How will the grid manage with all these Cars?

raspberrypi67

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

Soarer

There's more of an issue with electric showers.

Electric cars help the grid because mostly they are charged overnight when there is usually an excess of capacity on the grid. Smart meters can also be used to allow a certain amount of car battery use as a grid buffer to even out load peaks.

In short electric cars help the grid.

Shoog

Dardania

See chapter 3.3. of this, the recent National Mitigation plan (for Carbon): http://www.dccae.gov.ie/documents/National%20Mitigation%20Plan%202017.pdf 

It seems the plan is to address the upswing in vehicles with also the increased use of renewables on the grid - things like energy storage, demand side management etc. will be used. Pretty sensible.
Also, note that most EV charging will be done at night, when the grid is far less used... so the overall impact may not be as bad as we think

deathtocaptcha

Everyone will have solar power roofs and power packs that store energy. Those wealthy enough will be entirely self-sufficient energy wise and be able to charge their cars without having to use the grid at all.

Petrol stations will also have solar panels, turbines and large power packs which will also reduce reliance on the grid.

Atlantic Dawn

How many acres of solar panels would be required to fully charge 1 Nissan Leaf from empty on the hottest day of the year in Ireland, say 30 degrees.

Water John

The study by David Connolly, AAlburg Uni, shows that if we go totally carbon neutral and use electricity largely, the generating capacity in the country will need to be quadrupled.

One acre will produce 200kw. Nothing to do with hot day. Works on cloudy days too.

deathtocaptcha

deathtocaptcha wrote: »

Everyone will have solar power roofs ...............

Even those on lower floor of apartment blocks. Wow

deathtocaptcha

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

How many acres of solar panels would be required to fully charge 1 Nissan Leaf from empty on the hottest day of the year in Ireland, say 30 degrees.

http://www.dpisolar.com/installs/7500w-install-and-a-solar-powered-nissan-leaf/ it depends on a bunch of things, but it wouldn't require as a much space as you think... comfortably less space than the surface area on the roof of your average semi detached house...

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.

Water John

They are also looking at Peroskovite, a crystal that could double the generating capacity of PV from the present silicon.

Two cars would about equal having the electric shower on for 8 hours. It is fairly sizeable consumption.

1874

Augeo wrote: »

Even those on lower floor of apartment blocks. Wow

Could be wall mounted, if south facing or not overshadowed or they could own a solar panel located higher up on the building? maybe the entire roof could be covered in PV panels or be PV panels and the entire block has a share of the generated electricity.

serfboard

Water John wrote: »

They are also looking at Peroskovite, a crystal that could double the generating capacity of PV from the present silicon.

Thanks for that - had never heard of it so I just Googled it. FYI you spelt it wrong! It's Perovskite. According to the linked wikipedia article:

Wikipedia wrote:

Solar cell efficiencies of devices using these materials have increased from 3.8% in 2009 to 22.1% in early 2016, making this the fastest-advancing solar technology to date.

ted1

raspberrypi67 wrote: »

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

With ease , the cars will charge at night, currently the night load is about 40% of the day load so there's 60% capacity available before they need to do anything

raspberrypi67

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

Dardania wrote: »

See chapter 3.3. of this, the recent National Mitigation plan (for Carbon): http://www.dccae.gov.ie/documents/National%20Mitigation%20Plan%202017.pdf 

It seems the plan is to address the upswing in vehicles with also the increased use of renewables on the grid - things like energy storage, demand side management etc. will be used. Pretty sensible.
Also, note that most EV charging will be done at night, when the grid is far less used... so the overall impact may not be as bad as we think

Water John

It will certainly alter the wholesale price. It will make the night base much higher.
Remember the next phase of generation is solar. Night rate might pass out day rate art some point, without other storage.

In Ireland due to the substantial difference between daylight in Summer V Winter , it makes battery storage very difficult to manage.

I'll give an example, my Partner's Parents in Germany have a 14 Kw/p system, it can generate 75 Kwh per day on a bright day. In Ireland there's potential to generate more with the longer daylight however we generally have more cloud. Anyway , your house may consume 6-10 Kwh per day. so how would you store that excess ?

Now scale that down to the max you're allowed to install in Ireland which is 5.5 Kw/p on single phase ? correct me if I'm wrong. The issue still exists where you need to store far more in Summer.

Solar PV really only makes sense connected to the grid and a FIT and whatever excess goes to the grid you get paid and buy it back at night rate.

A battery storage system would make sense to charge on night rate electricity then you can use that during the day/evening.

Electric cars can be used in this manner.

Water John

I was looking at the national and commercial picture.
A whole strategy of dissipating storage to the individual level should be contained within a national strategic plan that has clear goals. So along with ecars you would also have some unit similar to tesla storage.
You can build up that storage by day from solar. I recognise the variable over the year.

homer911

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

How many acres of solar panels would be required to fully charge 1 Nissan Leaf from empty on the hottest day of the year in Ireland, say 30 degrees.

Solar panels work through radiation, not heat. They can generate as much power on a sunny day in winter at zero degrees as they can in summer at 30 degrees

Actually , seemingly they can't and I'm no expert. They are more efficient in bright cooler temps than bright high temps.

Atlantic Dawn

€24.44 a year extra from every household in the country will certainly help...

THE COMMISSION FOR Energy Regulation (CER) announced that it is raising the Public Service Obligation (PSO) levy meaning bills will increase across the board.

The levy is going up by just over 30%, which will mean an increase of €24.44 per year.

The new total levy will now be €104.74 per year – up from €80.30.

http://www.thejournal.ie/bills-electricity-ireland-3520279-Jul2017/

Great, all to pay wind energy investors and giving nothing back to us. Ridiculous and immoral.

4068ac1elhodqr

homer911 wrote: »

Solar panels work through radiation, not heat. They can generate as much power on a sunny day in winter at zero degrees as they can in summer at 30 degrees

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.

Also at 53.4129° N (average) Ireland is one of the most Northerly populated locations, further north than Nova Scotia or Newfoundland. If it was in the SH, would probably only comparable to the very very bottom tips of Chile and Argie.

Tidal power should be studied more, read somewhere Ireland's territory is 90% below water.

endacl

One on each wheel. Job done!

pwurple

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.

J.pilkington

Maybe the hope / expectation of being able to charge your car in work will need to be reevaluated

Avatar MIA

J.pilkington wrote: »

Maybe the hope / expectation of being able to charge your car in work will need to be reevaluated

Instead of BIK being applied. :rolleyes: No. joined. up. thinking. there.

J.pilkington

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Instead of BIK being applied. :rolleyes: No. joined. up. thinking. there.

Seriously, it's not that hard to understand the BIK situation :rolleyes: , tax legislation states that any benefits to employees except those which are part of conducting their job are taxable benefits unless specifically exempted in the legislation.

The legislation is very black and white and the revenue staff manning queries can't change it on a whim, especially when it's literally a handful of queries and a really really low priority issue in terms of the real life stuff they are dealing with.

It's a very very recent problem (first mentioned here only a few months ago) so give them a chance :rolleyes:

Avatar MIA

J.pilkington wrote: »

Seriously, it's not that hard to understand the BIK situation :rolleyes: , tax legislation states that any benefits to employees except those which are part of conducting their job are taxable benefits unless specifically exempted in the legislation.

The legislation is very black and white and the revenue staff manning queries can't change it on a whim, especially when it's literally a handful of queries and a really really low priority issue in terms of the real life stuff they are dealing with.

It's a very very recent problem (first mentioned here only a few months ago) so give them a chance :rolleyes:

Way to take an opportunity to go on a rant.

First of all, it's clearly not joined up thinking. Think we can agree on that.

Secondly, While revenue can be subtle when they want to be I wasn't having a pop at revenue staff. I've found them to be quite reasonable in the dealings I had with them when I worked as an accountant.

hognef

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.

Well, clearly more electricity can be generated on a longer day. Homer's point, though, was surely that it doesn't matter whether it's a cold day or a warm day - the pv panel's ability to generate power is dependent on the availability of daylight/sunlight itself rather than the outside temperature.

Water John

We have the same irradiation as Germany. Higher than Scotland and the top half of England. Yes, there is a variable output over the year. Cork has also about 10/15% more than Donegal.
The electrical usage will be more even with night time charging. Solar will have the effect of lowering peak day rates.

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.

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.

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.

Water John

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.