Random EV thoughts.....

Manion

I haven't really followed all the back and forth over the several pages. It feels like the bone of contention is on an topic that doesn't really feed into the buying decision for new car consumers anymore.

So anyway, I got a day/night meter installed today. To my surprise he didn't need to change the meter, it was already a digital meter capable of supporting night and day readings. Not sure what I'm paying the extra 75 Euro standing charge for then.

AndyBoBandy

The extra €75 is for the privilege of being able to avail of a much cheaper rate during the night periods….. so it’s now up to you to ensure you shift enough of your usage to night rate to negate that additional €75 standing charge.

I believe the magic number is something like 33% of usage on nights makes it worth while.

since getting my day/night meter, my usage at night is around 65%, so whatever the additional standing charge is for me becomes almost irrelevant.

I’ve now also got Solar PV so I expect that 65% of usage on nights to jump up to around 90+%

Manion

Doesn't seem justifiable somehow. Anyway, I ran the numbers based on my night versus day consumption and it works out a moderate saving, even without changing behaviour. Once the EV is delivered it becomes really worth while.

AndyBoBandy

I had the night meter for about 2 weeks before the car arrived, and even then, by simply shifting all dishwashing & clothes washing to the night period, I was already doing about 50/50, and therefore 'winning'.

Winning even more these days as I had a battery installed along with the Solar PV, and I now top up the battery at night, and use it throughout the following day along with solar production. As an example, yesterday I didn't use any imported day rate electricity from 8am - 6:20pm, as solar + the battery fed the house. it was only from 6:20pm - 11pm that I imported from the grid at the expensive day rate.. (importing slightly more these days as well as using the battery a bit faster with Christmas lights coming on)

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118299479#Comment_118299479

Funny that as smart meters come in, situations like yours (and what I am aiming at) will become worth their weight in gold.

Electricity will become super expensive between 5-7pm and 7-9am.

Manion

Random thoughts: I was driving yesterday in my ICE car and I noticed I've only got a couple bars left in the tank. I'm going to have to make some time to go to a fuel station at the weekend to get diesel. It's such a hassle, I need to plan in making a stop. In a few months time all I'll have to do is plug in the EV at home. I no longer need to make a bespoke journey to a station or add in an extra 20 minutes to my journey time to stop off somewhere on the way.

I think of were honest that's the lived experience for most people. The more rural you live the more likely that making a trip to the petrol station is a hassle. I think the reason we obsess about the heavy user use car is because that's who EVs where targetted at, the more you drive the more value you get from the EV. Back in the day I had a 200km round trip daily commute. Every second day I'd be pulling into the petrol station to fill up and adding 25 minutes to an already long commute. An EV with a 500km range that I charged overnight would have been glorious.

slave1

I'm WFT at the minute, I enjoyed my EV public charge last night, some peace and quiet time

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118299760#Comment_118299760

And if you have night rate 7am to 8 or 9am is super cheap time. I often set the washing machine to finish at 7:30am so I am up and awake and can unload it before clothes get damp/moldy . I don't like leaving washing machine on when asleep. Note the clock on your night meter can drift by 10 or 15 minutes so the 8am or 9am end can be off. I also have instant showers every morning before 8am so that water is heated on night rate. During the summer if heating water from electric immersion it makes sense to use a timer to try avoid heating water at non night rate times, along with a well insulated water tank.

In the future with smart meters we will be avoiding peak times, and it's particularly easy to do with hot water heating, as they store the heat. Ideally we need some sort of smart timer like an eddi to turn off or delay optional loads at high price times. Real reactive pricing would stop cars charging (for up to 30 minutes) and stop or delay washing machines automatically to avoid the real peak energy use. Things like heat pumps with underfloor heating could easily stop for 3+ hours if they were set up to heat before and after peak times. At times of excess wind heat pumps could operate extra hard to overheat house, EVs could kick in to charge above 80%, immersions start heating water, all helping the grid avoid peak highs and lows. In theory it's possible now and happening in the UK, but it's not yet a real universal standard. Most washing machines are not yet smart, only having fixed delay times.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118301654#Comment_118301654

I currently live across the road from a petrol station. I could figuratively and literally throw a stone from my window and it would reach the forecourt. That's as close as anyone could get to having a station at home. Yet it's still a hassle to have to stop and pay and refuel. We have a 7 seat petrol VW in addition to the EV and it costs €90-€100 to fill up. It's a pain !

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118313878#Comment_118313878

We had a bulk derv tank in the yard, and even filling there was a pain compared to plugging the car in... Usually it was wet & dark 😂

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118313987#Comment_118313987

Back when I lived out the country (as opposed to in the middle of a rural town) and I ran yokes on the green stuff I'd do similar. Still a pain. Plugging in is so much better than trying to fill liquid in the dark/rain/cold etc

the_amazing_raisin

Interesting podcast talking about the future of EV charging

https://www.spreaker.com/user/10802082/63-ev?utm_campaign=episode-title&utm_medium=app&utm_source=widget

Before listening, I should mention the guest speaker is the CEO of a company that sells DC chargers and micro grids to retailers and is therefore competing with the big charging networks that he's complaining about

TL:DR version

• Dedicated charging networks are losing tons of money because they're installing lots of chargers but they aren't getting the utilisation
• They're all looking for a "lure" to draw in customers. For example, Tesla SuC network encourages people to buy Teslas
• Or they use an app with your payment details saved to try and lock you into using that network and not others
• This makes EV charging painful (unless you own a Tesla)
• The future players in EV charging will be reatilers looking for method to draw in customers (for example shopping centres installing chargers)
• These players will make a bit of money from charging, but most of their income will be from people buying stuff in the shop
• Because these EV chargers will require a lot of investment for grid connections, it'll make sense for a business to install a micro grid (battery & possibly solar) to allow them to have high powered chargers without an equivalent grid connection
• These micro grids will have other benefits for businesses, such as allowing them to benefit from cheaper energy tariffs, sell electricity to the grid and protect themselves from outages (probably more of an issue in the US, but then again there were 10s of thousands without power during storm Barra)

I have to say the guest speaker (Arcady) really sounds like he knows his stuff. You can see some of it happening now, with Ionity partnering with Circle K in Ireland or EasyGo and SuperValu. I think he had an interesting idea about why would retailers pay a charging network provider to install chargers when it may be of no benefit to them, the provider might route a customer to a charger at a rival business. Instead you may have large retailers (Starbucks or McDonalds) installing HPCs at their locations which accept credit cards, but also accept loyalty cards for those businesses.

I thought one of the co-hosts (Gerard) made an excellent point that EV drivers don't really care about where the electricity for the charger is coming from (grid, battery or sole solar panels nearby) but that the customer experience needs to improve dramatically before it'll be normalised. We need to get rid of this garbage of apps and RFID cards and go to a much simpler and robust system

Cyrus

i had to go up and down to wexford this morning for a funeral, even though its only a 280km round trip, the etron wont do that in this weather.

Stopped in Gorey on the way back up, 4 empty ionity stalls, brought my daughter inside to grab a treat for coming with me, and i got a coffee, by the time i was back out the car had taken enough charge to get me home comfortably.

when it works well, it works well!

Manion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118314666#Comment_118314666

Yer man the Irish lad was a bit aggressive with the co host, the whole topic of discussion was mini grids. Felt like any moment he was going to ask "are these my trousers".

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118316792#Comment_118316792

Ha, they have a long history, they've been doing that podcast for a few years now

I think Gerard is playing the irate EV owner who's pissed off with the charging network (based on experience in his case 😁) which is why he's saying that as a customer, he doesn't really care about where the electricity going into his car is coming from, as long as it works and has a good customer experience

I thought the guest, Arcady, was very interesting about how he described the current big charging networks. How they're looking to lock you in as a customer which is why they shy away from providing things like credit card readers on the chargers themselves

Obviously since he's a competitor to those networks, his word needs to be taken with some skepticism. But it does jibe with how a lot of the networks push you towards a monthly subscription

I wonder if in the future, the chargers will become branded based on the land owner rather than the provider. For example you'll have Circle K chargers instead of Ionity chargers. The likes of Ionity then would become a service provider to the business, rather than directly to the customer

Could be a win all round. The charging providers don't have to deal with the end users anymore. The service stations or whatever get a new line of income.

And the customer might benefit because there's more incentive to provide a good customer experience. It's a lot easier to ignore someone via email or phone than if they're standing in your shop yelling about broken chargers

Manion

Sorry, yes the guest came across very well. Not sure we have the same retail model they have in the states but certainly he made a lot of interesting points. I'd never thought about it in those terms before.

the_amazing_raisin

One thing I found interesting was the idea that a group of 4 HPCs will consume more power than a supermarket

I can start to see why the grid connection becomes a sticking point, why would you pay the grid charges for a 1MW connection if you're only using it a small amount of the time

I'm not sure battery storage is the only answer there, although it'll certainly play a part. I think there's a lot more could be done with load management. For example if a supermarket installed 2 of those Delta chargers that ESB have been installing, that would give them either 2x 150kW or 4x 75kW charging at once.

There's a bit of thinking involved for the customer so they use the free charger instead of doubling up, but it does make things more efficient and even at 75kW you'll get a decent charge in a typical shopping trip

I thought the stuff about businesses becoming energy providers to the grid was pretty good as well. If you have a supermarket chain like Aldi decide to install batteries and solar panels as well as chargers in all their stores, then they could be a pretty big player in the energy market

Let's say you installed 500kWh of storage plus 30kW solar PV, plus a pair of 150kW HPCs at every Aldi location. I believe that's 150 locations nationwide

That gives you a pretty good charging network (300 HPCs), plus 4.5MW of solar power, plus 75MWh of battery storage, all dispersed around the country where it can provide balancing or peak power to the grid

I think that could be a big win for whoever jumps on the bandwagon first

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118313871#Comment_118313871

Yes I've done similar. Shifted all use to night rate where possible. My night rate is currently 10.53pm to 7.53 am. I'm that fastidious about it that if I fancy a cup of tea at 10.45 I wait the 7 mins! We were already over 2:1 night to day before the EV and it's over 3:1 with the EV.

In the future I see us having storage which is charged by solar and by dynamic off peak electricity. So we would be insulated from high prices at peak times. Fill the battery to 60% with cheap (or negative cost) electricity during the night, top off with solar during the day, and then the day usage is cheap or free.

If we ever have to get a smart meter (and I wont be getting one unless it's mandatory) then I'll be sure to take advantage of it with storage and monitor the charging rates and cost.

slave1

"One thing I found interesting was the idea that a group of 4 HPCs will consume more power than a supermarket"

IF at the height of summer four (certain) heated up EVs all arrived at the same time at very low SOC, and even then it would only last 20minutes or so

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118318705#Comment_118318705

And you'll (as the electric car charging supplier) pay all year for the 20 minutes of demand

liamog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118319162#Comment_118319162

Indeed, it makes much more sense to install 8 chargers that are capable of providing 350kW each, but are restricted to 100kW if all are in use. An 800kW grid connection and the electricity paid with an 800kW MIC is much cheaper than paying for 2,800kW. Which isn't likely to be used ever.

I think the future of large charging hubs will be colocation with static battery storage. Save money on your maximum import capacity and make money selling grid frequency modulation services.

innrain

That's why solutions as those provided by Kempower are worth their money and would be the next gen. Tritium announced something similar recently. Couple them with some storage and you can reduce the idle fees which could be as high as the batteries.

AndyBoBandy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118319560#Comment_118319560

That explains Mayfield then, only it can't even get to 8 cars charging...

Batteries and Solar will be key for big charging hubs and avoiding big grid connections.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118319968#Comment_118319968

Nothing can explain Mayfield, it must be cursed or something 😁

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118319560#Comment_118319560

I agree, although I think it'll be a bit more tailored per location. For example you can probably justify the bigger grid connection on a charging hub along a major motorway, more likely to see the traffic

Putting a 2.8MW connection to a charging hub in Dunmanaway is probably going to be harder to justify, so that's where your battery storage will come in handy

Alkers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118318700#Comment_118318700

Why will you never install a smart meter? Is it not likely, that as more people get them installed that the rates will improve?

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118323170#Comment_118323170

The rates have not improved in UK and anywhere else with variable pricing. They do not benefit the consumer and I will not install one.

Manion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118323170#Comment_118323170

It's not like they need wide spread adoption to hit economies of scale, it's a digital meter with a sim card. There is no reason the night rate should be higher higher on a smart meter than on a day night meter.

innrain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118323839#Comment_118323839

There is not reason but it is more expensive.

I suppose because the meter is "free of charge". Like free water at the tap and in general all free things they come with strings attached.

Manion

I pay 298 euro a year for connection to the network, the meter is paid for several times over in the standing charge.