5 petrol as an EV just wouldn't have worked for us at that time or the first 18mths of living here. Now it would be absolutely perfect. (we have some 'plug in solar' and some is wasted daily....it could go in the car)
I just dislike organisations pissing up my back and telling me its raining....or lying....quite demonstrably.
(PS the shower analagy doesn't really wash with me (geddit..)...only c 30% of the UK have electric showers, most are not as high as 11 or 12kw..most being 7 to 9...and they're only in use for around 5 minutes...not several hours non stop.)

Your figures don't take all the electric HGVs referred to above,and no mention of all the millions of heat pumps

 

[DandJ]

Your figures don't take all the electric HGVs referred to above,and no mention of all the millions of heat pumps

Deliberately......anyone who thinks that without huge (additional) financial investment and a massive increase in the number of qualified people to actually do it....pretty much re-doing the entire electrical infrastructure of the UK AND adding some more power stations (I understand that the existing operational nuclear power stations are all due to be de-commissioned in the coming years...they may get extentions to continue? So the UK loses c 6gw...but gains about 3 when Hinkley Point C comes on line...in perhaps 2030...so a net loss of 3gw...or perhaps c 7% of requirements) https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/united-kingdom#:~:text=The UK generates about 15,nuclear plants is under construction.

I'll no doubt be accused of 'scaremongering' but you only have to look at the UKs ageing housing stock, millions of properties with 50, 60, 70 yr old electrical connections to mains cable...

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[starquake]

Should add ref; trucking, CATL (major battery provider) are also now supplying for trucking a battery with a million mile/15 year guarantee.
Good luck getting that kind of warranty on an engine on a a diesel truck.

CATL launches new EV battery with close to a 1 million mile, 15-year lifespan

Leading EV battery maker CATL released its new breakthrough battery pack with up to a nearly 1 million mile (1.5...

electrek.co

^ is why this is happening. Buy a truck and keep it 15 years/1 million miles -> makes the Total cost of ownership of an average EV truck significantly lower than the (diesel) opposition. In the same timeframe there would be at least 2 diesel trucks owned by an equivalent truck operator, at what cost of the materials to build those?

https://www.iea.org/countries/united-kingdom/electricity
Statists show the output as lower. https://www.statista.com/statistics...-electricity-suppliers-in-the-united-kingdom/ )
So this is where the 10% starts to look a bit shaky to me as the 1350 GW which would be required to charge and run 30 million cars for their average weekly mileage seems to be more like 22/23% to me.

You are missing the fact it's not instantaneous demand, and mising GWh and just confusing some of the figures.

I can say over the year our "average" charge is 45kwh so you spot on there, and we charge every 8-10 days on average, with between 2 and 4 charges a month depending on how much we use the car. We will sometimes cahreg more sometimes less over the last 4 years of data.

if that is typical, it's 30 million cars divided by 8 days, so 3.75 million cars needing 45kwh every day. There are 12 hours an average car isn't moving on average (get home 7pm work 7am, or same 5pm to 5am). so the needed load factor to recharge each car is 45/12, ie, around 3.75kw per hour, or just over 16A per 3.75 million cars. You also have to consider some people work nights, so will be charging during the day so it won't be a peak of 3.75 million cars at once, and there will be some spread beyond ther 12 hours.

As pointed out above, you can charge 1.3 million ish per 10GW of actual generation simultanouesly at 7.2kw,but at 3.6kw thats 2.6 million. I would wager given the amount cars not cahrging overnight that the additional load is in the 10-15GW real load numbers,, Gieven the grid is as you say 47GW peak most winters, it's likely an additional 10GW once ALL cars changed, circa 2035 (ie, peak will increase to potentially 57GW if nothing else changes, which is around 20% extras as you say).

However it's missing the fact the grid demand is falling at same time due to energy effeciency measures -> peak grid a few years ago was over 52GW, and over 60GW on the same infrastructure in 2001 ish. Ie, we were using that amount previously due to use of incandescent bulbs etc in the late 80-90s. The peak single day demand on UK grid in 2024 was 47.8GW roughly. (ie, 13GW less than the peak 60GW supplied in 2001). (The elexon site linked above is the actual grid's own demand figures, it's the SOURCE data that others you linked actually get their data from (elexon is the national grid data source)).

So my view is the 10% extra demand figure the grid quote include the previous demand, and demand reduction (from petrol etc production lowering), so although you are spot on the headline is we need 20GW to charge cars, it's missing point the grid in 2001 already supplied all the energy we need. And look at the margin overnight, we already have 25GW of capacity almost every night this year so far, thats already enough for about double the cars the above figures expect.

ie, the grid already has the capacity today to handle this -> the 10% the grid is talking about in my view is peak demand addition, ie, charging vehicles not to a scedule like trucks which are required to charge (at high MW rates) to cover them charging trucks 4-7pm only.

So I kind of agree with your 20% but equally as the demand isn't comign today it's not an issue. There is no way everyone will have an EV (or EV truck) before 2035 ish. I still expect diesel motorhomes to be on the road in 2040 myself. However, what cannot be denied is the rate of change is now accelerating -> and will continue to do so. Despite news to the contrary, the only categories where demand is falling at present are in fact Petrol and Diesel vehicles.

That said, if everyone did change today (if there were suffient veichiles) the above figures show with 25GW spare today every night, we could comfortably charge every vehicle ... from a grid supply point of view at least. Locally maybe some congestion.

Your figures don't take all the electric HGVs referred to above,and no mention of all the millions of heat pumps

Heat pumps will cause about double the demand that EV's will, and I agree, thats why National grid just announced a huge grid upgrade infrastructure investment plan to the regulator. Precisely for the heat pumps.

The trucks actually are relatively minor in the load required when compared with millions of cars.

 

[oldiesontour]

Deliberately......anyone who thinks that without huge (additional) financial investment and a massive increase in the number of qualified people to actually do it....pretty much re-doing the entire electrical infrastructure of the UK AND adding some more power stations (I understand that the existing operational nuclear power stations are all due to be de-commissioned in the coming years...they may get extentions to continue? So the UK loses c 6gw...but gains about 3 when Hinkley Point C comes on line...in perhaps 2030...so a net loss of 3gw...or perhaps c 7% of requirements) https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/united-kingdom#:~:text=The UK generates about 15,nuclear plants is under construction.

I'll no doubt be accused of 'scaremongering' but you only have to look at the UKs ageing housing stock, millions of properties with 50, 60, 70 yr old electrical connections to mains cable...

Couldn't agree more but for to believe the infrastructure is or will be capable of supplying an all electric future ,any time soon you'd have to called milliband,as for paying for the upgrade and replacing lost carbon fuel tax
It's most likely to be added to the cost of the end product .. electricity

 

[starquake]

https://www.nationalgrid.com/the-great-grid-upgrade/where-its-happening is the grid's upgrade plan showing the 17 major projects to increase grid capacity they are at moment quoting for now.

 

[DandJ]

Should add ref; trucking, CATL (major battery provider) are also now supplying for trucking a battery with a million mile/15 year guarantee.
Good luck getting that kind of warranty on an engine on a a diesel truck.

CATL launches new EV battery with close to a 1 million mile, 15-year lifespan

Leading EV battery maker CATL released its new breakthrough battery pack with up to a nearly 1 million mile (1.5...

electrek.co

^ is why this is happening. Buy a truck and keep it 15 years/1 million miles -> makes the Total cost of ownership of an average EV truck significantly lower than the (diesel) opposition. In the same timeframe there would be at least 2 diesel trucks owned by an equivalent truck operator, at what cost of the materials to build those?

You are missing the fact it's not instantaneous demand, and mising GWh and just confusing some of the figures.

I can say over the year our "average" charge is 45kwh so you spot on there, and we charge every 8-10 days on average, with between 2 and 4 charges a month depending on how much we use the car. We will sometimes cahreg more sometimes less over the last 4 years of data.

if that is typical, it's 30 million cars divided by 8 days, so 3.75 million cars needing 45kwh every day. There are 12 hours an average car isn't moving on average (get home 7pm work 7am, or same 5pm to 5am). so the needed load factor to recharge each car is 45/12, ie, around 3.75kw per hour, or just over 16A per 3.75 million cars. You also have to consider some people work nights, so will be charging during the day so it won't be a peak of 3.75 million cars at once, and there will be some spread beyond ther 12 hours.

As pointed out above, you can charge 1.3 million ish per 10GW of actual generation simultanouesly at 7.2kw,but at 3.6kw thats 2.6 million. I would wager given the amount cars not cahrging overnight that the additional load is in the 10-15GW real load numbers,, Gieven the grid is as you say 47GW peak most winters, it's likely an additional 10GW once ALL cars changed, circa 2035 (ie, peak will increase to potentially 57GW if nothing else changes, which is around 20% extras as you say).

However it's missing the fact the grid demand is falling at same time due to energy effeciency measures -> peak grid a few years ago was over 52GW, and over 60GW on the same infrastructure in 2001 ish. Ie, we were using that amount previously due to use of incandescent bulbs etc in the late 80-90s. The peak single day demand on UK grid in 2024 was 47.8GW roughly. (ie, 13GW less than the peak 60GW supplied in 2001). (The elexon site linked above is the actual grid's own demand figures, it's the SOURCE data that others you linked actually get their data from (elexon is the national grid data source)).

So my view is the 10% extra demand figure the grid quote include the previous demand, and demand reduction (from petrol etc production lowering), so although you are spot on the headline is we need 20GW to charge cars, it's missing point the grid in 2001 already supplied all the energy we need. And look at the margin overnight, we already have 25GW of capacity almost every night this year so far, thats already enough for about double the cars the above figures expect.

ie, the grid already has the capacity today to handle this -> the 10% the grid is talking about in my view is peak demand addition, ie, charging vehicles not to a scedule like trucks which are required to charge (at high MW rates) to cover them charging trucks 4-7pm only.

So I kind of agree with your 20% but equally as the demand isn't comign today it's not an issue. There is no way everyone will have an EV (or EV truck) before 2035 ish. I still expect diesel motorhomes to be on the road in 2040 myself. However, what cannot be denied is the rate of change is now accelerating -> and will continue to do so. Despite news to the contrary, the only categories where demand is falling at present are in fact Petrol and Diesel vehicles.

That said, if everyone did change today (if there were suffient veichiles) the above figures show with 25GW spare today every night, we could comfortably charge every vehicle ... from a grid supply point of view at least. Locally maybe some congestion.

Heat pumps will cause about double the demand that EV's will, and I agree, thats why National grid just announced a huge grid upgrade infrastructure investment plan to the regulator. Precisely for the heat pumps.

The trucks actually are relatively minor in the load required when compared with millions of cars.

I think we will have to agree to disagree....and see what the future brings (Did you work within the energy sector?)

 

[starquake]

I think we will have to agree to disagree....and see what the future brings (Did you work within the energy sector?)

Yes, I worked for an oil company for several years, and know a lot of people in the industry.

Telling that in 2019 the HQ of a certain large UK oil firm had about 25% of the spaces in the car park with EV charging.

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[headlight]

Unlike the additives added to petrol and diesel at least it isn't burnt up. They believe batteries are near infinitely reclyable, given they've already managed one generation of recycling already.

Additives addded to petrol and diesel which have similar, if not worse environmental impact are literally burnt to never be replaced. Demonstratably worse for the environment in my book. And yes I have a diesel motorhome.

I don't think lithium mining is really of any major concern, and we all want lithium batteries in our motorhomes right?

So you don't think that dredging off the top 1-2 metres of thousands of square miles of sea bed is a major concern ???
Licenses to do this have already been granted as they can't source enough lithium from the land to meet demand.
All environmental action groups have agreed that after this dredging what will be left will be thousands of square miles of barren sea bed that will have a major detrimental effect on marine life, and as a consequence us.
It's just yet another example of 'kicking the can down the road'

 

[DandJ]

Yes, I worked for an oil company for several years, and know a lot of people in the industry.

Telling that in 2019 the HQ of a certain large UK oil firm had about 25% of the spaces in the car park with EV charging.

Will that not have simply been yet another tax dodge for company car owners...they'll have been driving Hilux pick ups 20 yrs ago when they could get some sort of tax reduction.......follow the money as always.

 

[enark]

Unlike the additives added to petrol and diesel at least it isn't burnt up. They believe batteries are near infinitely reclyable, given they've already managed one generation of recycling already.

Additives addded to petrol and diesel which have similar, if not worse environmental impact are literally burnt to never be replaced. Demonstratably worse for the environment in my book. And yes I have a diesel motorhome.

I don't think lithium mining is really of any major concern, and we all want lithium batteries in our motorhomes right?

We dont employ 10 year olds on oil rigs…….

 

[starquake]

So you don't think that dredging off the top 1-2 metres of thousands of square miles of sea bed is a major concern ???
Licenses to do this have already been granted as they can't source enough lithium from the land to meet demand.
All environmental action groups have agreed that after this dredging what will be left will be thousands of square miles of barren sea bed that will have a major detrimental effect on marine life, and as a consequence us.
It's just yet another example of 'kicking the can down the road'

I hadn't heard those licneses were granted. Given the amount of Lithium on land, I can't believe thats valid.

In fact a quick google says UK has banned the practise and so has Norway now.

Deep-sea mining: Norway suspends controversial plan

Oslo's plan to open up its Arctic seabed for mining prompted stark environmental opposition.

www.bbc.co.uk

Only place I can see doing it is India, which is to be frank, the least of the environmental issues there, they make China look like environmental paragons.

 

[enark]

Will that not have simply been yet another tax dodge for company car owners...they'll have been driving Hilux pick ups 20 yrs ago when they could get some sort of tax reduction.......follow the money as always.

Or landrover discoveries, with no rear seats….

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[Ray-Vic]

Why is it people to who don't have an EV seem to think that every charge has to be a full charge and takes ages? I drive a Tesla and it's my second one over 6 years, and I have only ever fully charged about half a dozen times. 80% gives me around 263 real world miles and I can put well over 100 miles on my car in less than 15 minutes at a V3 Supercharger, so often just do splash and dash charges, with charging at my office being used during the day for topping up if needed.

EV use is actually very easy and range anxiety predominantly exists in people who have never driven one. I drove all the way to Southern Spain and back with no issues whatsoever and absolutely no range anxiety. Some of my charge stops (planned by the Tesla software) were just 15 minutes. Others were longer, with the longest one being 45 minutes.

There are of course benefits for both fuel types, but to suggest the load on the grid is going to be unmanageable because of all these EV's plugging in at the same time is simply not accurate as charging is spread right across the 24-hour day. National Grid has confirmed that even if we switched to EV's overnight there would only be a 10% increase on current demand, which is less than the maximum peak grid demand of 62GW in 2002. In other words, they are saying there is no issue.

 

[headlight]

I hadn't heard those licneses were granted. Given the amount of Lithium on land, I can't believe thats valid.

In fact a quick google says UK has banned the practise and so has Norway now.

Deep-sea mining: Norway suspends controversial plan

Oslo's plan to open up its Arctic seabed for mining prompted stark environmental opposition.

www.bbc.co.uk

Only place I can see doing it is India, which is to be frank, the least of the environmental issues there, they make China look like environmental paragons.

So out of all the countries in the world UK and Norway won't approve it.
I think that you'll find that the UK and Norway are pretty small fish in the big scheme of things.
Anyway I'm bowing out of this discussion, you believe what you want, likewise so will I.
At the moment in no way will an EV work for me.

 

[DandJ]

National Grid has confirmed that even if we switched to EV's overnight there would only be a 10% increase on current demand, which is less than the maximum peak grid demand of 62GW in 2002. In other words, they are saying there is no issue.

Of course they are....they don't want to go against the flow of some of the nonsense spouted by successive governments.
The point being made in the last few posts has been that over whatever period of time you choose.....with a full house of 30 million EVs doing 8k miles a year and averaging 3.5miles per unit of electric....you'd need far more electric than the National Grid state and you cite. It is a little over 20%, not 10%. So whether you do lots of 5kw top ups or one big 45kw one....one way or another the grid has to supply you with 45kw....(45 being an example)
UK demand may well have fallen considerably in the last 20yrs....so has its capability to produce electricity......

 

[Ray-Vic]

Of course they are....they don't want to go against the flow of some of the nonsense spouted by successive governments.
The point being made in the last few posts has been that over whatever period of time you choose.....with a full house of 30 million EVs doing 8k miles a year and averaging 3.5miles per unit of electric....you'd need far more electric than the National Grid state and you cite. It is a little over 20%, not 10%. So whether you do lots of 5kw top ups or one big 45kw one....one way or another the grid has to supply you with 45kw....(45 being an example)
UK demand may well have fallen considerably in the last 20yrs....so has its capability to produce electricity......

So your calculations are right and the National Grid is wrong or lying?.....Interesting.

 

[Raul]

https://www.nationalgrid.com/the-great-grid-upgrade/where-its-happening is the grid's upgrade plan showing the 17 major projects to increase grid capacity they are at moment quoting for now.

Meanwhile, on the low voltage side, there are a gazillion of houses looped on 80 and 60A supply. And if you have a 100A with solar, you are already potentially overloading the supply.
But, they have a crafty politic to get round it: they invented diversity for maximum demand. If your hob has 4x 2000kw rings, guess what? two will pause and two will work. Its made specifically to shave max demand and give you less as the network can't take it.
Same goes for the car chargers; they have to be smart, and set with the supplier demands, because they can't cope with the surge at peak.
We need infrastructure for all EV and heat pumps, at the moment we managing demand to prevent the bubble burst at peak demand. Its all smoke and mirrors.

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[DandJ]

So your calculations are right and the National Grid is wrong or lying?.....Interesting.

This is what National Grid state:

Even if we all switched to EVs overnight, we estimate demand would only increase by around 10%.

Do the maths yourself....you own a Tesla....you know what it does per unit of electricity. I used 3.5 miles per kw...do it with 4 ? (that may not work well in winter)
160 miles per week = c 45kwh (Mr Starquake states that is just what his requires) multiply by 30 million cars. (There are actually 33 million cars, 41 million 'vehicles). That adds up to 1350GWh per week
Total UK electricity demand in 2023 was 320Twh. So average weekly demand was a little over 6000GWh
I can quite imagine what it would have done/do to the Govts mad headlong dash to 'green'/leading the world for NetZero if the National grid had said that they couldn't cope.....but let's face it they couldn't cope. The maths doesn't lie. (It is all irrelevent as we could never transform overnight to a full EV fleet but they shouldn't lie...or be economical with the truth)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66a7da1bce1fd0da7b592f0a/DUKES_2024_Chapter_5.pdf

 

[starquake]

We dont employ 10 year olds on oil rigs…….

No but Petrol and Diesel does use the same materials in the fuel that are mined by the 10 year olds. Diesel/Petrol is arguably considerably more dirty. The oil rigs don't employ 10 years olds, but the refinerys use chemicals that are the same ones the anti-ev bridade keep complaining about.

It's always a question to me is what is more dirty, and over 10 years, no-one sane can demonstrate diesel burning is clean.

Meanwhile, on the low voltage side, there are a gazillion of houses looped on 80 and 60A supply. And if you have a 100A with solar, you are already potentially overloading the supply.
But, they have a crafty politic to get round it: they invented diversity for maximum demand. If your hob has 4x 2000kw rings, guess what? two will pause and two will work. Its made specifically to shave max demand and give you less as the network can't take it.
Same goes for the car chargers; they have to be smart, and set with the supplier demands, because they can't cope with the surge at peak.
We need infrastructure for all EV and heat pumps, at the moment we managing demand to prevent the bubble burst at peak demand. Its all smoke and mirrors.

Ref; looped supplys, it is required by many/most of the UK distrubution networks to unloop a supply for (free) in most cases (specifically for EV owners). I am aware of only one region where this is not the case, and the one where I know of people with chargers there have had a token fee to pay. UKPN and National Grid areas are free (east and west of UK).

If you can name a single person who has had a delayed charge that couldn't be overrode due to the smart charging legislation I would be highly surprised, given the fact that every charger brand has to have an override smart charging button by the same legislation that sets that as default. It's bloody obvious on Ohme and Zappi chargers at least.

If they don't I suspect they are not following the legislation here and are likely up for a uk equivelent of class action lawsuit. Every major charger brand I've used has a override button if you need to charge and the grid says wants to delay you.

And you are missing the point that most EV owners choose to use smart charging too precisely becuase it gives you 7p charging any time of day or night (those not on agile anyhow). Overriding in the Ohme/Zappi chargers just means you pay the normal peak price.

It is however worth noting, my sister in law who works in control room of a certain Nuclear plant says they can see the peak caused by a certain energy suppliers off-peak EV tariff overnight. (not the Octopus one out of interest). The Octopus one now spreads the load for most customers.

As said, if you can name a charger brand that does not do this, I would be highly interested as to my understanding that breaks the legislation.

 

[Bolti]

Californian fires have claimed a battery storage facility.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/17/us/evacuation-fire-power-plant-monterey-county/index.html

 

[Ray-Vic]

This is what National Grid state:


Do the maths yourself....you own a Tesla....you know what it does per unit of electricity. I used 3.5 miles per kw...do it with 4 ? (that may not work well in winter)
160 miles per week = c 45kwh (Mr Starquake states that is just what his requires) multiply by 30 million cars. (There are actually 33 million cars, 41 million 'vehicles). That adds up to 1350GWh per week
Total UK electricity demand in 2023 was 320Twh. So average weekly demand was a little over 6000GWh
I can quite imagine what it would have done/do to the Govts mad headlong dash to 'green'/leading the world for NetZero if the National grid had said that they couldn't cope.....but let's face it they couldn't cope. The maths doesn't lie. (It is all irrelevent as we could never transform overnight to a full EV fleet but they shouldn't lie...or be economical with the truth)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66a7da1bce1fd0da7b592f0a/DUKES_2024_Chapter_5.pdf

But you're only adding the power required by EV's without deducting anything for the power required to furnish ICE vehicles. I suspect the National Grid calculations will take this, and many other factors, into account.

 

[Raul]

As said, if you can name a charger brand that does not do this, I would be highly interested as to my understanding that breaks the legislation

I can't name a charger that does not have an override, because there isn't any. Not long ago EV was tax free, this year not anymore. Point is, it has to be smart, yes you can override now, but later? Why the need to be smart if not for managing demand? Why isn't that optional to?

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[enark]

Should add ref; trucking, CATL (major battery provider) are also now supplying for trucking a battery with a million mile/15 year guarantee.
Good luck getting that kind of warranty on an engine on a a diesel truck.

CATL launches new EV battery with close to a 1 million mile, 15-year lifespan

Leading EV battery maker CATL released its new breakthrough battery pack with up to a nearly 1 million mile (1.5...

electrek.co

^ is why this is happening. Buy a truck and keep it 15 years/1 million miles -> makes the Total cost of ownership of an average EV truck significantly lower than the (diesel) opposition. In the same timeframe there would be at least 2 diesel trucks owned by an equivalent truck operator, at what cost of the materials to build those?

You are missing the fact it's not instantaneous demand, and mising GWh and just confusing some of the figures.

I can say over the year our "average" charge is 45kwh so you spot on there, and we charge every 8-10 days on average, with between 2 and 4 charges a month depending on how much we use the car. We will sometimes cahreg more sometimes less over the last 4 years of data.

if that is typical, it's 30 million cars divided by 8 days, so 3.75 million cars needing 45kwh every day. There are 12 hours an average car isn't moving on average (get home 7pm work 7am, or same 5pm to 5am). so the needed load factor to recharge each car is 45/12, ie, around 3.75kw per hour, or just over 16A per 3.75 million cars. You also have to consider some people work nights, so will be charging during the day so it won't be a peak of 3.75 million cars at once, and there will be some spread beyond ther 12 hours.

As pointed out above, you can charge 1.3 million ish per 10GW of actual generation simultanouesly at 7.2kw,but at 3.6kw thats 2.6 million. I would wager given the amount cars not cahrging overnight that the additional load is in the 10-15GW real load numbers,, Gieven the grid is as you say 47GW peak most winters, it's likely an additional 10GW once ALL cars changed, circa 2035 (ie, peak will increase to potentially 57GW if nothing else changes, which is around 20% extras as you say).

However it's missing the fact the grid demand is falling at same time due to energy effeciency measures -> peak grid a few years ago was over 52GW, and over 60GW on the same infrastructure in 2001 ish. Ie, we were using that amount previously due to use of incandescent bulbs etc in the late 80-90s. The peak single day demand on UK grid in 2024 was 47.8GW roughly. (ie, 13GW less than the peak 60GW supplied in 2001). (The elexon site linked above is the actual grid's own demand figures, it's the SOURCE data that others you linked actually get their data from (elexon is the national grid data source)).

So my view is the 10% extra demand figure the grid quote include the previous demand, and demand reduction (from petrol etc production lowering), so although you are spot on the headline is we need 20GW to charge cars, it's missing point the grid in 2001 already supplied all the energy we need. And look at the margin overnight, we already have 25GW of capacity almost every night this year so far, thats already enough for about double the cars the above figures expect.

ie, the grid already has the capacity today to handle this -> the 10% the grid is talking about in my view is peak demand addition, ie, charging vehicles not to a scedule like trucks which are required to charge (at high MW rates) to cover them charging trucks 4-7pm only.

So I kind of agree with your 20% but equally as the demand isn't comign today it's not an issue. There is no way everyone will have an EV (or EV truck) before 2035 ish. I still expect diesel motorhomes to be on the road in 2040 myself. However, what cannot be denied is the rate of change is now accelerating -> and will continue to do so. Despite news to the contrary, the only categories where demand is falling at present are in fact Petrol and Diesel vehicles.

That said, if everyone did change today (if there were suffient veichiles) the above figures show with 25GW spare today every night, we could comfortably charge every vehicle ... from a grid supply point of view at least. Locally maybe some congestion.

Heat pumps will cause about double the demand that EV's will, and I agree, thats why National grid just announced a huge grid upgrade infrastructure investment plan to the regulator. Precisely for the heat pumps.

The trucks actually are relatively minor in the load required when compared with millions of cars.

Think you are blind to the fact that to supply all this huge power needs;

A. Power stations
B. Power transmission lines
C. Local power distribution lines

If A+B are easy (they aint), C involves digging up most of our towns and cities - not going t happen in twenty years - by which time hydrogen or some other super power source will have taken over.

Its going to take my workplace until 2030 to get 186 charging stations installed - why because NG have a small waiting list…

So dont bother, stick with diesel for now..

 

[starquake]

If A+B are easy (they aint), C involves digging up most of our towns and cities - not going t happen in twenty years - by which time hydrogen or some other super power source will have taken over.

Hydrogen mathematically requires 3 times the power (thats at 100% effeciency). The reality today is around 4 times the power.
Good luck with that if you want it. Multiply the problems for EV's by 4.

(All the same problems exist), and if you building H2 stations near power plants, why would truck stops not be in the same place?

Ref; charging syations for business, actual plans (ie, orders for EV trucks) actually will prioritise your workplace to my understanding. The waiting list piece is actually in the National grids business plan, and if you operate trucks they will prioritise you.

As I've pointed out above with ACTUAL datasets from the grid, there is capacity for A+B today -> 25GW is sitting spare every single night.

 

[Ray-Vic]

So dont bother, stick with diesel for now..

This is the bottom line.

EV's powered by Lithium batteries (we can't complain about the mining of Lithium as motorhome users given how many are switching to Lithium batteries) are really only an interim solution to the ultimate goal of a truly eco friendly solution. Let's be honest, they're not eco friendly at all, they're just eco unfriendly in different ways to ICE vehicles.

Unfortunately the alternatives are a way off yet, but there are big inroads into Hydrogen (it's still difficult to store something so volatile) and power generation technologies such as osmotic power stations.

 

[DandJ]

But you're only adding the power required by EV's without deducting anything for the power required to furnish ICE vehicles. I suspect the National Grid calculations will take this, and many other factors, into account.

I don't know what your 'many other factors' mean but for UK refined petrol, it takes c 4kw of electric to refine 1 gallon. On average 1 gallon of petrol (made with 4kwh of electric) gives 40 miles......an EV would need 10 to 12 kw to drive that.....the 10% is still incorrect. Taking the refinery electric use into acct, perhaps 17/18% rather than 22/23%...certainly not 10%.
The trouble is, National Grid just dumb it down and folk will generally accept the 10%.

 

[starquake]

This is the bottom line.

EV's powered by Lithium batteries (we can't complain about the mining of Lithium as motorhome users given how many are switching to Lithium batteries) are really only an interim solution to the ultimate goal of a truly eco friendly solution. Let's be honest, they're not eco friendly at all, they're just eco unfriendly in different ways to ICE vehicles.

But likely several times less damaging given they are lasting a lot longer than expected (Nissan Leaf and original teslas still running/working, 13 years later). Remember the average ICE car scrappage age is lower than a BEV.
(https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsand...tential,diesel cars show distinct differences.)

I agree with unfriendly in different ways, but the key thing is unlike a Petrol or Diesel the small point that Battery means as a grids "greenness increases" the emissions equivalent decreates on BEV. As such over time the environment credentials get better for one, where the other (Petrol) stays static.

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