Random EV thoughts.....

the_amazing_raisin

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

And storage is easy enough to do, we've already had it since 1974.....

But you'll spoil the hills!!! :eek::eek::eek:


Personally I think pumped hydro is genius, I always reckoned they should build a series of artificial lakes in the Dublin mountains and pump water from the dam in Celbridge up to it.



Or tunnel into the mountains to make underground hydro, so as to not spoil the scenery (Glendalough probably wouldn't like the competition anyway)

KCross

NIMAN wrote: »

The Claire Byrne Show on RTE1 is discussing EVs this morning.

Worth a listen to see what anti-EV agenda there is now?

I think its coming up in a few mins after the ad break....


EDIT: Couldnt argue with much of that. Network is poor, price parity is still a few years away, car sales have plummeted due to Covid but EV sales are rising.

DrPhilG

NIMAN wrote: »

We got chatting and he just said that its sad that there are no more public chargers in the Derry area than there were when he first bought the car.

There are probably a lot less, never mind no more.

When I bought my Leaf in 2015 there were 6 SCP and 1 rapid plus 1 broken SCP in the city.

Now there are 2 or 3 SCP (depending on the mood) and 1 rapid.

unkel

cruisey1987 wrote: »

Personally I think pumped hydro is genius, I always reckoned they should build a series of artificial lakes in the Dublin mountains and pump water from the dam in Celbridge up to it.

Just one or a few giant lakes on the west coast (where there is a more suitable height difference) with a couple of hundred of the biggest wind generators in the Atlantic would be enough for 100% of Ireland's electricity needs. Nobody has the balls to go through with it though. Sometimes it seems you need the rule of a friendly dictator now and then to get things done. And once done, you can go back to being a democracy. Even the Romans knew this two thousand years ago

It looks like the less ballsy interconnector option has been the chosen route. Not bad given the spirit of EU cooperation, but the idea of Ireland being self-sustaining and 100% renewable in terms of electricity use is very appealing to me...

Water John

unkel wrote: »

Just one or a few giant lakes on the west coast (where there is a more suitable height difference) with a couple of hundred of the biggest wind generators in the Atlantic would be enough for 100% of Ireland's electricity needs. Nobody has the balls to go through with it though. Sometimes it seems you need the rule of a friendly dictator now and then to get things done. And once done, you can go back to being a democracy. Even the Romans knew this two thousand years ago

It looks like the less ballsy interconnector option has been the chosen route. Not bad given the spirit of EU cooperation, but the idea of Ireland being self-sustaining and 100% renewable in terms of electricity use is very appealing to me...

That plan was mooted some years ago. ESB were not interested.

Here's a new little city EV. The Ami from Citreon:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/11/ami-the-tiny-cube-on-wheels-that-french-14-year-olds-can-drive

unkel

Water John wrote: »

That plan was mooted some years ago. ESB were not interested.

Of course they weren't. A lot of change and hard work

McLaughlin would turn in his grave if he could see the state of the ESB now

_dof_

I remember this plan from the time, I thought it sounded like a good idea, but didn't get anywhere
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_Ireland

timsey tiger

_dof_ wrote: »

I remember this plan from the time, I thought it sounded like a good idea, but didn't get anywhere
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_Ireland

Liquid air batteries, seem like a quicker, less environmentally damaging and cheaper alternative.

Water John

The method of storage should be up for debate, but not the concept. It should happen. The alt is some variable highly adjustable plant that runs secondary to renewal energies. Also the large number of EVs will be a storage option in themselves. One should also look at dispersed storage eg battery, in each house.

unkel

_dof_ wrote: »

I remember this plan from the time, I thought it sounded like a good idea, but didn't get anywhere
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_Ireland

See my post up 3 posts above yours

Buzwaldo

unkel wrote: »

See my post up 3 posts above yours

I think -dof-‘s post was in reference to yours, but just didn’t quote it. At least that’s what I thought when I read it.

Fitz II

i am back....with a brand new look after getting banned for calling out people on the motors forum slagging off EV's.....its a tough game, and there be dragons in them their hills....glad to be back.

tom1ie

unkel wrote: »

Just one or a few giant lakes on the west coast (where there is a more suitable height difference) with a couple of hundred of the biggest wind generators in the Atlantic would be enough for 100% of Ireland's electricity needs. Nobody has the balls to go through with it though. Sometimes it seems you need the rule of a friendly dictator now and then to get things done. And once done, you can go back to being a democracy. Even the Romans knew this two thousand years ago

It looks like the less ballsy interconnector option has been the chosen route. Not bad given the spirit of EU cooperation, but the idea of Ireland being self-sustaining and 100% renewable in terms of electricity use is very appealing to me...

100% renewable needs a backup due to the renewable stopping all of a sudden, ie the wind stops blowing.

We could have storage a la pumped storage like turlough hill but that is only a “peak” generator, ie when the demand peaks around 5-6pm turlough hill is brought online to deliver stored energy in the lake and deliver electricity quickly, but not long lasting.

The other option is inter connectors that allow us to sell excess wind when The wind blows above 100% and import french/uk nuclear when the wind drops below 100%. Potential problem is a price difference between wind and nuclear? Not sure if a kWh is priced differently With regard to import/export, no matter how it’s generated, as I’m not in the market side of things.
We have two inter connectors atm, East west I/c and moyle (Northern Ireland) to mainland uk, but we’d have more if people stopped objecting! (North south 400kv interconnector springs to mind) there is also the Celtic I/c planned-Ireland to France.

What we have at the moment is fossil fuel spinning reserve that can be brought online quickly when the wind stops blowing.
This means a continuation of quality electricity supply without a drop of production while either the wind stopped blowing or we were waiting on a gas/coal plant to come up to 50hz production from a cold start-which could take hours!!

Inter connectors are the way to go unless we build our own nuclear reserve which ain’t gonna happen me thinks!!

unkel

tom1ie wrote: »

100% renewable needs a backup due to the renewable stopping all of a sudden, ie the wind stops blowing.

Nope. The capacity of the proposed lakes is so big that they act as the battery (what you call backup). So basically when the wind blows you pump up water at a rate of 200-300% of Ireland's electricity needs and 24/7 you drop water down at 100% of Ireland's electricity needs

Silent Running

unkel wrote: »

Nope. The capacity of the proposed lakes is so big that they act as the battery (what you call backup). So basically when the wind blows you pump up water at a rate of 200-300% of Ireland's electricity needs and 24/7 you drop water down at 100% of Ireland's electricity needs

I think that's a bit simplistic, Unkel. What happens if we have a very calm week, or month?

There needs to be multiple backup storage solutions: solar PV farms, wind farms, tidal, battery and stored water are some of the things in the mix. Of course the inter-connector has to play a part too.

unkel

Silent Running wrote: »

I think that's a bit simplistic, Unkel. What happens if we have a very calm week, or month?

The capacity of the lakes is so big, that it has backup for a month

It should be designed in such a way that it balances out over a whole year, with the longest statistically not outrageous gap in wind covered too

tom1ie

unkel wrote: »

Nope. The capacity of the proposed lakes is so big that they act as the battery (what you call backup). So basically when the wind blows you pump up water at a rate of 200-300% of Ireland's electricity needs and 24/7 you drop water down at 100% of Ireland's electricity needs

It’s called a peaker plant for a reason.
The size of the lake is the size of the battery.
The amount of water only flattens the curve of demand.

tom1ie

unkel wrote: »

The capacity of the lakes is so big, that it has backup for a month

It should be designed in such a way that it balances out over a whole year, with the longest statistically not outrageous gap in wind covered too

Huh?

Kramer

unkel wrote: »

The capacity of the lakes is so big, that it has backup for a month

Just how big is this lake going to be?

.

Kramer

There's a proposed pumped storage development near me, 360MW - I must throw up a few pictures from there some day........

https://silvermineshydro.ie/

Probably enough pictures on the site as an overview anyway......

Calahonda52

Kramer wrote: »

There's a proposed pumped storage development near me, 360MW - I must throw up a few pictures from there some day........

https://silvermineshydro.ie/

Probably enough pictures on the site as an overview anyway......

.
Has that got PRC investment

Kramer

Calahonda52 wrote: »

.
Has that got PRC investment

I've no idea who has invested in it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Ireland

Assuming we use 26TWh of electricity, & this pumped hydro just refilled itself i.e. no downtime, it ran producing 360MW continuously, 24/7, from my quick calculations, we'd need 12,000 such systems!

12,000 :eek:.

That, or a lake 12,000 times bigger, 300m above sea level :eek:.

_dof_

Buzwaldo wrote: »

I think -dof-‘s post was in reference to yours, but just didn’t quote it. At least that’s what I thought when I read it.

yep that was the intention

_dof_

Kramer wrote: »

There's a proposed pumped storage development near me, 360MW - I must throw up a few pictures from there some day........

https://silvermineshydro.ie/

Probably enough pictures on the site as an overview anyway......

I remember reading into that when I first hear of it and comparing it to the Hornsdale Power Reserve (big battery) in Australia the Tesla commissioned in a matter of months, and the cost of the silvermines project would be a lot more than the Hornsdale solution on a per MWh basis.

There is a significant envionmental cleanup in the Silvermines plan though, so that's a really good aspect of it.

Kramer

Kramer wrote: »

URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Ireland"]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Ireland[/URL]

Assuming we use 26TWh of electricity.............we'd need 1,200 Three Gorges dams!

The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest capacity hydroelectric power station with 34 generators: 32 main generators, each with a capacity of 700 MW, and two plant power generators, each with capacity of 50 MW, making a total capacity of 22,500 MW.

That would mean 1,200 Yangtse rivers too :eek:.

timsey tiger

Kramer wrote: »

Assuming we use 26TWh of electricity.............we'd need 1,200 Three Gorges dams!

The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest capacity hydroelectric power station with 34 generators: 32 main generators, each with a capacity of 700 MW, and two plant power generators, each with capacity of 50 MW, making a total capacity of 22,500 MW.

That would mean 1,200 Yangtse rivers too :eek:.

I think we're a lot closer to 26GWh, maybe your sums are out by a factor of 1000?

innrain

Fact checking? Read a paragraph above there is a clue.

Water John

If we had installed variable gas turbines it would have been a good option, as it could be ramped up and down quite quickly.
BTW wind turbines are very rarely becalmed, a few time a year.
Another variable supply could come from a Thorium salt reactor. Very safe and little reactive waste.

Kramer

timsey tiger wrote: »

I think we're a lot closer to 26GWh, maybe your sums are out by a factor of 1000?

Am I?

I linked to the figures in the post you quoted - maybe your browser is faulty .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Ireland



QED :cool:.

timsey tiger

Kramer wrote: »

Am I?

I linked to the figures in the post you quoted - maybe your browser is faulty .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Ireland



QED :cool:.

Well done. :pac:

Now, if you could multiply the dam figures by 24 * 365 so you are comparing energy used with energy generated instead of power,you might have something meaningful instead of egg on your face.