What kind of charging infrastructure is required?

[twosout]

I put off buying an EV because I felt that the UK infrastructure for recharging did not fit my requirements but I’ve since come to realise that I’m most unlikely to charge my PHEV away from home because of the inconvenience of diversions and delays, and also the pricing. A PHEV allows you the freedom to carry on without the need to re-attach your ‘umbilical cord’, so why even bother? Occasionally you may be in the fortunate position of being able to recharge at your destination but the savings to be made do not seem to be worth the hassle otherwise.
Even the owner of a pure EV might not need to refill away from home. They only need to incorporate a remote charge on those journeys in excess of their natural range.
Electric cars are for those who can recharge whilst not in use, at home. For the moment, that will tend to exclude the many who can only park their vehicle in the street.
It would be ‘nice’ to have more recharging facilities, and better still if more reasonably priced, but how likely are these extra stations to be placed at far-flung locations to satisfy more adventurous excursions? No matter how well-distributed they are, they will not provide practical freedom of movement to pure EVs unless the distance between any two is less than, say, 100 miles. Let’s not be impressed by the number of charge points available, it is their distribution that matters most.

 

[jaapv]

Yep - I refused to buy a horseless carriage because there were not enough pharmacies to get petrol. :lol:

I think that you discount the march of history. By 2030 there will be only electrical vehicles sold - infrastructure has no choice - it must be implemented.

Countries like Norway and the Netherlands already have a sizeable charging infrastructure, and growing fast, so have other countries. Still too inconvenient and expensive for PHEV use - I'll grant you that -, but the times are changing.

 

[MartinPHEV]

I think your summary is about right for the UK Twosout, at least at the moment. I don't believe any of us truly believe a hybrid vehicle is really the long term solution but merely a step in the right direction. Some (non mainstream) vehicle manufacturers are now producing viable BEVs and this, more than anything else, will drive the household names in the right direction.

The charging network is a mess both in availability and pricing but it's in it's infancy in the UK. Give it twelve months and competitive pressure/takeovers will get it in shape I'm sure.

I regret to admit I understand the meaning of your user name. Sigh!

 

[Woodman411]

I put off buying an EV because I felt that the UK infrastructure for recharging did not fit my requirements but I’ve since come to realise that I’m most unlikely to charge my PHEV away from home because of the inconvenience of diversions and delays, and also the pricing. A PHEV allows you the freedom to carry on without the need to re-attach your ‘umbilical cord’, so why even bother? Occasionally you may be in the fortunate position of being able to recharge at your destination but the savings to be made do not seem to be worth the hassle otherwise.
Even the owner of a pure EV might not need to refill away from home. They only need to incorporate a remote charge on those journeys in excess of their natural range.
Electric cars are for those who can recharge whilst not in use, at home. For the moment, that will tend to exclude the many who can only park their vehicle in the street.
It would be ‘nice’ to have more recharging facilities, and better still if more reasonably priced, but how likely are these extra stations to be placed at far-flung locations to satisfy more adventurous excursions? No matter how well-distributed they are, they will not provide practical freedom of movement to pure EVs unless the distance between any two is less than, say, 100 miles. Let’s not be impressed by the number of charge points available, it is their distribution that matters most.

It's not just the availability of the chargers, but also the limitations of battery technology in its current state. Refueling an ICE is exponentially faster than the fastest charging, and fast charging itself is not good for the battery long term.

 

[ps44]

And what kind of generating infrastructure is required ?
We seem to be busy reducing reliable baseload capacity while driving up demand.
Can't end well !

 

[mellobob]

And what kind of generating infrastructure is required ?
We seem to be busy reducing reliable baseload capacity while driving up demand.
Can't end well !

And that is why I went with the PHEV ... don't need to worry about charging on the road, but still feel a little green 'cause I charge at home. Considering that most trips are pretty short, I use little gasoline. But, charging a public charger points is pretty tedious and I mostly don't bother ... did it a few times, but the novelty wears off quickly.

However, a few years down the road with better batteries (quicker to charge/higher capacities), more charge points, more expensive gasoline ... the story may well change.

 

[greendwarf]

Every lamp post a charging point for when parked and induction charging when driving?

 

[BCbackroader]

Every lamp post a charging point for when parked and induction charging when driving?

In some parts of Canada, every parking meter IS a charging point, as in the colder areas vehicles must plug in the block heater when parked for more than an hour or so, to keep the engine block from freezing, or at least keep the oil from getting too thick to allow engine cranking. Fortunately, I don't live in an area that gets that cold, but I've visited some!!

 

[Regulo]

I frequent a boating forum where a discussion wandered to electric cars and charging requirements (somehow!). A reply from a man involved in the electricity supply industry, in the area of infrastructure provisioning:

"if we build nothing but power stations and substations from now until the deadline, when they go all electric - we might just manage, but then nobody wants a new power station / solar farm / wind farm in their neighbourhood, so when we dont get the planning permission to build them, people wont get their energy to charge their electric cars. simples."

He was only talking about the increase in supply to domestic properties, not on-street/public chargers. It's pie in the sky from government, who have no idea of the impracticabilities of their "green" pronouncements. Don't misunderstand me, I'm all for the idea of going all-electric, but it can't happen while we're on a knife-edge of electricity supply limits already (in the UK, of course), with no clear idea of future provisioning.

 

[ThudnBlundr]

I frequent a boating forum where a discussion wandered to electric cars and charging requirements (somehow!). A reply from a man involved in the electricity supply industry, in the area of infrastructure provisioning:

"if we build nothing but power stations and substations from now until the deadline, when they go all electric - we might just manage, but then nobody wants a new power station / solar farm / wind farm in their neighbourhood, so when we dont get the planning permission to build them, people wont get their energy to charge their electric cars. simples."

He was only talking about the increase in supply to domestic properties, not on-street/public chargers. It's pie in the sky from government, who have no idea of the impracticabilities of their "green" pronouncements. Don't misunderstand me, I'm all for the idea of going all-electric, but it can't happen while we're on a knife-edge of electricity supply limits already (in the UK, of course), with no clear idea of future provisioning.

I'm afraid that's total and absolute rubbish. Even the National Grid in the UK say there's not going to be a problem, and they've done far more research than an unknown man on an internet forum. There is plenty of capacity for electricity except at peak times, even with a huge increase in the numbers of electric cars on the road. One look at the typical load curve of a grid would show anyone with half a brain that there is plenty of capacity 90% of the time. We just need something to cover the last 10%. So we either build a few expensive power stations that aren't needed 90% of the time, or we introduce some form of load balancing to make better use of what we have. That can be as simple as demand pricing, where unit prices rise at peak times, to large storage projects to store energy during the day for release later. Storage can be anything from grid-scale batteries to hydro or even railcar-based. I would guess that variable pricing is going to come in first, as it's cheaper to do and the infrastructure is basically there already with smart meters. Then you add in V2G for more balancing and intelligent charging , both of which are in prototype now. It's definitely not rocket science

 

[jaapv]

Plus - industries with high peak demand are in constant communication with the grid authority. For instance, Shell Pernis uses compressors in the order of 20 MW. Before they start one of these up, available power in the grid is checked. On other occasions the same refinery will supply considerable amounts of power. That is one way of balancing the grid.

 

[ChrisMiller]

Not many things are certain on the Internet, but one of them is that any post beginning with "That's total and absolute rubbish" is going to be total and absolute rubbish.

"A huge increase in EVs" from a base of zero a few years ago, it's now approaching 200,000, that's ~0.5% of the UK vehicle fleet (and many of them are PHEVs drawing only part of their energy requirements from the grid, while hardly any of them are the buses and trucks that account for more than half of fuel consumption). There's no spare capacity at all on the grid. If we get a prolonged spell of cold, still weather this winter, don't be surprised if your lights go out. And as for 'storage solutions', that's just magical thinking. The biggest storage scheme in Europe (Dinorwig) can power the UK grid for a few minutes - we'd need something that can do that for days - a few railcars don't even begin to address the problem.

I'd suggest a read of Without Hot Air, by the late, great David MacKay FRS (free PDF):
https://www.withouthotair.com/download.html

 

[ps44]

Indeed. I've done rocket science - that's a lot of wishful thinking.
It's estimated that if the entire UK transport fleet is electrified we would need to roughly double the amount of electricity we generate. That ain't coming from better use of the current or envisaged capacity - especially on cold calm winter days.

 

[twosout]

If most charging is done overnight, as I suspect it will, EVs will present an opportunity to absorb off-peak power and could be incentivised to do that.
V2G balancing would be icing on the cake, but why not?

 

[Regulo]

It is NOT just a problem of generating capacity, it's infrastructure. Cable, substation sizes, physically siting stuff. The "man on the internet" I quoted earlier, works out all this stuff for his living, if he says there's a problem now, in providing this infrastructure to housing developments where there is no EV charging provision, I'm inclined to believe him when he says there's going to be ongoing difficulties in meeting future needs in respect of EV charging. Regardless of whether there's generating capacity, getting it to the end user will remain a problem.

 

[jaapv]

Well given that it is a stated policy to move towards electric vehicles by 2025/2030 (although the UK might be different - just because it is the general policy in the EU they might want to go in the opposite direction :lol: ) isn't it time that some people in planning and some policymakers got their thumbs out?

 

[Regulo]

Exactly the problem, Jaapv. Government (at least in the UK) makes wide-ranging pronouncements without asking those who will be tasked with providing the end product as to how it can be done. Or even if it's possible. When told it's not possible, they bury their heads in the sand and plough on anyway - like they're doing with smart electric and gas meters here. They've been told umpteen times the target isn't possible to achieve, but won't admit it's an almighty bodge-up that wasn't thought through in the first place.

 

[ThudnBlundr]

Actually a few railcars is a great solution, with significantly better energy density than water and hugely scalable. And why on earth do we need "days" of backups. There is GWh of spare capacity on the grid; looking at the load curve shows that demand is below peak for most of the day, so there is your capacity to recharge storage. What is causing issues is peak load, which demand pricing could fix virtually overnight if people started paying significantly more when demand is high. But then what would I know, having worked in the electricity industry?

And I'm sorry, but what is the problem with the infrastructure? Of course there will be places where the infrastructure struggles, as there is anywhere where's significant new development since the infrastructure was built: it's the same for sewers, gas pipes and phonelines. Are you saying that a 7kW load in each house in an area is going to fry the local infrastructure? Do you not think the infrastructure was designed with significant spare capacity? Funny how the internet is full of these assertions of looming disaster, but the people who actually know about these things, those who plan for the future for a living, aren't too worried.

 

[twosout]

I think the distribution of public charge points will be influenced by where it’s convenient or economical to place them, rather than where they may be needed. (7kWh) Home charge points could solve the majority of the demand fairly easily but I see little financial incentive for a provider to reach out to place public charge points in remote parts of the country.

Providing charge points at shopping centres may seem like a good idea to some, but my thoughts are that most visitors would be local and not need to recharge on such a journey, even if there was something useful to do in the meantime. Couple that with cheaper charging back home, and I don’t see many choosing to take advantage.

 

[ThudnBlundr]

Providing charge points at shopping centres may seem like a good idea to some, but my thoughts are that most visitors would be local and not need to recharge on such a journey, even if there was something useful to do in the meantime. Couple that with cheaper charging back home, and I don’t see many choosing to take advantage.

I've visited the free Lidl point on the outskirts of Leeds a few times. If I go into the city centre, I can't get all the way home on battery alone. So I'll sometimes pop in there to do a quick bit of shopping while getting a free 80% charge :mrgreen:

But I agree that most people won't need them. But at bigger shopping centres such as White Rose or Meadowhell, I can see a point. People seem to travel much further to get to those