Random EV thoughts.....

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!

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

There was a reason, ESBN were charging suppliers the 24hr meter usage fee for all time periods on the smart meters.

So on a D/N meter the supplier had to pay 0.692c per kWh delivered at night and on a smart meter they were charged 4.441c

That’s now changed and ESBN are applying the D/N meter rates to the smart meters.

Mind you I’ve not seen any price plan changes since the fees changed. Wouldn’t be surprised if they just put up rates instead using the excuse that their daytime usage fee is now higher than the standard 24hr meter.

The current fees https://www.cru.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/CRU20181-Schedule-of-DUoS-Charges-from-1-October-2021-30-September-2022.pdf

How long until ours follow?

No it’s not. The meter is being recouped over a number of years.

you are paying for distribution costs ( substations , transformers, lines, cables, control Centers etc)

No, I would never get one. There is too much unnecessary risk of price gouging. We've seen it in the UK and in the US already. As well as here on a more limited aspect as we dont have dynamic pricing yet - just higher prices for smart meter customers.

I will not have one unless and until I have offgrid storage and can disconnect my end use from my grid consumption.

ESB have had nationwide outages and sometimes the app or website does not work. Often the RFID reader on the charger does not work, or the reader works but app does not. Easygo also have had outages/phone signal outages in specific areas. Amazon EU Cloud based in Ireland went offline before due to lightning damage to the site, and you need to pay extra for multi Amazon regions so if Europe fails your data will work via USA etc. I highly agree chargers should go free vend if they cannot contact hq, indeed in this should be law, as often these sorts of systems go down from time to time and we don't want cars stranded en masse. Free vend is an option and it's turned on some NI chargers that are dodgy, and they do it in NI on dodgy chargers. Even chargers going offline is very common due to local phone signal issues, such as power lost to hilltop phone masts during windy weather.