Zero emission road vehicles.

[pre65]

A man in London buys an electric car, an electric cycle and mobile phone, all with Li batteries.

None catch fire and he lives happily ever after.

Good news to redress the balance.

Can you quote a verifiable source for this apocrypha?

It was in a newsletter from the Enormous vegetable growers society last week, but I don't have a link to it.

Just trust me.

[Nick]

Of course, anything that contains 2.5e+8 Joules of stored energy should be regarded as a potential source of danger.

[jack]

Of course, anything that contains 2.5e+8 Joules of stored energy should be regarded as a potential source of danger.

Are you suggesting that it might not meet IEC 60079-11:2023 ? That's awful !

[Nick]

Had to look it up. Reminds me of when I wrote a ppm system for a chemical plant. Some years later it exploded I believe no connection.

[jack]

Had to look it up. Reminds me of when I wrote a ppm system for a chemical plant. Some years later it exploded I believe no connection.

So, a million parts as opposed to parts per million?

[Nick]

It was not that big a bang. Just for clarity PPM = Planned Preventative Maintenance

[Nick]

Got distracted by trying to work out how much electricity we would need to replace all the UK's cars.

Total petrol per year 17,000,000,000 ltr (these are a peak in 2019)
Total diesel per year 30,000,000,000 ltr

Total = 47,000,000,000 ltr per year.
Total = 129,000,000 ltr per day.

Guess of 30mil/g = 10.6 km/l
Total distance = 12,170,000 km per day

Tesla 3 = 16.6 kW/h per 100 km

Total power = 2,000,000 kW/h per day

Electricity generation per day (yesterday) 25.3 GW/h = 25,300 MW/h = 25,300,000 kW/h

So by that calculation (could well be wrong) it would take an increase of 8% of annual generating capacity to replace all the ICE's with EV. Doesn't seem impossible to do (not that I am having to make that happen, so may be harder than it sounds).

[pre65]

The total electricity generated per day is enough to cater for demand.

So what is the maximum available if every UK power station was on line and working to capacity ?

[jack]

Peak demand + contingency is what is needed... most folk will presumably be charging overnight - it is unlikely, though possible, that the total load will be averaged over 24 hours...

[Nick]

Don't know to both posts (though only one was a question). I just was interested in what sort of demand a 100% EV population would look like. But so many guesses involved of course. Many of the nay-sayers seem to base calculations on every car having to charge from 0 to 100% every night, which of course would not be the case.

[Neal]

Something else to consider is localised demand hot spots. No doubt the total demand could be met from the Grid but is there the infrastructure for instance to meet demand in say the South East, London. The demand there will be far greater than say the highlands of Scotland...

[Nick]

The demand there will be far greater than say the highlands of Scotland.

But would it be (as a percentage of electricity use)?

[jack]

The demand there will be far greater than say the highlands of Scotland.

But would it be (as a percentage of electricity use)?

There's a fair few places in the Highlands and other isolated places where all electricity is provided by micro-generation. Not sure how such a plant could charge an EV other than VERY SLOWLY...

[Nick]

The demand there will be far greater than say the highlands of Scotland.

But would it be (as a percentage of electricity use)?

There's a fair few places in the Highlands and other isolated places where all electricity is provided by micro-generation. Not sure how such a plant could charge an EV other than VERY SLOWLY...

Maybe so, but I would think that "very slowly" may be fine in that situation. But I was replying to Neal's suggestion that there would be hot spots in places like London, which may well be the case, but I was just suggesting that if everyone has EV's, then places with more people would have more EV's to charge, but they would have more toasters as well so the percentage might be similar. Likewise the Highlands with less people would have less EV's. Its just the way percentages work. I guess another question is how does the petrol and diesel currently get to those locations?

But I was just looking at totals across the country, no more no less. Without doubt infrastructure may not be adequate in some cases, as it happens they are replacing the three phase poles down the lane from me, but non of those changes are because of, or for EV's, just age.

I was just running the numbers to see if the suggestions that the grid would be entirely unable to supply the massive extra demand that EV's would create had some basis in reality. I remember someone from the grid saying in a interview that it would be fine, plans were under way, and the numbers seem to me to point in the direction of that being true. People seem to be making objections to points I never made.

[Neal]

I was trying to make the point that there is localised hot spot charging issues especially in London and the South in general where the infrastructure in it’s current state faces challenges in delivering the requirement for full EV charging.

Fast charge outlets for charge on the go are currently facing deployment issues as they currently require battery supplementary storage as they can’t deliver the power during the day if drawn direct from the grid.

Slow residential charging is another issue in London where the near majority don’t have a drive way so private companies are having to battle with individual local authorities to get planning permission to dig up the street to install pavement level charging points. Each local authority have to do the assessment including power (local substation capacity).

The transport for London ‘glossy outlook’ paper doesn’t really address the fine details and says they will cope, no doubt they will given time and large expenditure. There are other reports from EOS on the potential grid issues in the South East. I’m sure it will all be ok.

Scotland could be a net exporter to England if they can resolve getting the offshore power capacity actually offshore and onto the grid.