Electric cars - where does the electricity come from?

y0ssar1an22

I'm missing something obvious here

an electric car gets charged via a socket connected to the electrical grid. as above, where does all that electricity come from?

surely it cant be from wind/solar/tidal (and certainly not from nuclear).

does it still boil down to gas or coal?

All of the above, including the certainly not.

Geuze

The same place all electricity comes from.

A mix of:

coal

gas

wind

imports

Quantum Erasure

we run the gas off the electricity and the electricity off the gas, and we save two hundred pounds a year...

jhegarty

Mostly gas and renewables.

Coal is almost gone.

https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/key-statistics/electricity/

KilOit

Lightning

y0ssar1an22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118430826#Comment_118430826

20 days for you to get around!

Alkers

It's cleaner than using petrol or diesel, is constantly improving as renewable proportions increase, you can create your own green electricity from pv panels and you can also elect for a green energy provider.

y0ssar1an22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118430862#Comment_118430862

so why are electric cars better for the environment?

the raw ingredients are the same, just the method of delivery is different.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118430891#Comment_118430891

Do you need us to go over the difference between the words "some" and "all"? Because that's going to be a stumbling block.

y0ssar1an22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118430921#Comment_118430921

no thank you sir.

what i want someone to do is explain how an electric car, which needs to be charged via the national grid which runs on fossil fuels; is any more better for the environment than a car that runs on fossil fuels.

at then end of the day, the energy is being provided by the same source?

Zebra3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118430891#Comment_118430891

It’s all a bit of a con and a chance for virtue signallers to feel better about themselves.

E-cars will be fuelled more environmentally friendly, but they are still huge damaging to the environment in their manufacture and distribution.

The widespread ownership of cars whether they are traditionally bad for the environment or part of the new conjob will make no difference to congestion and road deaths, as well as the continued desecration of residential areas.

unkel

EVs in Ireland are overwhelmingly charged at home. At night. At the moment about 55% of all electricity produced at night in Ireland is from wind (this percentage is growing every year). So there is your answer. Electric cars are mostly powered by renewable energy.

And to add to that, plenty of EV owners also have solar PV and the most popular electric car charge point being installed in Ireland today is a Zappi. Which is a smart device that charges your EV when you produce more solar PV than you use at any moment. As an example, I have 8kwp of solar PV installed on my home. This produces 8MWh per year of renewable electricty. The average Irish household uses 3.5MWh of electricity per year.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431109#Comment_118431109

Yet you still don't seem to understand the difference. You're doing one of 2 things, ironically I'd get in trouble for pointing them out.

Let's pretend you're being completely sincere.

ICE car: Runs 100% on petrol or diesel and about 33% efficiency.

EV: Runs on electricity. A lot of people charge using solar, not the grid. And if you do use the grid it was made up of 43% renewables in 2020. And electric motors are wonderfully efficient, usually 90+%. So the amount of fossil fuel used to power an EV is about half what it is for an ICE (currently, it keeps on falling every year). So an EV uses roughly half as much fossil fuels (likely less with people using solar) per unit of energy put into the car and then uses it 3x more efficiently. Even allowing for 10% loss on the grid they're a fuckload more efficient even if the power comes from a oil burning plant.

Any more questions?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431128#Comment_118431128

So we should just be getting rid of private vehicles altogether then?

Freddie Mcinerney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058226377/electric-cars-where-does-the-electricity-come-from

Well if they did not turn off the turbines at night. That be a help.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431138#Comment_118431138

Yeah, keep residential areas sacred!

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118430891#Comment_118430891

ICE cars use a lot of their energy moving their fuel and engine around. Power plants don't move, so there's a bit of a saving there.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431356#Comment_118431356

How does the coal get to the coal plants?

NIMAN

I will accept that to make EVs we have to consume, but new cars are being made all the time anyway, so is it not better to be making more efficient ev cars than ice ones? And yes a large portion of the electricity used to charge them is coming from fossil fuels, but it's falling annually.

Secondly, and something I don't think has been mentioned yet, if we end up in 20 or 30 yrs time with city centres with EVs only, there won't be diesel fumes choking up our lungs and our kids lungs. No poisonous exhausts.

eddhorse

http://smartgriddashboard.eirgrid.com/#roi

Here is the current SMart Grid Dashboard, 61% renewable, of course this will fluctuate.

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431522#Comment_118431522

Moneypoint is the only coal power station in Ireland. The coal gets there by ship (it's on the Shannon estuary). There's a plan for it to cease burning coal by 2025.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431356#Comment_118431356

e-cars use a lot of energy moving their batteries and motor around. e-cars tend to be heavier than equivalent sized ICE cars.

let's not forget that when you read efficiency figures for ICE cars vs e-cars, people often just quote the efficiency of the drivetrain; factoring in the weight is an important one to consider.

e.g. if i drive to the shops in an e-car instead of an ICE car to buy the paper, the efficiency goes from maybe 2.5% to 5%; i.e. if i weigh 5% of the weight of the car and the goal is to get me around, i'm hauling around 20 times my own weight in the vehicle used for conveying me)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431634#Comment_118431634

I'm aware, but thanks. I can see Moneypoint from my front door.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431605#Comment_118431605

is it possible to reach 100% renewables generation in ireland? i mean, even if we had the generating capacity to, i assume we'd have to leave a few base load stations running anyway, so even if the wind generated electricity was available anyway, it'd be excess to requirements?

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431668#Comment_118431668

I think the plan is to have 80% renewable (mainly wind) with most of the rest generated by natural gas - which in itself will be replaced by hydrogen.

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431656#Comment_118431656

You do know we're on the internet now and we can't see you standing at your front door? Don't be too alarmed if people give you answers in good faith to questions you ask.

kirving

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431137#Comment_118431137

As Buttonftw says, a combustion engine is in the region of 33% effecient at the very best. The theoretical maximum is maybe 50%.

But because you need to constantly run the engine at different speeds and power levels to drive around the place, it's difficult for engineers to optimise every component for efficiency. ie: Sometimes you need a strong (heavy) engine to accelerate comfortably, but this adds inefficiency at all other times. Sometimes you're running it cold, sometimes it needs an oil change, sometimes it's running at a speed that doesn't allow all of the fuel to burn.

Even if you ran an ESB power plant on Petrol or Diesel, and used that power to charge an EV, it would be much more effecient to run. This is because a power plant runs at a single speed, ideally under a constant load, where there is plenty of space to add extra devices to improve efficiency, and everything little part of it can be optimised extremely well, and get much closer to the theoretical maximum.

Even if you add charging and motor inefficiencies on top - it's still better than burning petrol in the car itself.

But, the EV takes more energy to build, so it takes a while to break even form an energy usage standpoint.

If your EV was built in China and charged in Poland from a coal fired power station, it would take years of driving to break even.

A European built EV, run in Sweden is a much greener option.

fergiesfolly

Creating energy in central locations, ie power stations is more efficient than in millions of individual ICE engines. Electric motors are more efficient than their fossil fuel powered cousins, so that's another energy saving.

Also, if ecars don't come down in price, they're going to be out of reach to low and low-middle income earners, who will have to use public transport, so energy use for transport will fall off a cliff

crisco10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431646#Comment_118431646

Totally agree that right sizing of cars is important. But taking everything into account, EV's still use less energy to move from A to B than an ICE vehicle.

An average EV SUV consumes about 20kWh / 100km.

An average ICE SUV consumes about 6l/100km. At 10kWh per Litre (petrol is a little less, Diesel a little more), thats 60kWh /100 km for an ICE. I.e. triple the energy consumption of the EV above.

Disclaimer: Consumption rates based on manufacturers claims which are equally "ideal".

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431186#Comment_118431186

They, mostly, turn off at night because there is nothing to consume the kWh during the night. If we had more EV's charging over night, this would happen less.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431668#Comment_118431668

Renewables, yes. Wind, No.

We do need base load/spinning reserve. But in theory, this can be provided from other sources, doesn't necessarily need to be conventional power plants.

E.g. the flywheel that ESB are building at Moneypoint can provide spinning reserve

Finally, even if EV's were powered exclusively from large Gas/Oil combined cycle power stations, it would still be better than the equivalent ICE scenario. Power plants have efficiencies of scale, rarely cold start and are better maintained than most ICE vehicles on the road. Also, it's easier to deploy Carbon Capture and scrub the exhaust gases from a power plant than millions of ICE vehicles.

The J Stands for Jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118431522#Comment_118431522

The same way as petrol and diesel get into the country, but without having to distributed to various filling stations and then pulled around by the cars that burn them. Better for the fuel to be dumped in one location where it's to be used, near the water on which it was transported.