New battery charging technology to make OHLE redundant?

[paul1609]

All this talk of 28kW batteries is wrong. The batteries fitted to current models are 24 or 30 kWhours. That is their capacity, but the load on the charging supply depends entirely on the charging rate, the level from which they are charged and the maximum level to which they will be charged. Nissan themselves advise not regularly charging them to more than 80% capacity, saying that it has a negative impact on battery life.
The majority of chargers used domestically are rated at about 6-7kW, allowing them to be linked to a standard (dedicated) 32A circuit and charge a fully discharged battery in about 6 hours. If it was to become widespread as e-cars gained popularity, there would be similar supply load characteristics to domestic electric storage heating where loads are determined by the previous day's use. On warmer winter days, the heat requirements are a fairly short top-up at the beginning of the low cost tariff period. On colder days the demand goes deeper into the night. Owing to the higher relative cost of electric power over gas, storage heating is becoming less popular, but the distributors are well versed in both demand management and fulfilment. Car use for many would follow similar patterns except that bad driving conditions (e.g. cold weather) would more likely lead to an overall reduction in battery drain through reduced mileage.
Of course there will be the few 'battery heads' who go for the industrial chargers at their homes, but that might attract special tariffs outside the normal domestic ones and more like commercial restrictions where punitive charges are applied to peak loads during times of distribution system stress. With intelligent load monitoring, these installations could actually be remotely switched off at times.
The key to all e-car acceptability is the maximum availability of renewable power, - even if it does spoil some peoples view, - Goring Gap types, get ready to whinge!

Unfortunately thats probably not true. The problem is the days in December when high pressure sits over the UK 2 or 3 days and renewable energy sources actually use more energy than they generate. This is invariably when ambient temperatures are low and power demand is highest. You need to have 100% of the base load covered by non renewable sources. If thats fossil fuel powered then the renewable to my mind make sense. if your baseload is met by nuclear generation then the renewables don't make any sense whatsoever as they are just an expensive duplication of your nuclear capacity. If you are looking at the lowest carbon case thats likely to be what ever you can get from 24/7 renewables: hydro and possibly in the future wave and tidal power with the remainder made up from Nuclear. The storage you would need in winter in the UK to be able to use solar and wind capacity would just be so large as to be impractical.

 

[anme]

There's also the possibility in the near future that rail could lose its natural environmental advantages, should EVs take off with a series of fast charging points. Potentially the car could be the greener option over the competing old fashioned diesel train, especially on many lines where the load factor is poor.

This is really not true. Wasted energy and pollution are not the only environmental problems of cars. They also kill a lot of people, maim and paralyse many more, turn neighbourhoods into no-go areas for children, encourage greenfield development, require a lot of space, generate a lot of noise, isolate us from each other, etc.

Even if cars were to become much more efficient we must still work to eliminate them.
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1. Most people won't own a car. Hiring a self-driving vehicle will be cheaper for most people, since most cars sit around doing nothing but depreciating most of the time. If you don't own it, it'll go and charge itself up at some convenient place with a fast charger. The relative cost of owning a car will go up when people realise that it's quite nice not using land for parking spaces.

Some of what you say is true, but this really doesn't work as well as is claimed. Demand for cars is not flat. In fact, we need much much more capacity at peak times and large numbers of cars will be sat around doing nothing during the day and night - the same as now. Congestion will not be much reduced as we will still have the same number of cars on the road at peak times as we do now.

We need to work to eliminate cars - as I wrote above.

 

[Trog]

This system could be applied to railway. I'll give the Brighton-Ashford service as an example:

• The battery and supercapacitor is recharged on the Ore-Brighton-Ore section of the journey using the third rail supply.
• Some ultra-high power supercapacitor chargers are fitted above the train at the platforms at some of the stops of the service to recharge the supercapacitor during those stops on the Ore-Ashford-Ore section. The battery is also partially recharged at those stops.
• The supercapacitor is used to power the train on non-electrified sections until the supercapacitor is discharged and the battery takes over. Energy from the supercapacitor can be used to recharge the battery if not all of the supercapacitor energy is going to be used before the next charging point.

Could the energy be stored using a lower tech. solution that uses tried and trusted engineering. I believe water can be used to hold a great deal of heat energy, and that there might be a potential railway use for the expansive properties of the vapour produced when water is strongly heated in a pressure vessel. The water could be heated and hence a high pressure of vapour produced while the train was running on the electrified sections. With the high pressure vapour then being used through some sort of cylinder, to power the train through the non electrified sections.

 

[najaB]

Could the energy be stored using a lower tech. solution that uses tried and trusted engineering. I believe water can be used to hold a great deal of heat energy, and that there might be a potential railway use for the expansive properties of the vapour produced when water is strongly heated in a pressure vessel. The water could be heated and hence a high pressure of vapour produced while the train was running on the electrified sections. With the high pressure vapour then being used through some sort of cylinder, to power the train through the non electrified sections.

I like the way you think. We could combine this solution with an on board heat source that is independent of the electricity supply for extended running away from the wires. Perhaps using a solid fuel for convenience...

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I then read a piece by Ian Walmsley in Modern Railways (sorry, I haven't got a proper ref) which demolished the whole lot, not on the science, but the economics.

Have you read his latest piece on the death of Alec Trick - freaking hilarious.

 

[superkev]

Love reading Ian's realist commentaries particularly his rubbishing of modern trains cramped ironing board seats. Here here.
Yes as he said when the leasing cost of the batteries is similar to the whole train battery trains even with a massive improvement in battery tech and dreadnought weight trains not much hope. Those wires depite network rail and its contractors poor performance in putting them up still the best bet for a whole yet.
K

 

[daikilo]

But apparently we don't have enough people and machines to put said wires up, but we do have some decent trains becoming available and companies who could modify them so that the available seats won't be wasted. It may not be the best or most economic solution, but at least passengers will be able to travel on them.

 

[Flying Phil]

I like the way you think. We could combine this solution with an on board heat source that is independent of the electricity supply for extended running away from the wires. Perhaps using a solid fuel for convenience...

Next you will be saying that you could get the solid fuel out of the ground! Ridiculous ideas....

 

[Chester1]

Unfortunately thats probably not true. The problem is the days in December when high pressure sits over the UK 2 or 3 days and renewable energy sources actually use more energy than they generate. This is invariably when ambient temperatures are low and power demand is highest. You need to have 100% of the base load covered by non renewable sources. If thats fossil fuel powered then the renewable to my mind make sense. if your baseload is met by nuclear generation then the renewables don't make any sense whatsoever as they are just an expensive duplication of your nuclear capacity. If you are looking at the lowest carbon case thats likely to be what ever you can get from 24/7 renewables: hydro and possibly in the future wave and tidal power with the remainder made up from Nuclear. The storage you would need in winter in the UK to be able to use solar and wind capacity would just be so large as to be impractical.

This problem is being solved by micro gas or oil power plants. These are typically a dozen or so small factory built generators in converted units on industrial estates etc. They are ussually limited to 1500 hours a year and are cheaper per unit than building a big gas or coal power station. Their limited use to cope with periods of high use are cost effective because the land is cheap, they are relatively simple kit and there is less wear and tear than if they were used most of the time. Applications to build them have rapidly increased since solar subsidies were cut last year so they will become common in the near future. It would be extremely difficult to go fully renewable but mostly renewable is certainly possible in the next 20-30 years.

 

[paul1609]

This problem is being solved by micro gas or oil power plants. These are typically a dozen or so small factory built generators in converted units on industrial estates etc. They are ussually limited to 1500 hours a year and are cheaper per unit than building a big gas or coal power station. Their limited use to cope with periods of high use are cost effective because the land is cheap, they are relatively simple kit and there is less wear and tear than if they were used most of the time. Applications to build them have rapidly increased since solar subsidies were cut last year so they will become common in the near future. It would be extremely difficult to go fully renewable but mostly renewable is certainly possible in the next 20-30 years.

Sadly it won't cover 17.00 on a December evening when high pressure is sitting over the Uk. Solar generation will be nil, Windfarm generation will be nil, hydro which is mostly fully exploited will produce say 5%. The micro stations needed to cover 95% of demand will not be cheaper than big stations and will produce an awful lot of air pollution in big cities like London.

 

[Chester1]

Sadly it won't cover 17.00 on a December evening when high pressure is sitting over the Uk. Solar generation will be nil, Windfarm generation will be nil, hydro which is mostly fully exploited will produce say 5%. The micro stations needed to cover 95% of demand will not be cheaper than big stations and will produce an awful lot of air pollution in big cities like London.

Your forgetting 3 factors which mean micro generators will never need to supply 95% of demand:

1) Nuclear power - if new reactors at Bradwell and Sizewell come to fruition nuclear would generate at least 20% of supply.

2) Tidal power - predictable but variable supply. They cannot run 24/7, but if several are built somewere in the UK there will be generation all the time.

3) Further efforts to share wind and solar generated electricity with Europe to balance out variations in generation across Northern Europe.

All the micro power station applications that I have seen have so far been in semi rural locations to avoid issues with air pollution. I saw an application in Essex a few weeks ago, which presumably will supply London.

It is entirely plausible that the vast majority of train and road transport will be powered from renewable sources by 2050.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Was this thread inspired by the manufacturers of "next generation" batteries?

 

[superkev]

Was this thread inspired by the manufacturers of "next generation" batteries?

Lithium - air seems to be the technology everyone's working on. Similar to gasoline in termed of volume but problems with slow charging/ discharge, short life and efficiency.
With any battery putting all that energy used during a days running in a resonable time would seem a problem.
K

 

[Mordac]

Let's hope they don't use the same batteries Samsung uses for their phones!

 

[edwin_m]

Let's hope they don't use the same batteries Samsung uses for their phones!

They would work quite well in a steam loco...

Another possible form of storage for renewable energy:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37902773

The cryogenic energy facility stores power from renewables or off-peak generation by chilling air into liquid form.

When the liquid air warms up it expands and can drive a turbine to make electricity.

 

[WatcherZero]

Cryogenic sounds promising, big countries can use hydroelectric storage, pumping the water uphill in to dams then releasing it in high demand but while we have some of that we don't have the room for the storage required to meet the UK's energy demands.

 

[33Hz]

Local distribution systems in residential areas would collapse if everyone tried to charge a car at once, even if the total national grid peak demand didn't change.

You would need to drastically increase the number of 11kV/LV substations, add massive numbers of 11kV Feeders, and probably rebuild the 33kV distribution network and maybe even the 132kV sub-transmission system.

Grid demand would shift miles from the centre of a city to its suburbs at night and shift back during the day.

This is alarmist nonsense.

You can recharge in the 7 hour overnight low demand period for average annual miles (~28 miles a day) using 6 Amps (1.4 kW), as I regularly do. That allows me to take advantage of Economy7 and get sufficient miles for commuting.

Some people might need more miles, some less, but that is a demand management problem and not a grid rebuild problem. If 6 Amps per property is an issue for the local distribution network when there is no other demand then we have bigger issues.

Of course, it doesn't help that the government has given away thousands of chargers with a fixed 16 Amp output. Despite the fact that all these chargers have built-in GSM modems (used for measuring stats, probably for eventual taxation), they cannot be remotely adjusted. This is a huge missed opportunity to get things right from day 1, but what's new there?

 

[Chris125]

3) Further efforts to share wind and solar generated electricity with Europe to balance out variations in generation across Northern Europe.

Exactly, have people never heard of interconnectors?

 

[paul1609]

Exactly, have people never heard of interconnectors?

Yes we have, tonight at 16.00 our interconnectors were exporting a total of 1 GW to the near continent because of a shortage of renewable power, we were running our remaining coal plants nearly flat out to meet this demand & the UK demand. Renewable energy is not going to be a major contributor to our energy needs anytime soon and body who thinks otherwise is deluded.
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This is alarmist nonsense.

You can recharge in the 7 hour overnight low demand period for average annual miles (~28 miles a day) using 6 Amps (1.4 kW), as I regularly do. That allows me to take advantage of Economy7 and get sufficient miles for commuting.

Some people might need more miles, some less, but that is a demand management problem and not a grid rebuild problem. If 6 Amps per property is an issue for the local distribution network when there is no other demand then we have bigger issues.

Of course, it doesn't help that the government has given away thousands of chargers with a fixed 16 Amp output. Despite the fact that all these chargers have built-in GSM modems (used for measuring stats, probably for eventual
taxation), they cannot be remotely adjusted. This is a huge missed opportunity to get things right from day 1, but what's new there?

I had a series of smart meters put in for my heritage railway at the beginning of the year using GSM technology in rural kent so far none of them has managed a successful automated reading they apparent use any 3 of the mobile networks.

 

[najaB]

Renewable energy is not going to be a major contributor to our energy needs anytime soon and body who thinks otherwise is deluded.

There are many days that Scotland is a net exporter of renewable energy so it sounds like renewables are contributing already.

 

[Elecman]

I had a series of smart meters put in for my heritage railway at the beginning of the year using GSM technology in rural kent so far none of them has managed a successful automated reading they apparent use any 3 of the mobile networks.

Your problem with the meters could be a couple of things if the meters are located in steel location cases did the Meter Operator fit an external high gain aerial, indeed depending on manufacture of the meter some single phase meters don't actually have an external aerial modem fitted so once you shut the cabinet door there is no signal to the meter, or it could be that the Meter Operator has fitted a roaming SIM card to the meter that the Data Collector cannot dial due to Bearcap issues with the SIM. This needs the DC to contact thier telecoms operator to whitelist the relevant SIM numbers so that they can dial the meters and download the data. It's a very common problem!!

 

[nottinghamcity]

There is a lot of supposition on how the grid is balanced going on here: can I suggest a look at http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk to see how it is really done. The reality is that nuclear is base load, as is hydro. Coal and oil dont do very much, renewables are intermittent, backed up with. CCGT, and the interconnectors do little more than balance.

 

[paul1609]

There are many days that Scotland is a net exporter of renewable energy so it sounds like renewables are contributing already.

They contribute but whether that contribution is cost effective is very debatable. Scotland only consumes around 10% of the UKs electricity by the way.

 

[najaB]

They contribute but whether that contribution is cost effective is very debatable. Scotland only consumes around 10% of the UKs electricity by the way.

I agree, it may or may not be cost effective but that depends on what monetary value you assign to carbon emissions from coal/gas generation.
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...renewables are intermittent, backed up with. CCGT, and the interconnectors do little more than balance.

Ironically enough, at this precise moment CCGT is providing 52% of the total!

 

[LDECRexile]

There is a lot of supposition on how the grid is balanced going on here: can I suggest a look at http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk to see how it is really done. The reality is that nuclear is base load, as is hydro. Coal and oil dont do very much, renewables are intermittent, backed up with. CCGT, and the interconnectors do little more than balance.

Thank you for this very interesting link.

I've added the figures up on the four big dials plus the smaller ones at top right, but can only get them to come to 99.3%. I'm not obsessive about such things, but like them to add up so that I have confidence that I've understood them properly. Is the "missing" 0.7% rounding? PV? my incompetence?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

They contribute but whether that contribution is cost effective is very debatable. Scotland only consumes around 10% of the UKs electricity by the way.

A point that will not be lost on the SNP.

 

[TheKnightWho]

Yes we have, tonight at 16.00 our interconnectors were exporting a total of 1 GW to the near continent because of a shortage of renewable power, we were running our remaining coal plants nearly flat out to meet this demand & the UK demand. Renewable energy is not going to be a major contributor to our energy needs anytime soon and body who thinks otherwise is deluded.

Given, for the vast majority of the time, the UK's wind output is considerably higher than its coal one (and even now, in winter, they are about the same), the sentences I've put in bold seem to contradict each other in spirit...

 

[NSEFAN]

Given, for the vast majority of the time, the UK's wind output is considerably higher than its coal one (and even now, in winter, they are about the same), the sentences I've put in bold seem to contradict each other in spirit...

I've heard conflicting information about the performance of wind power. My understanding is that off-shore is more effective than on-shore, but how consistent is the output?

Is it good enough that we can do without any alternative sources? Would we need batteries in every home or localised diesel generators to cover the transient peak demand?

 

[takno]

Given, for the vast majority of the time, the UK's wind output is considerably higher than its coal one (and even now, in winter, they are about the same), the sentences I've put in bold seem to contradict each other in spirit...

I read it as referring to baseload rather than actual output over the year

 

[superkev]

There is a lot of supposition on how the grid is balanced going on here: can I suggest a look at http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk to see how it is really done. The reality is that nuclear is base load, as is hydro. Coal and oil dont do very much, renewables are intermittent, backed up with. CCGT, and the interconnectors do little more than balance.

Note that this excellent site cannot include for all the multitude of solar panels. Note also the link to the French version where electricity is considerably cheaper than here.
K