UK switching to electric vehicles discussion

[johncrossley]

It is interesting that there is a lot of investment going on in geothermal heating in Europe, and that the Netherlands has been forecast to surpass Iceland by 2030 (from an almost standing start in 2012!).

Full steam ahead: Geothermal heating

Europe to spend $7.4 billion on geothermal heating, capacity to reach 6.2 GWt by 2030.

www.rystadenergy.com

Obviously this is more about heating rather than electricity (and nothing to do with EVs) but interesting non the less and perhaps another lesson for the UK.

It's still relevant if it means that less electricity is required for heating and therefore more is available for EVs.

 

[AM9]

It is interesting that there is a lot of investment going on in geothermal heating in Europe, and that the Netherlands has been forecast to surpass Iceland by 2030 (from an almost standing start in 2012!).

Full steam ahead: Geothermal heating

Europe to spend $7.4 billion on geothermal heating, capacity to reach 6.2 GWt by 2030.

www.rystadenergy.com

Obviously this is more about heating rather than electricity (and nothing to do with EVs) but interesting non the less and perhaps another lesson for the UK.

It might be a simple extrapolation to predict The Netherlands overtaking Iceland on geothermal in a few years, but that is based on Icelands in-country usage. However, Unlike mainland Europes geothermal heat sources, Icelands is high grade heat, and very suitable for directly driving steam turbines, so once the power feed from Iceland to the UK is operational, the attraction of selling energy that is virtually free to provide may be too attractivbe for Iceland to resist.

 

[Ediswan]

It might be a simple extrapolation to predict The Netherlands overtaking Iceland on geothermal in a few years, but that is based on Icelands in-country usage. However, Unlike mainland Europes geothermal heat sources, Icelands is high grade heat, and very suitable for directly driving steam turbines, so once the power feed from Iceland to the UK is operational, the attraction of selling energy that is virtually free to provide may be too attractivbe for Iceland to resist.

Is that Icelink ? If so, might be waiting some time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelink

In 2017, the main proposal for the project was still at the feasibility stage,[2] and, as of 2019, no further progress had been reported.[5] As of 2019, the "Atlantic SuperConnection" proposal had still not obtained the required financial support from the UK government.[3][4]

The link is highly controversial in Icelandic politics, with a fear of environmental effects associated with increasing Iceland's power supply to meet Icelink's demand, as well as concerns over increased domestic energy prices in Iceland. For the project to move forward, the Icelandic parliament needs to accept the construction, which as of 2022 is not likely.[6]

 

[AM9]

Is that Icelink ? If so, might be waiting some time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelink

OK, thanks for that, I wasn't aware of that. I suspect though that as energy trading expands and oil becomes unacceptable, the attraction of the economic benefits of exporting electricity will play its hand there.

 

[trebor79]

OK, thanks for that, I wasn't aware of that. I suspect though that as energy trading expands and oil becomes unacceptable, the attraction of the economic benefits of exporting electricity will play its hand there.

Actually Iceland has virtually no spare power at present. It's a popular location for datacentres, because it's easy to and cheap to keep things cool there. These datacentres have massively increased demand for electricity.

 

[reddragon]

It is interesting that there is a lot of investment going on in geothermal heating in Europe, and that the Netherlands has been forecast to surpass Iceland by 2030 (from an almost standing start in 2012!).

Full steam ahead: Geothermal heating

Europe to spend $7.4 billion on geothermal heating, capacity to reach 6.2 GWt by 2030.

www.rystadenergy.com

Obviously this is more about heating rather than electricity (and nothing to do with EVs) but interesting non the less and perhaps another lesson for the UK.

Geothermal is great for district heating when combined by heat pumps as the smaller temperature difference reduces energy costs / electric demand considerably in winter.

 

[paul1609]

Which is why there's a need to invest in tidal power as well, to create a reliable level of generation.

Unfortunately currently somebody could invest in further developing tidal power so it could be reliably used in maybe 25 years time.
Engineering wise its incredibly challenging far more so than for instance offshore wind.
If you need to invest now in carbon free generation for deployment in the next 10-20 years time there is no commercially available tidal equipment and the worlds largest generating tidal scheme is actually a mere 250 MW.
There are also large ecological problems connected with putting large generators under the sea
Anybody that is telling you that its available now is Im afraid lying.
The only available large scale carbon free generator with high availability now is Nuclear. Fact is that Nuclear generation on the UK Grid in the next 2 to 7 years will decline by about 5GW because we have failed to make the right future investment decisions.

 

[Bald Rick]

The only available large scale carbon free generator with high availability now is Nuclear. Fact is that Nuclear generation on the UK Grid in the next 2 to 7 years will decline by about 5GW because we have failed to make the right future investment decisions.

whilst I agree wholeheartedly, I think 5GW is a little pessimistic. We rarely generate more than 5GW of nuclear (albeit we are now!), but Sizewell B (1.2GW) will still be going strong in 2029, and it’s a distinct possibility that Torness and Heysham 2 will be re-extended back to 2030 if their generation in the interim can be reduced. Then with Hinkley Point C coming on line in 4 years or so, I think it’s reasonable to assume that the reduction in nuclear generation will be in the region of a net 2-3GW.

But we do need to crack on with Sizewell C, and at least a couple of other similar sized sites.

 

[paul1609]

5GW is probably the worst possible case given that we only have 5.9 GWe available in the UK today, but the start generation date for unit 1 of Hinkley Point C 1.6 GWe is now estimated by EDF as June 2027. No actual date is given for Hinkley Point C2 but it will be at the very earliest the very end of the decade as its fuelling follows on from lessons learnt with C1.
I don't think that any date has actually been mentioned for Sizewell C begin generation but its well in to the next decade. Sizewell B has an 18 month operational cycle with a planned month for maintenance so its not impossible that if HP C1 slips further and with out life extensions we could see periods of zero nuclear generation on the UK Grid.

 

[The Ham]

Well, OK but that would only add less than £5/MWhr to the strike price over the life of the plant. So it's still way cheaper than tidal.

Basically, yes. Idea is at end of life you just remove the reactor vessel and store/bury it somewhere.

And the £200+/MWhr strike price for a barrage project wouldn't impact ALL electricity bills?

Just for clarification in not arguing against any nuclear, rather that there should be more tidal within the mix than there currently is.

Whilst tidal barrage schemes tend to be expensive (due to the barrage construction costs) there are places where you could put in little more than a turbine to generate power. Whilst easy schemes may not generate much power, it's power which is otherwise could be easily generated.

Whilst tidal stream may cost a lot in early development (often in part due to power connectors), if the reason for tidal is to provide a stable energy for when the wind isn't boring as much you could have a mixed energy project (wind and tidal) where the cost of energy is set at a point higher than wind so that the tidal power is subsidised by the wind power. With the shared connection costs this could be reasonable.

Whilst you may need a larger capacity connection (for max wind and max tidal) the extra cost would still be lower than two different connections, as construction costs are unlikely to proportional to the capacity.

 

[trebor79]

Just for clarification in not arguing against any nuclear, rather that there should be more tidal within the mix than there currently is.

But, why? When tidal is THE most expensive option, why do you need it in the mix?

Whilst tidal barrage schemes tend to be expensive (due to the barrage construction costs) there are places where you could put in little more than a turbine to generate power. Whilst easy schemes may not generate much power, it's power which is otherwise could be easily generated.

Such schemes exist but as you say they are small scale and won't really turn the dial in this country. Norway has a lot of such schemes in mountain streams.

Whilst tidal stream may cost a lot in early development (often in part due to power connectors), if the reason for tidal is to provide a stable energy for when the wind isn't boring as much you could have a mixed energy project (wind and tidal) where the cost of energy is set at a point higher than wind so that the tidal power is subsidised by the wind power. With the shared connection costs this could be reasonable.

Whilst you may need a larger capacity connection (for max wind and max tidal) the extra cost would still be lower than two different connections, as construction costs are unlikely to proportional to the capacity.

It would be an order of magnitude cheaper to just build a bigger wind farm. There are much better ways of coping with wind intermittency than hyper-expensive tidal power schemes.

 

[reddragon]

The thing is, tidal can bring other benefits for wildlife, or a road & rail line from Cardiff to Somerset etc

New finance model to cut cost of new nuclear power stations

Consumers will save more than £30 billion on each new large-scale nuclear station.

www.gov.uk

The Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill

This provides a £30bn subsidy to each nuclear power station project via a levy on our taxes. This is in addition to the levy dealing with the waste!

Imagine such a subsidy on tidal power for the same output, without all those waste costs & benefits?

Clever trickery of funding & taxation somehow makes nuclear look cheaper than tidal, when it's not. Don't be fooled by politically led twisted agendas!

 

[paul1609]

The thing is, tidal can bring other benefits for wildlife, or a road & rail line from Cardiff to Somerset etc

New finance model to cut cost of new nuclear power stations

Consumers will save more than £30 billion on each new large-scale nuclear station.

www.gov.uk

This provides a £30bn subsidy to each nuclear power station project via a levy on our taxes. This is in addition to the levy dealing with the waste!

Imagine such a subsidy on tidal power for the same output, without all those waste costs & benefits?

Clever trickery of funding & taxation somehow makes nuclear look cheaper than tidal, when it's not. Don't be fooled by politically led twisted agendas!

Its rather hypothetical when there is no tidal technology anywhere in the world where you could buy off the shelf a reliable 3 GW generator.
Yes the government could fund a very expensive development project that might provide that 25 or 30 years down the line but even then that's not guaranteed.
If the French had a proven tidal scheme working today that we could invest it for use in say 10 years I'd tend to agree with you but the reality is that despite the green lobby protestations that technology doesn't exist and yes Ive done the tour at Le Rance.

 

[Bald Rick]

The thing is, tidal can bring other benefits for wildlife, or a road & rail line from Cardiff to Somerset etc

New finance model to cut cost of new nuclear power stations

Consumers will save more than £30 billion on each new large-scale nuclear station.

www.gov.uk

This provides a £30bn subsidy to each nuclear power station project via a levy on our taxes. This is in addition to the levy dealing with the waste!

Imagine such a subsidy on tidal power for the same output, without all those waste costs & benefits?

Clever trickery of funding & taxation somehow makes nuclear look cheaper than tidal, when it's not. Don't be fooled by politically led twisted agendas!

It’s not a £30bn subsidy, it’s ‘simply’ a different way of financing it.

But even if it was a £30bn subsidy, then a tidal barrage project would be asking for much more!


And, frankly, a new railway line from Somerset to Cardiff wouldn’t pay its way, even if space could be found on top of s barrage to build one for free.

 

[Energy]

Loads, but the power available is small. One of my friends actually has one. I think its maximum output is 10kw, which it rarely achieves. Put another way, you’d need 320,000 of them to equal one Hinkley Point.

10kw is about 43A for 230v, enough for a home but if they had an electric car they'd still need a grid connection.

 

[jon0844]

Its rather hypothetical when there is no tidal technology anywhere in the world where you could buy off the shelf a reliable 3 GW generator.

I bet you could find one on AliExpress!!

 

[reddragon]

The Severn Barrage is priced at £10-34 bn for 8GW generations & a 120+ year life versus Hinkley C at £26bn for 3.2GW for a max 60 year life.

 

[paul1609]

The Severn Barrage is priced at £10-34 bn for 8GW generations & a 120+ year life versus Hinkley C at £26bn for 3.2GW for a max 60 year life.

There is actually no current pricing for the Severn Barrage as the last scheme collapsed in 2014 after it had been rejected by 3 independent committees of MPs and the government.
There is no actual agreement on the scope of the scheme so it is impossible to "price' it and then compare it to a known nuclear power station scheme. There are large environmental objections to all the schemes by organisations such as the RSPB and Friends of the Earth.
None of the engineering in terms of the generators etc is available off the shelf so you would be talking years of development before the scheme started generating other that in a prototype mode.
The La Rance tidal generator in St Malo which is Europes largest tidal scheme at 360 MW typically generates at around 21% of its peak capacity compared to around 95% for a Nuclear Power Station.
These are the facts of Tidal Generation in the UK in 2022. Anybody that is telling you that large schemes can be deployed in the immediate future is simply lying to you.

 

[Bald Rick]

The Severn Barrage is priced at £10-34 bn for 8GW generations & a 120+ year life versus Hinkley C at £26bn for 3.2GW for a max 60 year life.

There is no way, none, that a Severn Barrage would cost £34bn. It would be much, much more than that. And it wouldn’t generate 8GW for much time either!

 

[stuu]

I was at Canary Wharf yesterday and a noticeable proportion of cars/taxis were electric or hybrid. The difference in the amount of noise is quite something, you don't notice when it's one electric vehicle out of a line of traffic, but when it's three in a row it's very clear

 

[reddragon]

I was at Canary Wharf yesterday and a noticeable proportion of cars/taxis were electric or hybrid. The difference in the amount of noise is quite something, you don't notice when it's one electric vehicle out of a line of traffic, but when it's three in a row it's very clear

I used to count EVs on long trips & celebrated if I ever reached 10, now I can do that on a drive to the station or walking to school.

The first place I reached 100 was in Oslo in 2018, now in London you can do than in under an hour.

 

[Bald Rick]

I used to count EVs on long trips & celebrated if I ever reached 10, now I can do that on a drive to the station or walking to school.

The first place I reached 100 was in Oslo in 2018, now in London you can do than in under an hour.

I do the same on my walk to the station. I only count EVs with a driver in them.

Pre Covid it was 2 or 3 at most. Now it is usually 15-20, and never less than 10.

The London taxi situation is because of the regulations introduced by TfL 5 years ago (All new taxis must have 30 miles zero emission range, and total CO2 emissions lower than 50g/km, which essentially rules out almost all hybrids).

 

[The Ham]

I used to count EVs on long trips & celebrated if I ever reached 10, now I can do that on a drive to the station or walking to school.

The first place I reached 100 was in Oslo in 2018, now in London you can do than in under an hour.

Indeed, it wasn't that long ago it was unusual to see one, then it became regular to see one or two, then COVID happened which messed things up a bit, however the numbers I see, almost, on a daily basis just keep getting bigger and bigger, to the point that where it's almost you expect the next car to be electric of you've not seen one in a while.

 

[DC1989]

In the UK the latest DVLA statistics has 4.4% of the UK's private cars being Electric or Hybrid. Up from 3.2% a year earlier and 2.2% in 2020

In London it's up to 9.3%. With the new ULEZ zone coming in this should ramp up pretty quickly

 

[Bald Rick]

In the UK the latest DVLA statistics has 4.4% of the UK's private cars being Electric or Hybrid. Up from 3.2% a year earlier and 2.2% in 2020

In London it's up to 9.3%. With the new ULEZ zone coming in this should ramp up pretty quickly

The latest SMMT data for November had 20% of all newly registered cars as battery EVs, now outselling all diesel cars (inc diesel mild hybrids) by nearly 3:1. In total, Battery EVs, Plug in Hybrids and ‘plain’ hybrids almost outsold straight petrol for the first time.

prediction - by the end of next year we will have a month with over 30% of all cars sold being battery EVs.

As an aside, I suspect a boatload of Skoda Enyaqs docked in the month, as I’m suddenly seeing them everywhere!

 

[reddragon]

There are also ship loads of MG4s on the way plus surplus Tesla production from Shanghai coming our way too, then the 4m to 2y waiting list babklog of EVs to complete the picture!

 

[RailWonderer]

I was at Canary Wharf yesterday and a noticeable proportion of cars/taxis were electric or hybrid. The difference in the amount of noise is quite something, you don't notice when it's one electric vehicle out of a line of traffic, but when it's three in a row it's very clear

I heard an electric Lexus reverse and the electric motor noise reminded me of an electric train. If they find a way to make them make more noise I’d be in favour.

I almost got run over on a short section of country road with no pavement because a Toyota Prius driven by a mother late on the school run careened around a corner behind me and I didn’t hear it until it was inches away from me.

 

[jon0844]

I'd love to hear an EV accelerate making the sound of a 365!

 

[ashkeba]

I almost got run over on a short section of country road with no pavement because a Toyota Prius driven by a mother late on the school run careened around a corner behind me and I didn’t hear it until it was inches away from me.

Please no. We have a chance now to make the countryside quieter again, not replace thermal engine noise with droning artificial noise. The tyre noise is loud enough for most to hear.

 

[paul1609]

The latest SMMT data for November had 20% of all newly registered cars as battery EVs, now outselling all diesel cars (inc diesel mild hybrids) by nearly 3:1. In total, Battery EVs, Plug in Hybrids and ‘plain’ hybrids almost outsold straight petrol for the first time.

prediction - by the end of next year we will have a month with over 30% of all cars sold being battery EVs.

I think it will depend on:
1) the size of total new car registrations
2) the going rate for a domestic Kwh by then.
45p per kWh which is my home peak rate rather demolishes the financial case for the MG4 long range Id quite like.
Im afraid I can't face having to recharge by Peterborough and again at Wetherby and again at Penrith on the standard battery on trips to the Lakes.
It's not that my next car won't be an EV its just that I will put off replacing my current ICE vehicle for a few more years.