How will the grid manage with all these Cars?

eeguy

Genevieve Scarce Mockingbird wrote: »

That doesn't sound right. In a cloudy Summer day there's going to be more energy/brightness/uv available than during any sunny 'Winters day' when the sun barely makes an appearance before setting again before 5pm.

PV panels are at their best on bright cold crisp days. We don't really get them here unfortunately with our humidity, but you might have experienced it on a bright frosty morning.
Efficiency drops when the panels heat up, so they usually leave a few inches gap between the panel and roof tiles.

Shoog

Off shore tidal will be the deal breaker. Once that is perfected it will be a game changer since it has far more energy per unit area compared to wind and represents an entirely predictable base load energy supply.

Shoog

I got a better solution, LFTR reactors using Thorium, more research needed but commercial plants are not that far off, maybe 10 years tops. Ultra safe and efficient and abundant energy solution that is far cheaper and with less need to litter the land with Turbines.

http://thmsr.nl/#/

The problem is that Nuclear energy is illegal in Ireland, this is a massive concern for our future energy supply, 10 years to debate it and 10 years to implement it.

No reason we can't use this technology to power homes, transport and for heating !!!

bk

raspberrypi67 wrote: »

Seems to me the night will soon be like the day with a million cars trying to charge.

You make that sound like it is a problem. The ESB actually see it as a solution to a major problem they currently have.

The fact that night-time usage is 40% of the daytime peak is a major problem for them. You have to build enough capacity at great capital expense to handle the day time peak, but then it sits there unused half the day. Even worse you have to pay for it to sit there even if it isn't used.

Evening out the extreme swings between peak and off-peak actually greatly help them more efficiently use the existing power plants and get better value out of them. It should go a long way towards helping reducing the cost of the grid.

It will likely mean we will end up moving away from the idea of night rate meters and instead move more towards smart meters, which will adjust the tiems your car charges based on cost of the electricity. So instead of just at night, your car may charge when the sun is shining, wind is blowing or night time off peak.

The battery in your car can act as a buffer for these more variable sources of power.

BTW At a higher level I suspect we will see a lot more wind power here and use interconnectors off to French Nuclear and Norwegian Hydro as the backup to it's variability.

Shoog

The problem is that Thorium reactors are not really as far advanced as you might think. They have two options to make them viable, you strap a neutron particle accellerator to the core or you mix in uranium to allow the thermo nuclear reaction to initiate.
Compact particle accellerators are not available and are not likely to become available any time soon.
Mixing in uranium to the thorium fuel reintroduces all of the issues associated with toxic nuclear waste and nuclear security. It wouldn't be very good if a terrorist were able to buy up a few domestic Thorium reactors and create a dirty bomb out of them now would it.

I used to be a Thorium Evangelist until I looked into the details.

Shoog

Shefwedfan

There was a company in Ireland a few years ago, the director where made up of the guys that created Airtricity. Quick google and found Mainstream Renewable Power.....

There plan was to put huge wind farms into the North Sea. They would generate power via wind. At the same time they would have huge solar farms down in Spain or somewhere similar. Again in the sea, prob the med

It would feed into a European Grid and provide renewable energy.

The plan going forward according to them was all countries(bar UK now) would be connected into a huge European grid. Everyone would feed into it and that would help countries with the issues about renewable and generating too much power at different times...

Not sure if that is still the plan but if that is correct we should not be talking about Ireland and electric cars, we should be talking about Europe and electric car

Some info here: http://mainstreamrp.com/supergrid-2/

Victor

How many kWh are needed to travel 40km?

Shefwedfan wrote: »

It would feed into a European Grid and provide renewable energy.

There is already a grid, with pretty much every country connected. https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=map

There is no need to move electricity from say Spain to the UK - you just need to export from Spain to France and from France to UK.

Just because the UK might leave the EU doesn't mean it won't take part in electrical trading.

Water John

5/6, though lots of factors.
Just checked against the two Tesla 3 stats. 7.25km per 1Kwh

Shefwedfan

Victor wrote: »

How many kWh are needed to travel 40km?

There is already a grid, with pretty much every country connected. https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=map

There is no need to move electricity from say Spain to the UK - you just need to export from Spain to France and from France to UK.

Just because the UK might leave the EU doesn't mean it won't take part in electrical trading.

Sorry my point was not really about the european grid, more that the plan was to have the full European grid on renewable energy....

Water John

The key idea was having a very high volt DC supergrid. This would not have the interim losses that the present grid has, moving AC over distance.
Not sure has it progressed much. It would be very good for RE.

Victor

Are these numbers about right?

Cars only Other vehicles All vehicles
Number 1,900,000 600,000 2,500,000
Each km/year 15,000 15,000 30,000
Total km/year 28,500,000,000 9,000,000,000 37,500,000,000
kWh/km 0.14 0.69 0.27
kWh/year 3,931,034,483 6,206,896,552 10,137,931,034
MWh/year 3,931,034 6,206,897 10,137,931
MWh/h (= MW) 449 709 1,157

The MW total would be all day every day.

BorneTobyWilde

I'm sure they will figure out a way to burn fossil fuels with zero emissions within the next 20 years

Water John

1.15Gw looks low. All I remember was going Carbon zero would quadruple our electrical generation need.
Now that would be dealing a lot more than transport.

goz83

pwurple wrote: »

Tidal and wave power have some substantial difficulties to overcome, like the damage seawater and crustaceans can do to equipment.

But generally, I don't see an issue with the grid for a long time yet anyway. If anything, some incentivised nighttime charging might help balance the grid's peaks and troughs out.

Employers are getting sharp enough. I charge at a factory which powers itself with renewables, and my car along with it.

They should start by cutting out the increased standing charge.

irishgeo

Firstly what's the rules on outdoor sockets in Ireland?

Should planning laws be updated so new builds have a outdoor car charging socket as standard or are we going down the route of a wireless charging point in the driveway.

Calahonda52

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

I'm sure they will figure out a way to burn fossil fuels with zero emissions within the next 20 years

Its already there at big gen plant level, but not at the killer diesel engines level

Electric cars are the least of their worries. Wind farms are a headache and it makes the thermal plants very inefficient.

reboot

Solar charging of EV, as Atlantic Dawn rightly points out is a silly, expensive non starter.Over a year the average O/P will be the max over ten. Leaf model with a pv fitted had an output of 5 Watts.
Pity, I'm a big fan of pv, as a hobby, not up to 230v, but down to 5 USB charging.

Shoog

Water John wrote: »

The key idea was having a very high volt DC supergrid. This would not have the interim losses that the present grid has, moving AC over distance.
Not sure has it progressed much. It would be very good for RE.

The HVDC grid is developing a pace and the DC interconnects between Ireland and the UK are just part of it. Renewables really start to make sense on this scale.

Shoog

Gumbo

irishgeo wrote: »

Firstly what's the rules on outdoor sockets in Ireland?

Should planning laws be updated so new builds have a outdoor car charging socket as standard or are we going down the route of a wireless charging point in the driveway.

Most new builds now will have an external socket. Problem is that are to the rear. I've asked developers over the last 12 months to provide a 6mm sq cable from the fuse board to a termination point externally for future connection of a charge point but they all shy away from it.

From a planning perspective, there's nothing yet but it should be lobbied for on new developments.

serfboard

The report that recently came out about driverless cars suggested that we'll only need 20% of the current fleet when they're rolled out fully.

So 400,000 cars instead of 2 million. Much more manageable.

Water John

I think the whole system of not owning and just in time ordering, will work well in most urban but not rural locations.

ted1

kceire wrote: »

irishgeo wrote: »

Firstly what's the rules on outdoor sockets in Ireland?

Should planning laws be updated so new builds have a outdoor car charging socket as standard or are we going down the route of a wireless charging point in the driveway.

Most new builds now will have an external socket. Problem is that are to the rear. I've asked developers over the last 12 months to provide a 6mm sq cable from the fuse board to a termination point externally for future connection of a charge point but they all shy away from it.

From a planning perspective, there's nothing yet but it should be lobbied for on new developments.

I believe that these points are to th front http://www.silkenpark.com

http://www.durkanresidential.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Silken-Park-The-Passive-Route-to-NZEB.pdf

Aristotle145

raspberrypi67 wrote: »

Has anyone thought how the grid will manage with all the cars charging??
We'll have to go nuclear..!!!

I am glad dildos run on batteries

Gumbo

ted1 wrote: »

I believe that these points are to th front http://www.silkenpark.com

http://www.durkanresidential.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Silken-Park-The-Passive-Route-to-NZEB.pdf

Yeah I seen that when they are launched, but the home chargepoint was only on the show house IIRC.

The wiring is in place from the fuse board to the front to allow a buyer to get a charge point and simply wire it up and that's what ive been asking developers to do here in Dublin City but to no avail just yet.

goz83

Aristotle145 wrote: »

I am glad dildos run on batteries

Go Here

KCross

kceire wrote: »

The wiring is in place from the fuse board to the front to allow a buyer to get a charge point and simply wire it up and that's what ive been asking developers to do here in Dublin City but to no avail just yet.

What objection do they have to putting in the cable for you?
A few metres of 6mm2 cable would be, what, €10?!

Is it just cost control or some technical reason?

raspberrypi67

Well, not much thought gone into that given xmas only comes once a year..lol

samih wrote: »

The way to think about the power requirements: If your house has enough power to cook a Christmas dinner you have enough capacity to supply two cars for daily 300 km combined while you are asleep and don't hopefully cook anything.

Gumbo

KCross wrote: »

What objection do they have to putting in the cable for you?
A few metres of 6mm2 cable would be, what, €10?!

Is it just cost control or some technical reason?

The moment Electric Cars are mentioned, the costs go up seemly.
Some are not sure how the sparks will sign off with wiring in place and simply terminated, but its no different to an external socket.

I suppose the RCBO, wiring is less than €100, the sparks charge €100 but when you multiply this over many houses (one of my sites has 200 units), the developer just sees the total cost and no benefit at present.

It should be mandatory tbh

I will keep at them, and I will be using Durkin as a reference to show them others are doing it.

samih

raspberrypi67 wrote: »

Well, not much thought gone into that given xmas only comes once a year..lol

Not much thought gone in your reply. A hob and oven combo at full chat use more power than an electric car charging. As most don't cook in the middle of the night when the car is charging, my initial point stands.