Are we on the brink of an electric car revolution?

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 09 Feb 2016, 15:28

3kw is the result of applying the 80% possible saving to a house using 15kw to heat it. In a hard to heat house with no current insulation the possible saving could be more.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 09 Feb 2016, 19:39

kenneal - lagger wrote:3kw is the result of applying the 80% possible saving to a house using 15kw to heat it. In a hard to heat house with no current insulation the possible saving could be more.

Ah. You wrote "It would still be ridiculous to use 15W to heat a house when 3kw would do nicely for a properly insulated one...."

The 'k' makes, er, three orders of magnitude difference!

We're using about 0.5kW from our GSHP but we also have a woodstove.

(What's this doing in the 'Transport' section?)

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 10 Feb 2016, 01:34

Sorry about that. I've edited the original post so that it now makes sense.

What's this discussion doing in Transport? We've veered slightly off topic again as is quite usual on this forum!

We're using about 0.5kW from our GSHP but we also have a woodstove.

So you're using it for Domestic Hot Water (DHW) then rather than space heating?

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 10 Feb 2016, 11:14

kenneal - lagger wrote: So you're using it for Domestic Hot Water (DHW) then rather than space heating?

No, the GSHP only does space heating, DHW is by woodburner, solar thermal and electric immersion.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 10 Feb 2016, 15:16

Was it worth the cost of installing it for such a small output?

Adam1 · Post by **Adam1** » 10 Feb 2016, 18:52

clv101 wrote:My key criticism of electric vehicles is that we should be moving our static, grid connected energy consumption to renewables before we seriously address transport. That's where there's a huge about (several decades worth) of low hanging fruit. Once the only fossil fuel use left is in cars, planes and ships we should switch our attention to transport.

Lots to say but not enough time.

I am leasing a 2105 Leaf and have access to a 2007 Polo Bluemotion. The Polo is rated at 105g CO2/km - I don't know what the real-life figure is but it's more likely to be higher than lower. Based on an average grid carbon intensity of 425g/kWh (https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-green- ... -grid-live), assuming I get no energy from my solar panels, and assuming that I'm using 250Wh/mile in the Leaf, it translates to about 67g CO2/km. So even now the Leaf is less carbon intensive than one of the more efficient cars on the road. My assumption is that an electric bus would have similarly favourable figures compared to a diesel one.

I think that the move to a renewables grid is happening faster than I'd previously realised, despite the best efforts of the government to destroy the sector. The trend is going to be in favour of the Leaf as it is highly unlikely that there will be fewer renewables in future. I'm feeling more emboldened about this having just read "The Winning of the Carbon War" by Jeremy Leggett.

While I take you point about the additional constraints about storage in a vehicle being all about energy density and weight, it terms of the development of the sector, there is cross-over. At the domestic scale, size and weight, in most homes anyway, are a factor. Also, as a battery reaches the end of its useful life in a vehicle, it can be given a new lease of life in a static application - my Leaf's batteries have 24kWh capacity. Let's say that drops to 12 after a decade or so, that battery pack will still be very useful in a home or factory. In fact Nissan are using their batteries from their earliest Leafs (or is it Leaves?) at their Sunderland factory to store electricity from their roof-mounted PV.

I'm not sure where the low hanging fruit is now. It's interesting to compare vehicles with buildings. As someone who works with Passivhaus and ultra-low energy building/design, I know that it is (technically) relatively straight-forward to reduce the space heating demand of a new build by 80% to 90% compared to the average UK building. Many existing buildings can have their space heating can be reduced by 75% or more - it's trickier but quite possible in the majority of case. Although the ultra-low energy building sector is growing, it is going to be long haul. The new build housing stock annual replacement rate is about 1%, so it's would take decades to impact overall demand significantly, even if all new buildings were Passivhaus. Retrofitting existing buildings is more complex, expensive and exposes the client to greater financial risk (cost overruns). Added to that, delivering all this energy reduction cost-effectively requires a huge upshift in the skills of the the relevant professions/trades in the built-environment sector.

By contrast, EVs have a much shorter life/replacement cycle than a building. And they are designed and constructed in a few locations, meaning that upskilling is much more manageable.

In practice, the trends to EVs, an increasingly renewables rich grid and the development of cost-effective and scalable electricity storage are going to develop in parallel.

Post by **clv101** » 10 Feb 2016, 19:54

Adam1 wrote:I'm not sure where the low hanging fruit is now.

The low hanging fruit I refer to is all the existing electricity demand that currently runs off fossil fuels. I'm not talking about changes in the home, office or factory - but changes to supply. Once the grid is basically decarbonised, ie when we've decarbonised static electricity consumption then we should switch focus to decarbonising (via electricity) transport.

The fact that grid electricity is still 425g/kWh and not an order of magnitude lower is the sign to me that we shouldn't try and electrify transport yet.

You're right about things developing in parallel. I'm not dead against electric cars and in some situations they make a lot of sense. However I am lukewarm as firstly I think decarbonising static energy consumption offers far better bang per buck than decarbonising transport and secondly I think electric cars are a distraction from the bigger prizes of modal shift and reduced vehicle miles.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 11 Feb 2016, 03:46

Chris, is there not an argument that the design life of a car would mean that if we don't start replacing internal combustion engines with EV now there will be too large a job to do later? Hirsch made the point in his report that it would take 30 years to convert the current paradigm to the new renewable based one. This would apply if we relied on the market to make the transition whereas if there was legislation banning ICEs after a certain date the changeover would be much quicker.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 11 Feb 2016, 08:06

clv101 wrote: You're right about things developing in parallel. I'm not dead against electric cars and in some situations they make a lot of sense. However I am lukewarm as firstly I think decarbonising static energy consumption offers far better bang per buck than decarbonising transport and secondly I think electric cars are a distraction from the bigger prizes of modal shift and reduced vehicle miles.

Last night I gave a presentation to 40 people about my ideas for ultra-light electric railways. It won't have much net effect on the grid as it generates all its own energy by track-bed solar pv. Since the trains are essentially composed of stretched Tesla Roadsters, with its characteristics of light weight, fast acceleration and deceleration and battery power, it's jolly useful that someone invented the Tesla Roadster. It allows one to quickly explain what this radical new way of thinking about railways is all about.

I don't think it's sensible to turn the whole personal transport system into electric cars when so much of the grid is not renewably generated, but the transition to a new way of getting about (and avoiding having to get about) is likely to be helped if some folk are pushing ahead with these technologies.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 11 Feb 2016, 10:23

Some of the intelligent posts like Adam1's and clv101's above make this little-frequented corner of the internet worth visiting. I'm often brought back to reality by the UK government's - and of course the EU commission's and the vehicle industry's - constantly-demonstrated determination to stay away from this corner and their solutions.

George Monbiot recently stated very well this kind of dualism.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 25 Feb 2016, 18:06

Well I have taken the plunge and I take delivery of my Nissan Leaf next week.

I have switched supplier to ecotricity and I am trying to organise a charge point installation. (The government has just reduced the grant for installing charge points by £200 to £500). I am considering the option of moving to an economy 7 tariff but I am not sure yet it is worth it.

Insurance is a bit higher than my current car.

fuzzy · Post by **fuzzy** » 25 Feb 2016, 22:00

PS_RalphW wrote:Well I have taken the plunge and I take delivery of my Nissan Leaf next week.

I have switched supplier to ecotricity and I am trying to organise a charge point installation. (The government has just reduced the grant for installing charge points by £200 to £500). I am considering the option of moving to an economy 7 tariff but I am not sure yet it is worth it.

Insurance is a bit higher than my current car.

From what I remember, economy 7 users pay a higher day tarrif so you may be worse off. This is a disgrace, and energy companies and the gov have never shown much interest in helping to spread the load over 24 hrs and giving low cost surplus nuclear generated off peak supply to the citizens.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 25 Feb 2016, 22:17

I'm with Ecotricity on Economy 7
Day time is 18.87p per kWhr
Night time 5.45
Standing charge 13.40p per day

Doubtless if one goes switching amongst suppliers one can find cheaper prices but the cost will be greater since burning coal and gas externalises the cost of a spare planet.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 26 Feb 2016, 07:55

I'm moving to ecotricity but the numbers quoted for economy 7 where less
extreme.

16.7p daytime and 7.14p nighttime.

I'm guessing they found that very few people would take the larger daytime hit.

I'm not sure it would be worth the switch, it all depends on how many miles we do in the leaf, and if we can programme the time that the car charges overnight. I'm not staying awake to midnight just to plug the car in!

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 26 Feb 2016, 11:14

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... es-by-2022

Electric cars will be cheaper to own than conventional cars by 2022, according to a new report.

The plummeting cost of batteries is key in leading to the tipping point, which would kickstart a mass market for electric vehicles, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) analysts predict.

http://about.bnef.com/press-releases/el ... s-by-2040/