UK power generation and powering our Motorhomes.
- Thread starter Nomadics
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It depends how they market shifts. I think we're just seeing EVs start to take off with private buyers spending their own cash. As the future cost of diesel and petrol continues to rise and more wind comes on line I don't think the current difference in cost between running an EV and ice car is going to alter that much if anything the difference is going to increase. I topped up our second car the other week £30 of diesel increased the range by about 200 miles. £30 on an EV tariff will take me over 1200 miles. If that difference remains what's the residual of conventional cars going to be in 10 years time. When the public wake up to that the change could be pretty rapid.
Indeed, I keep pointing out I've been paying under £200 a year for above average milage in our EV since 2019 and people keep saying but the electricity price will increase. If anything the bills have gone down (I'm on a agile tariff) with many more negative and low price periods in the last year than in previous years, precisely because more wind has come online in 2024.
In simple terms, lets take December 2024, one entire day was negative priced over the month roughly, with 3 days UNDER 5p, so.4 days of 30 that were under even the cheapest EV tariff, with one where you were actually paid to charge the car. THats for all electric not just the car (this is when you take the half hour periods that were that price). Admittedly some of those periods were overnight, but some were daytime too. The average non 4-7pm period was 18p in December. When you compare that with the 24p price cap and realise with an average, 50% of periods were BELOW 18p over December, you can see why people paying fixed rates are being ripped off.
Teh change once everyone realises that they could being paid to drive miles in their car will be quite dramatic.
The downside is of course, there has been around three day where prices were a lot higher -> I'm not arguing with that, but it still didn't change our avergae price being 30% lower than the price cap. And yes, Agile tariffs do sometimes mean charging the car when it's expensive (last night charging at an average of 20p cause needed the charge as an example). Even that is roughly 5p a mile compared with what 10p in the best diesel.
It's been cheap since 2019, and since then the amount of electric cars on road has more than tripled (250k to 1m). Do you see any reason why it wouldn't stop. People have been telling me prices will increase since I got the car. The reality is they have reduced.
Agree with a lot of that apart from people on fixed rates being ripped off it's their choice if they want to resist change.
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Oh indeed, but it does mean their prices are likely to significantly rise as those using the off peak cheaper move off, making their usage overall even more "peak" on average. (it in effect makes the average of those remaining even more weighted to peak hours).
As long as anyone realising fixing rates has that penalty all is good (and if you do use majority of your power 4-7pm a fixed rate IS cheaper always).
Should edit to add there are some interesting foot in water tariifs from Scottish power now, who will offer you half priced electric on a fixed tariff every weekend (when prices are typically lower on the agile tariffs anyhow) 11am-4pm. If you are thinking of going fully agile or an EV without an EV tariff (or Agile) it is likely you could benefit from this. It does require a smart meter obviously as you can't do half hour settlement without one.
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I haven't researched the current price structure but I'm sure no one is going to invest in the infrastructure of the future without the possibility of a big return, maybe they have it wrong or maybe they have to wait until supply and demand take over...If I were a big user I would investigate and likely go electric,but With a low mileage 2020 car that cost me £4k a year ago, electric bill circa £650,oil £250/£300 and petrol under £500 ,a new heating system it simply would not make financial sense for me although I have the capital to change tomorrow so add to me those with no capital that run a cheap older car ,those that think it doesn't work,those that cant do etc,etc,and it's a long uphill road,so no rush as is being shown with heat pump and EV take up way lower than early predictions.
DandJ
Free Member
Yes....a rise of four fold is big....but when it is 250k EVs to 1 million EVs...not really big enough to bother the National Grid.
Do it again...up to 4 million cars and just 1/4 of them want to put their cars on charge on a sunday evening...all on 7kw home chargers and you suddenly have about 20% demand added to the grid. Do it again...up to 16 millionEVs...so half the 'car stock' of the UK and you can see where it ends up...a near doubling of demand to what it currently is now...in Jan 2025. When you then start looking at a push for ASHPs and what they'd draw from the grid as opposed to the gas network....then look at how many millions of properties have looped electricity supplies that will need changing in order to fit an EV charger....or battle on with a 3 pin plug...then at the millions more homes on antiquated supply cables....it's a long list of stuff that needs fixing...costing many hundreds of billions....
UK ‘needs to play catch-up’ in global race to rewire electricity grids
For every £1 spent on renewable energy projects, only 25p was invested in connecting them to grid, report finds
It would be nice to think that someone has 'got this'...but I seriously doubt it. Back on the roundabout of depleting nuclear provision, depleting gas provision, loads more wind turbines and solar which may well be fine for 95% of the year...but that 5% is an bit important as it is likely a mid winter, very cold, dull few days....sort of when you need reliable electricity.
Total nonsense. Does everyone fill up with petrol on a Sunday? If they did there would be queues at every station, but the reality is people fill up when they need to which isn't the same time. Basic looking at an average mileage EV user like me shows we charge once every 2 weeks on average. Bear in mind we drive the average uk mileage (15k miles) Not everyone plugs in at once -> my father (BMW i4) usually plugs in on the Scottish power half price periods as he's in process of moving to Octopus.
Equally the most popular EV charge tariff on which around 30% of the EV's in the UK are on (Intelligent go) actually splits load.
The actual reality of this is not the disaster everyone is saying it is as the reality is on my street (16 houses) on average only one EV would charge every night.
The actual reality of 2019 to now is demand on the grid has actually fallen, as a whole despite 750k more EV's. So how does that work?
And ref; supply cables needing upgrading, yes in places -> but this is not everywhere. The grid themselves have in writing on the national grid website that everyone in the UK (including all trucks) could drive a EV with ZERO grid upgrades on the actual national grid, theres that much spare capacity. I'm quite afriad you have not read the below:
Busting the myths and misconceptions about electric vehicles | National Grid
Worth noting as the grids own website indicates refining petrol for the EXISTING cars we have on road uses electricity in fact, and moving to EV's removes this demand for the fuel no longer used... so it's not actually a rise in demand.
And add the consumption of industry and commercial establishments.Yes....a rise of four fold is big....but when it is 250k EVs to 1 million EVs...not really big enough to bother the National Grid.
Do it again...up to 4 million cars and just 1/4 of them want to put their cars on charge on a sunday evening...all on 7kw home chargers and you suddenly have about 20% demand added to the grid. Do it again...up to 16 millionEVs...so half the 'car stock' of the UK and you can see where it ends up...a near doubling of demand to what it currently is now...in Jan 2025. When you then start looking at a push for ASHPs and what they'd draw from the grid as opposed to the gas network....then look at how many millions of properties have looped electricity supplies that will need changing in order to fit an EV charger....or battle on with a 3 pin plug...then at the millions more homes on antiquated supply cables....it's a long list of stuff that needs fixing...costing many hundreds of billions....
UK ‘needs to play catch-up’ in global race to rewire electricity grids
For every £1 spent on renewable energy projects, only 25p was invested in connecting them to grid, report findswww.theguardian.com
It would be nice to think that someone has 'got this'...but I seriously doubt it. Back on the roundabout of depleting nuclear provision, depleting gas provision, loads more wind turbines and solar which may well be fine for 95% of the year...but that 5% is an bit important as it is likely a mid winter, very cold, dull few days....sort of when you need reliable electricity.
Where i work presently draws upto 17MW of electricity, but on top of this we generate a further 6 MW, plus most hot water (by product of the generators in our three energy centres), these are gas turbines.
The hot water provides most heating, including the two swimming pools.
We also get a solar gain of upto 1.5MW but this is after covering everything that stands still long enough with solar pv panels….
And this is just one medium sized entity of which there are thousands.
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He did say just a quarter of them may charge on a sunday evening - maybe you missed that detail?Total nonsense. Does everyone fill up with petrol on a Sunday? If they did there would be queues at every station, but the reality is people fill up when they need to which isn't the same time. Basic looking at an average mileage EV user like me shows we charge once every 2 weeks on average. Bear in mind we drive the average uk mileage (15k miles) Not everyone plugs in at once -> my father (BMW i4) usually plugs in on the Scottish power half price periods as he's in process of moving to Octopus.
Equally the most popular EV charge tariff on which around 30% of the EV's in the UK are on (Intelligent go) actually splits load.
The actual reality of this is not the disaster everyone is saying it is as the reality is on my street (16 houses) on average only one EV would charge every night.
The actual reality of 2019 to now is demand on the grid has actually fallen, as a whole despite 750k more EV's. So how does that work?
And ref; supply cables needing upgrading, yes in places -> but this is not everywhere. The grid themselves have in writing on the national grid website that everyone in the UK (including all trucks) could drive a EV with ZERO grid upgrades on the actual national grid, theres that much spare capacity. I'm quite afriad you have not read the below:
Busting the myths and misconceptions about electric vehicles | National Grid
www.nationalgrid.com
Worth noting as the grids own website indicates refining petrol for the EXISTING cars we have on road uses electricity in fact, and moving to EV's removes this demand for the fuel no longer used... so it's not actually a rise in demand.
Many will if they have a working week ahead?
Its also assumed everyone lives in a property where they can charge - thats far from reality.
Even 25% charging isn't an issue though, it's still tiny in terms of overall demand. Remember an electric shower (as you could say everyone uses at 7-8am) uses more than the average EV charger (10-12kw, versus 7kw for a charger). Are we saying in the morning say 25% of houses don't take a shower? Thats the nuts thing, we already today have showers using more than an EV charger, at a time of day when you can argue many people do use it simultanosly. Locally I know an entire estate using Eelectric showes as the council installed them to their entire housing stock.
And the point stands on most people are on demand tariffs (where you plugin and say you need car 5am Monday morning rather than telling it when to cahrge, and the charger works out the best time with your local grid provider). This happens today, so as an example that would sometimes charge you at peak times on a Sunday, or during day rather than overnight if there was local congestion on grid forecast. EV's are nothing like petrol cars, and if your car is parked at home, why wouldn't it be plugged in given it takes literal seconds to do (being plugged in does not mean it is charging remember). When you spread all the charging demand around all the stationary hours majority of cars are (majority of cars are static for a large proportion of their life) then there really isn't a case here. Again exceptions exist where an entire estate may go on a long drive at 5am Monday, but that is the exception not the average. (Average uk mileage statistically is 30 miles a day, which statistically is one charge every 10 days on a EV).
And the majority of people DO live in a place where they can charge, thats not everyone agreed, but the estimates are on that that 70% can. There are alterantives for those who can't, locally the local council car parks have (cheap) overnight EV spaces in them at near home rates for charging. Again I understand not all councils do that, but demand will see that many will. (thats around 20 spaces in this town, but most nights (I walk dog past) around 20% are used today, and theres an entire area of terraced housing that can't home charge nearby. There is space for more chargers, the council did think of that, and they've also put them next to the most popular local gym so charging whilst working out here is a thing.
DandJ
Free Member
Total nonsense. Does everyone fill up with petrol on a Sunday? If they did there would be queues at every station, but the reality is people fill up when they need to which isn't the same time. Basic looking at an average mileage EV user like me shows we charge once every 2 weeks on average. Bear in mind we drive the average uk mileage (15k miles) Not everyone plugs in at once -> my father (BMW i4) usually plugs in on the Scottish power half price periods as he's in process of moving to Octopus.
Equally the most popular EV charge tariff on which around 30% of the EV's in the UK are on (Intelligent go) actually splits load.
The actual reality of this is not the disaster everyone is saying it is as the reality is on my street (16 houses) on average only one EV would charge every night.
The actual reality of 2019 to now is demand on the grid has actually fallen, as a whole despite 750k more EV's. So how does that work?
And ref; supply cables needing upgrading, yes in places -> but this is not everywhere. The grid themselves have in writing on the national grid website that everyone in the UK (including all trucks) could drive a EV with ZERO grid upgrades on the actual national grid, theres that much spare capacity. I'm quite afriad you have not read the below:
Busting the myths and misconceptions about electric vehicles | National Grid
Worth noting as the grids own website indicates refining petrol for the EXISTING cars we have on road uses electricity in fact, and moving to EV's removes this demand for the fuel no longer used... so it's not actually a rise in demand.
Total nonsense...all of it. OK.
The UK average mileage is nearer to 8k miles (so even less of an issue then eh...)
People with petrol or diesel vehicles don't have the 'range anxiety' that a huge number (mistakenly) have with EVs. As has been mentioned above...I only suggest that 25% would top up on a Sunday evening...in time for their next week at work...if that is 250k vehicles...it is bugger all...if it is 4 or 5 million...it is quite a chunk of electric....and as you mentioned it....the cheap periods that the likes of Octopus highlight...will they exist when/if there are many millions of EVs ? I very much doubt it....if they do, then that is when millions will charge...and with millions unable to have a 7kw charger....many will charge at 3 pin plug rate during that period...so it may take them 2 evenings a week (if they're organised)
The article by the National Grid is amusing/interesting. They quote the below. I am going to presume that they've added up the 30 million plus vehicles multiplied by the charging power required (even at 2.5kwh) and then divided it by the hours in a week....(For the average miles driven, it would be c 40kwh per vehicle...4 miles per kw x 160 miles a week) Demand in a week may well only rise by 10% but if everyone wants to have their charge at a cheap rate....those cheap rate hours will need extending or demand will be far in excess of 10%
Time will tell how it pans out.
Yes, they have calculated 10% max remand.
Total nonsense...all of it. OK.
The UK average mileage is nearer to 8k miles (so even less of an issue then eh...)
The article by the National Grid is amusing/interesting. They quote the below. I am going to presume that they've added up the 30 million plus vehicles multiplied by the charging power required (even at 2.5kwh) and then divided it by the hours in a week....(For the average miles driven, it would be c 40kwh per vehicle...4 miles per kw x 160 miles a week) Demand in a week may well only rise by 10% but if everyone wants to have their charge at a cheap rate....those cheap rate hours will need extending or demand will be far in excess of 10%
If you were not aware Sunday is also the perfect time to charge with peak demadn on grid being 10GW less than on a weekday.
Doing numbers on that, 1 MW supports 138 EV's charging at 7.2kw. -> 1 GW is 1000MW. So 1GW supports 1.38 million EV's charging at max rate. 10GW supports 13.8 million EV's.
EditL I got the figures out a little, looks like 10 GW is 1.38 million simultaneous EV charging at max-ish rates. But the reality is overnight they won't be doing that, so it's nearer 2 million actual cars, and again not every car would need a full chagre.
My estimates are just on a Sunday the spare capacity from what is used on a weekday = about 2-3 million cars possible simultenously (as some cars need 5 hours, some 7, some 10 hours). Averaged thats around 2.5-3 million.
With a car on avaerage needing a charge every 10 days, means you can support 25-30 million cars as on average they won't all charge at once. My view is basic math holds up the grid 10% figure.
If you check overnight the net margin (spare generation) on any random night on the grid is more than 10GW.
^ is the actual grid dataset on this, and most nights looks to be about 25GW spare generation capacity. So the grid could cope quite adequately with around 3-6 million vehicles charging every night. I mean I could be talking rubbish, but the dataset is all on the grids own datasource above showing there is spare generation every single night. In plain english Derated Margin is the spare generation available to the grid operators.
Obviously you can remember if everyone did charge Sunday a large majority would then not need charges Monday (as full still)... the reality is it'll spread equally over week given as a herd humans are very predictable.
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Time will tell because it's coming! Butter if there was a big spike on Sunday evening don't you think the power companies would offer more incentives to charge with a set time for completion and if necessary increases prices a bit on Sunday and reduce on Monday or just reduce anytime there's lots of cheap windows power........ wait a minute they do already! I think the national grid is more ready than a lot think.
Total nonsense...all of it. OK.
The UK average mileage is nearer to 8k miles (so even less of an issue then eh...)
People with petrol or diesel vehicles don't have the 'range anxiety' that a huge number (mistakenly) have with EVs. As has been mentioned above...I only suggest that 25% would top up on a Sunday evening...in time for their next week at work...if that is 250k vehicles...it is bugger all...if it is 4 or 5 million...it is quite a chunk of electric....and as you mentioned it....the cheap periods that the likes of Octopus highlight...will they exist when/if there are many millions of EVs ? I very much doubt it....if they do, then that is when millions will charge...and with millions unable to have a 7kw charger....many will charge at 3 pin plug rate during that period...so it may take them 2 evenings a week (if they're organised)
The article by the National Grid is amusing/interesting. They quote the below. I am going to presume that they've added up the 30 million plus vehicles multiplied by the charging power required (even at 2.5kwh) and then divided it by the hours in a week....(For the average miles driven, it would be c 40kwh per vehicle...4 miles per kw x 160 miles a week) Demand in a week may well only rise by 10% but if everyone wants to have their charge at a cheap rate....those cheap rate hours will need extending or demand will be far in excess of 10%
Time will tell how it pans out.
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I think a lot of people have not cottoned on to fact you can be paid to charge you car when there is spare cpacity on grid today. In fact there has been a free or negative priced day of electric every single month for past year near enough.
I live in a flat, there is no off road or on road parking.
How do I charge at home ?
You take your car to one of the many nearby public chargers,and walk home in the rain,leaving you shiny new car in total security oh and mind you don't get mugged on the way home
Or get a diesel car …….You take your car to one of the many nearby public chargers,and walk home in the rain,leaving you shiny new car in total security oh and mind you don't get mugged on the way home
And so, we wind forward ten years. Everyone in the UK is driving an EV car…..
What about trucks! Um….
And climate change will still be happening, cus in ten years most of the rest of the world will still be burning coal and oil, cheaper coal and oil, cus we wont be buying it!
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Should have thought of that,had forgotten how popular they were but so expensive to bye,
before we all stated driving these nice cheap electric carsPerhaps we'll be able to buy some cheap coal ...bag it up and use for flood defences
Did you miss Amazon announcing the replacement of their long range trucks with electric e-arcos 600's from Mercedes earlier this week. Added several points to the mercedes stock price earlier this week.
They are not the only company with significant long range EV truck orders. Given lifetime of average truck is 5-7 years it will likely all be electric by 2035 at latest.
It's also mandated abroad as well, not just here, California requires all drayage (which is trucks into port shipping) to be electric or Hydrogen by... this year.
Trucks are about to increase rapidly from diesel ; may be worth checking this weeks news.
I thought that conventional wisdom (oft spouted on various social media platforms) was that all batteries in a bank should be the same size, same age and same manufacturer.
Ian
There are no nearby public chargers, and I live in a cityYou take your car to one of the many nearby public chargers,and walk home in the rain,leaving you shiny new car in total security oh and mind you don't get mugged on the way home
Nobody has mentioned the ecological disaster of getting lithium to make the batteries.
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Just move and stop being negativeThere are no nearby public chargers, and I live in a city
Nobody has mentioned the ecological disaster of getting lithium to make the batteries.
Yeah ok, didnt see many on the M1 yesterday….
Its dream world, why would a haulage company run a 44 ton truck with 20 ton of batteries…
Yes hydrogen, but thats a while off yet
Because the cost per ton moved is significantly lower.; And they don't have 20 ton of battery. (well okay they may do on their longest range option, but that is unnessary for average trucking in UK given all the depots will have chargers fitted). We have a small island that a single recharge can cover most of the island.
It's all about cost per mile per ton, economics. Some haulage operators have already assessed their inter depot runs of 200 miles and fitted 250 mile batterys, some will fit longer range options.
These companies, amazon included are not moving to electric trucks because of Green-ness, it's purely down to cost per mile per ton
(which is demonstratable when you can run an EV at around 2p a mile on a normal household fixed electric EV tariff, and around 5p on a normal fixed price cap one). It's half the cost per mile, and that when you do 100k miles a year as trucks do is more than significant. The figures I've personally seen on EV truck effenciency are that the higher cost of vehicle is repaid by year 2, and they work on a 5 year typical life, so it's 3 years of lower costs which make up why you can't order them (as the factory order sheet is full) now.
Remember the average truck tank of fuel costs in the regions of up 100 gallons, so 450 litres, so around £600 cash on an average fill. Given thats a daily cost, thats up to hundreds of thousands per year per vehicle ; ie, more than the driver of the vehicle costs per day.
Of course you may not believe me, but it's basic maths that it's going to be cheaper overall when you are talking of vehicles using significant volumes of diesel daily.
And no, there are not many on the UK motorway network (yet) as the lead time on production are they start operation 2028. You may have missed the press release from Shell or BP (I can't remember which ) about their truck refuelling for BEV starting operation recently, and it's a matter of public record the oil firms are buying Truck stops for their charging networks https://www.greencarcongress.com/2024/03/20240315-bp.html
And it's worth noting the oil majors are not investing in Hydrogen, in fact are pulling out of investments in that space at moment (shutting all the stations in California in fact - which has caused some H2 car owners to start sueing Toyota over it). I don't think we'll see Hydrogen trucks in same timeframe (in UK at least) given the pipeline on Hydrogen production is only for around 100MW of capacity (see maths above for how much actual use that'll have versus the amount of GW needed for useful motion) in UK by 2028. So even if you built the fuel stations there isn't enough Green hydrogen to supply them, hence why the oil majors are buying up truck stops with good grid connections at present. Theres a website on Hydrogen showing all the consented Hydrogen projects up to 2028 or thereabouts, and fuel production is not (currently) in there.
Hydrogen is significantly less likely than BEV trucks at present, likely we'll see 1 Hydrogen truck for every 100 or so BEV by 2030 would be my rough guess given the (unobtainium) of the actual Hydrogen fuel. (it also would cost around 3x the cost per mile of diesel, making it unviable without significant subsidy).
Hydrogen is significantly less likely than BEV trucks at present, likely we'll see 1 Hydrogen truck for every 100 or so BEV by 2030 would be my rough guess given the (unobtainium) of the actual Hydrogen fuel. (it also would cost around 3x the cost per mile of diesel, making it unviable without significant subsidy).
Where is the lithium coming from to make the batteries and what environmental impact is it having in sourcing it ?
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