Then there is this
Tesla batteries seen undercutting Australia’s $7.1b Marinus Link project (smh.com.au)
On a totally different scale but this is somewhat like my assertion that areas and towns will start to generate locally off the main grid.
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Then there is this
Tesla batteries seen undercutting Australia’s $7.1b Marinus Link project (smh.com.au)
On a totally different scale but this is somewhat like my assertion that areas and towns will start to generate locally off the main grid.
This is interesting, from what I can gather it is a suburban community mini grid but it is not clear if they are connected or totally disconnected from the main grid.
Perth suburbs chosen for $35 million virtual power plant combining solar and batteries (msn.com)
They're still connected AND they have to agree to give control of any major smart appliances over to the energy authority.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Parks
My guess this will means on a hot (40ºC) day and there's no Fremantle doctor you won't get your full AC in the evenings when everyone's ACs are still running flat chatQuote:
Residents who agreed to opt-in would have their appliances managed remotely."If you've got an energy asset that's using a lot of energy, we can communicate with that smart appliance for certain parts of the day and we can reduce the pressure by just asking that air conditioner to go to 75 or 50 per cent of its energy use."We'll only do it for 10 or 15 minutes in a way that customers don't even notice, but they get rewarded for participating.
Something odd apparently happened in the energy market last night. Ou energy provider, amber, who passes on wholesale rates, warned of price spikes forecast by the market operator. This happens occasionally but usually predicted well in advance, but yesterday there was almost no warning. The predicted price went sky high ($18/kwh) but in fact always resolved at the end of the interval to around 40c, which is marginally high but nothing special.
Apparently investigations are in hand. Annoying.
Found out a bit more - apparently handing control over will be optional and it comes with unspecified financial benefit.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobL
I assume this means rates for some of the power you draw back out off the grid in a non peak period will be reduced..
The control will not be used to turn things completely off but to reduce your appliances power draw - eg turning an AC down from 100% of 75 or 50%.
Something that has not widely been explained is that as we progressively transition to renewables, the demand for electricity will increase and this is for at least a couple of reasons. Firstly as we have discussed before there will be huge demand through the day to charge batteries to store energy for the "sunless" hours.
Secondly there will be a genuine increase in demand: All those forms of transport that now use petroleum fuels will go either directly to electric or if hydrogen gains a foothold indirectly. I don't have any figures for this, but I can imagine it to be a very significant increase.
Regards
Paul
I have made mention in the past on this thread that solar and wind power are unable to regulate frequency, which is an essential aspect of electrical generation. There are revenues to be made from participating in this aspect in addition to the MW pricing. However, I do need to point out that it is not impossible for solar and wind to regulate frequency, it is just that in Australia the owners of these renewable plants have chosen not to incorporate such mechanisms to allow this to happen (primarily because the technology is new and probably expensive too). The storage batteries are superb in this area and to some extent may be able to compensate for the deficiencies of renewables, but on a large enough scale this is probably down the track a way.
This article explains a little more if you are interested:
Let’s talk about FCAS – WattClarity
"FCAS" stands for Frequency Control and Ancillary Services.
Regards
Paul
A couple of interesting articles on supply, pricing and community batteries
Solar power prices are falling. What does this mean for our household electricity bills? - ABC News
Yackandandah's community battery may not be 'big' but it's enough to 'petrify' energy providers - ABC News
And how about this startlingly obvious idea....
Have a hill, plus excess cheap electricity? Well, put giant blocks of rock into carts and haul them up a hill.
When the juice is needed, roll them back down....
Just like stored hydro, but on rails :)
ARES North America '-' The Power of Gravity
https://youtu.be/KMRg4_ZbqYQQuote:
The GravityLineTM storage system is made up of multiple 5MW tracks and can vary in size from 5 MW to 1 GW of power and an equivalent range of energy (MWh to GWh) depending upon weight and number of mass cars, slope and distance. ARES’ GravityLineTM design boasts duration flexibility of between 15 mins and 10 hours
Was only talking about this to a mate the other day - what is the evening peak load going to look like when everyone gets home, chucks on the AC, turns on the oven and plugs in their electric car? Considering how many vehicles are in an average neighborhood, each with their own EV 15A charger drawing around 10A or more each is going to add up real quick. A lot of clients want us to install fast chargers which can draw up to 40A on a single phase supply, but often their mains don't have the capacity (house built pre 1980). Obviously they won't all be plugged in at the same time or drawing high current for the entire night, but we are certainly moving maximum demand on domestic consumer mains closer to capacity. I put 3 phase onto my place mainly for the shed machinery, but certainly had this in mind for futureproofing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bushmiller
I am thinking that these charging outlets will need to be on a timer or a load monitor to perform the charging with excess power or in off peak times in the early hours of the morning . As long as it is good to go for the next day that would work fineQuote:
Originally Posted by pintek
no different to your electric hot water system that only comes on at night.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beardy
Here's a thought, perhaps electric vehicles (when they finally achieve more than their current miniscule market penetration) will grant Australia's coal fired power stations a [near permanent] new lease of life.Quote:
Originally Posted by pintek
As we all know, the sun doesn't shine at night -- so no solar energy at night.
The wind also typically drops at night. Meaning that unless there is a stupendous number of wind turbines all attempting to spin all through the night (and then sitting idle during the day when the sun is shining) -- coal fired power will regain its king like power. Which is very not good for greenhouse gas emissions.
I can't see pumped hydro ever reaching the scale required to allow a 100% electric vehicle fleet to be charged during the night. As far as I know there is just not enough suitable sites that can be developed. And don't get me started on battery technology.
IanQuote:
Originally Posted by ian
I believe the electricity market dynamic will change .... again!
The peak period used to be during the winter when I first worked in power stations. Today it is the summer thanks to the widespread adoption of air conditioning. Traditionally, night time was a low period and certain concessions on pricing were offered to make use of surplus power such as off-peak water heating.
Perhaps the incentives will change to daytime for such things as water heating, pool pumps and charging your electric vehicle. This would further lessen the night demand and reduce, but by no means eliminate, the need for storage systems.
I too am sceptical of the ability of pumped hydro: I just don't think there is enough and during dry times (El Ninos outnumber La Ninas by four or five to one) the situation would be close to diabolical.
I mentioned a few posts back that overall electricity production would likely have to step up. These are some quotes I picked up by a report from AEMO.
"Coal-fired power generators are expected to shut down nearly three times faster than previously anticipated and will have exited the National Electricity Market (NEM) entirely by 2043, according to an updated plan from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO)."
"Demand for electricity is expected to double between now and 2050 to account for both the growth in demand and the shift away from other sources of energy, such as natural gas and petrol."
"Large-scale renewable generators like wind and solar farms will need to increase nine-fold, while smaller scale solar (such as rooftop and community solar panels) will need to grow five-fold."
The full story can be read here:
Early exit for coal as National Electricity Market prepares for renewable future (msn.com)
Regards
Paul
EV charging energy demands may not turn out to be quite as bad as it seems.
Most cars are not on the road all day, or don't sit out on streets during they day, they sit at home, or in various forms of car parks. Smart employers that provide parking could add charging stations, as will places like shopping centres etc, so some cars won't need to be charged at night.
The other major factor is very few EV batteries will need to be completely recharged from scratch - the average Australian vehicle only does 36km a day.
Here's a quick BOTE calculation - someone might want to check this - I'm suffering from concussion from a heavy base saucepan falling onto my head.
IF a 70KWh battery gets you 400k that means a daily average of 6.3 kwh is needed for recharging .
As of Jan 2021 there were about 20 million registered vehicles in Australia.
If all of these were electric (and they won't, and vehicle replacement won't happen overnight) this means and average of 120 GWh of energy will be needed every day for vehicle recharging
x 365days = 44 TWhr /yr
Total annual electricity production in Australia in ~200 TWhr so a solely EV fleet recharging will require about a 20% increase in total electrical supply. If half the vehicles can charge during the day (conservative in my estimate, especially if suitable incentives are provided) using excess solar, then it comes down to about a 10% increase not that much in the overall scheme of things.
The side benefits are not to be sneezed at.
- significantly reduced vehicle particulate emissions (we still need to talk about tyres) - hence improved health and quality of life - thereby saving money
- improved balanced of payments from not needing to import as much fuel.
- more secure energy sources for vehicles - ie reduced reliance on OS suppliers for vehicle fuel.
The fact that the Govt is not all over the latter 2 aspects shows the power of petroleum companies.
I looked up the amount of fuel imported for 2020-21. https://www.energy.gov.au/sites/default/files/Australian%20Petroleum%20Statistics%20-%20Issue%20302%20September%202021.pdf
For petrol alone it's around 8G.
Diesel is 22 GL, but most of that will be for agriculture and industrial purposes rather than daily commuter vehicles.
Further to BobLs excellent post....
-- EVs are storage batteries too
-- I'd imagine they benefit from not being charged to 100% every time, every day, but (perhaps) about 80%
-- Excess juice can be syphoned off 20 million cars into the vehicles that need it
I'd imagine most EV aren't simply dumb repositories. I'm vaguely aware that Teslas send a bunch of telemetry and diagnostics back home each night to The Great AI that does Something with it....
I'd also imagine that the government might set a base of information and open standards that need to be applied to all EV's, just like they did with OBD2 diagnostics. Since manufacturers refused to play nice with OBD diagnostics, governments forced them to. EVs nightly diagnostics might be the same.
SO!
--> Why not charge them up while the sun shines and the wind blows....
--> And suck them down to 60 or 80% when it doesn't....
--> Pay EV owners c/Kw
And everyone wins.
If one does expect a long trip, or set of trips, this coming day/week then log in to the management tool and select "fill er up!"....
In bobLs case, 20 million batteries is a lot of reserve... along with home batteries, home wind generators and other crafty micro generators.
And furthermore, supplying the sort of infrastructure required for BobL's solution is not expensive.
All it would need would be a standard double GPO per pair of car spaces, probably with rooftop solar directly on the carpark.
After all, 6A current -> ~1.4KW charging rate -> 6-7KWh in around 4-5 hours. So nothing more than a standard power outlet.
Some examples of electric vehicles:Quote:
Originally Posted by markkr
BMW i3 -- Battery 42.2 kWh, Range 160 km -- infrastructure required 9.6 kW (4x what a 10A fuse can support), charge time 4.5 hours.
BMW iX -- Battery about 680 kWh, Range 470 km -- infrastructure required 9.6 kW, charge time 11.5 hours.
GM BOLT -- Range about 400 km -- infrastructure required 7.68 kW (3.2x what a 10A fuse can support), charge time 10 hours.
Kia Kona -- battery 78 kWh, Range about 240 km -- infrastructure required 4 kW (1.7x what a 10A fuse can support), charge time 19.5 hours.
If you are using your roof top solar to do the charging, you really should dispense with the DC to AC converter.
Wire the power points to deliver DC from the roof panels.
So I will strongly disagree with your assessment that the infrastructure is "not expensive".
AFAIK, all those vehicle "chargers" will require a dedicated circuit wired back to the main electrical panel.
as an example, 6A charging a 42.2 kWh battery at 1.4 kW/hr will take about 30 hours to fully charge the smallest battery (BMW i3) among those example vehicles.
What you have posted Ian is absolutely correct, except my understanding from Bob's post was that he was referring to recharging of that day's usage, which is only the 6-7KWh required for the mean 36km driven in typical urban daily use (the majority of usage). This sort of 'trickle charging' would not be appropriate for long distance travel.
The double inversion is a valid point, but the intent of my post was to posit as simple a solution as possible from the point of view of installation for widespread use of the excess daytime available PV output that I understand Bob was referring to.
The charger is built into the car it is only the supply that needs installation.
At an average of only 36km (6.3kW) a day, most cars won't need to recharge at 10A.
To recharge overnight.6.3kWh can be done at 0.5kW over 12 hours.
Most people don't fill up every day - most fill up say about once a week AND the tank is usually not empty. You'll need to get used to going home and plugging in. Car might not charge till 3am.
BobQuote:
Originally Posted by BobL
As I mentioned, the dynamic will change. Cars will charge during the day at preferential rates not during the night. It occurred to me that we could see charging facilities similar to parking meters. Just a supposition as i have not heard of this being proposed.
Regards
Paul
I feel you are all getting yourselves into a tizzy.
The dynamics will change.
One will leave the car plugged in 100% of the time. It will "sell" electricity when expensive, charge (buy) when cheap.
It seems trivial to log into a server, or use the cars Ap, that can manage all this and tick a box the equivalent of:
-- charge only when rates are cheapest
-- sell when high
-- Im driving to PERTH, fill er up cap'n
-- Drain my House Battery and pump it into the Beast
Just like you don't drive around with your fuel tank full all the time, neither will EVs.
BushMiller is right about the Parking Meter chargers. I saw these in Denmark. They work EXACTLY as you'd expect. The vehicles supply a buffer to the cities grid and one receives free parking. Otherwise you are .... charged.... ba-dum-tiss!
I understand that BobL was talking about the average daily kms. Not the mode (most frequent km value) nor the median (the middle value of km travelled). I understand that the average is calculated by dividing the total kms travelled in the last year -- as recorded on NSW Pink slips -- by the number of days in the year.Quote:
Originally Posted by markkr
So on that basis, the average ICE vehicle travels just over 13,000 km/year --> using BobL's average of 36 km per day.
To use your own excess solar panel output to charge an electric vehicle, the vehicle has to be parked at your home and plugged into your own roof top panels. Not that easy to do in certain inner city suburbs where the majority of parking is 'on street' and few properties have roof top solar fitted -- for reasons which include the property is rented or a unit.
I believe the typical vehicle is used during the week to commute to work, the local train station or the shops.
If the vehicle is being used to access the local train station, plugging it in to trickle charge in the middle of the night -- using wind, or nuclear generated electricity -- is almost certainly viable.
BUT if it's being used to commute to work or go to the shops, the roof of the employment location or the your shopping centre and it's associated car park is not large enough to supply the power the office or shops need for lighting, cooling, etc., PLUS also charge an electric vehicle.
Comments
I can’t help but think EV’s as we know them won’t be around long and we will transition to some form of fuel cell.
This talk of an average of 36k a day is just a statistic so is misleading to how vehicles get used here in Australia. Those sort of travel patterns are fine for city folk commuting to the shops or train station but doesn’t cut it for the broader community
The infrastructure to accommodate the EV is substantial so we need to make sure that is the direction the technology is heading.
There's plenty of spare power around doing the day, with the 20,000 houses fitted with solar surrounding a shopping centre or any other workplace easily producing on average about 10kW of excess power. The issue is distribution - the shopping centre will need to be able to handle the power requirements . Of course this is not going to happen overnight - Initially I would expect charging stations to be available to senior management, then maybe loyalty customers. Eventually charging infrastructure will just become part of the initial build of any premises.Quote:
Originally Posted by ian
I agree with you about the issue of recharging the vehicles associated with the large numbers of appartments and dwellings with vehicles parked on streets etc.
Interestingly Europe is much more of this kind of society than Australia (especially western Australia) but this issue does not seem to have held back EV uptake and they are miles or kilometres ahead of us on that score..
Shell is getting in on this with smart street lamppost charging systems, see ubitricity: public EV lamp post charge points for everyone.
This is only just getting started eg First installation of ubitricity EV lamp post charge points in Dublin
Once again its not going to happen overnight :)
Why does a BEV need charging every day, we don't put petrol in our ICE cars every day. In my case I fill my car about once a month but that is not normal but if I was working I would put petrol in every 10 days or so. Frequency of charging is dependent on the range of a charge and even the shortest range BEV will last more than a day unless the commute is longer than normal. I can think of one where a lot of people travel long distances as a normal commute and that is Wollongong to Sydney which would be exceptionally hard on a BEV due to the climb out of Wollongong. Some BEV's would simply not have the range to do that return trip every day, the new Mazda being one. It is all horses for courses and no single answer suits all. As for fuel cells that is not going to happen in the first generation of vehicles that replace the ICE fleet no matter what Toyota would like. It is staggering how far the Japanese have lagged behind the Europeans in planning the move to BEV's.
VW plans to spend 89 Billion on the move to BEV's. VW Will Build More EVs to Beat Tesla in Europe (autoweek.com)
Compared to the introduction of ICE vehicles we are around 1910 when service stations did not exist as we know them today and the range of the car was limited to the amount of fuel that could be carried.
I was speaking with a guy from the US and they are having issues getting enough power into the Condos to charge EV’s.The tenants are happy to pay their end but the capacity is not in the street
The network is just not designed to accommodate the additional loads, I assume we will have similar issues
All these power arguments remind me of
- there has to be a man walking in front of and carrying a flag of every motor vehicle
- the noise will frighten the horses
- there won't be enough rubber for the tyres.
- there won't be enough oil/petrol for the fuel
- a steam ship cannot carry enough coal to cross the Atlantic.
- heavier than air flying appliances? - Not a chance!
- Iron ships - HA!
Instead of just coming up with excuses/barriers - how about directing some energy to solutions?
Bob it is not a criticism I am just pointing out the reality of the situation. It will be a big project and expensive so we need to know that this is the new technology in the longer term before we get too far down the track.
Sure - I appreciate there will be (many) problems but we are so far back in the pack we can learn a lot from others, like NorwayQuote:
Originally Posted by Beardy
An interesting read is the lengthy Wikipedia entry for plug-in EVs in Norway
Plug-in electric vehicles in Norway - Wikipedia
There's a lot in there about "incentives" and "charging patterns" and how they change as the fleet size increases.
The BIG difference for mainland Oz is they're able to use all Hydro power at night to recharge so we're going to have to rely on some other form of storage. Tassie should be OK.
There's loads of "low hanging fruit vehicles" that can get on the bandwagon early (city delivery fleets etc) unfortunately vehicle owners in (old) apartments are probably going to be at the end of the queue.
Funny -- somewhatQuote:
Originally Posted by woodPixel
I've mentioned before that I currently live in Canada.
My part of Canada gets a little bit cold -- like several consecutive days where the maximum doesn't get above -30 deg C. The month of February, in particular, can be brutal. Don't ask.
When I last looked into getting a Tesla EV, my questions to the sales person revolved around the Tesla's range when the battery is very cold. When a Tesla's battery gets very cold, the vehicle's range drops so far that a 180 km return journey -- 90km each way -- became an iffy proposition. My options were:
1) to leave with a full charge and allow 30 mins to top up the charge at the halfway point (after 90 km), or
2) to put a Honda genset in the boot so I could guarantee that the journey could be completed without running out of juice 5 km short of my home.
In the end, given my then driving requirements, an internal combustion engine was the better option.
Wouldn't the battery warm up when you start using it, restoring the range.Quote:
Originally Posted by ian
What do you make of this, is it just propaganda?
The end of coal is coming 3 times faster than expected. Governments must accept it and urgently support a 'just transition'
BeardyQuote:
Originally Posted by Beardy
That statement came from AEMO and in fact I posted it back in post #214 as I thought it significant that the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) that governs electricity generation on the eastern seaboard should make such a prediction. While I don't know if it will eventuate, I don't believe it is propaganda.
Regards
Paul
I don't really know, but EV range performance has something to do with temperature of the environment -- the Tesla salesperson knew that at -30 C, driving at freeway speeds, guaranteeing the Tesla could get 180 km of range (equivalent to 110 miles) was iffy. I believe that when I was asking in late 2017, the Tesla's battery was fitted with a thermal management system,Quote:
Originally Posted by BohdanWouldn't the battery warm up when you start using it, restoring the range.Quote:
Originally Posted by ian
quoting from Lithium-Ion Batteries Deconstructed: Why They are Terrible in the Cold - autoevolutionIn low temperatures [below 0C], performance drops significantly because the chemical reaction is simply slowed down, but only when it comes to discharging the battery. Li-ion batteries can actually power an EV at - 40 degrees Celsius (- 40 Fahrenheit), albeit with a reduced discharge rate and only if they are fitted with thermal management systems, but there is simply no way you will be able to charge them at those temperatures because they simply slow down too much. (my emphasis)
And from BU-502: Discharging at High and Low Temperatures - Battery University
<figcaption style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; font-size: 12px; margin: 15px 0px text-align: center; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);">Figure 1: Discharge voltage of an 18650 Li-ion cell at 3A and various temperatures [1]</figcaption>
Cell type: Panasonic NRC18650PD, 2.8Ah nominal, LiNiCoAlO2 (NCAmy best guess is that the Tesla salesperson was extrapolating the potential range from the Panasonic -20 deg C data.
and for those who would like to read more
An Experimental Study of a Lithium Ion Cell Operation at Low Temperature Conditions - ScienceDirect
Good stuff.
I'd imagine the same goes for here in Oz where the temps can get pretty damn hot.
Hot batteries seem like a VERY bad idea! :)
My understanding is that one of the limitations of Lithium Ion batteries is their propensity for catching fire if they are charged too rapidly. I also believe that this is particularly pertinent during the last stage of charging and is why many of the charging rates quoted go to only 80%. The last part has to be performed more gently: You don't want to melt the Tesla.
Regards
Paul
That is the downfall of the Nissan Leaf as it does not have active cooling in the battery packs.Quote:
Originally Posted by woodPixel
I see no one has offered an explanation as to why an electric car has to be charged every day for the average commute, I guess the simple answer is it doesn't have to be recharged every night/day and the grid will not be supplying to an electric car every time it is used and thus won't implode at 7pm every night.