Electric cars and the grid..... it has begun.

[Kayos]

I don’t think any one believes that, no more than people believe batteries would ever able to supply the grid for a week. Everything I’ve read on grid sized storage talks of smoothing being in terms of hours, thus reducing the need for “peaker” type gas stations to kick in when demand is high. This is the sort of thing that batteries are good at, so surely it makes sense to use them?

I've given up trying to have a reasoned debate on the subject. I wish I could share more details of what I'm working on and what others are, but I do rather like being employed

 

[arther dailey]

It is my only vice
I burn reclaimed pallets. I wear clothes 20 years old and for 20 years never had a holiday so my carbon footprint must be pretty low!

I know you have more than one vice , but as for the pallets etc I can verify this to be totally true .

 

[daleyd]

I've given up trying to have a reasoned debate on the subject. I wish I could share more details of what I'm working on and what others are, but I do rather like being employed

 

[DAPPH]

Not that long ago you openly stated that you rag your car every day, so you can’t be that worried about it.

Knowing what Fizzy does to earn a living & employ others all enabled by daily trips in his motor, he can still be worried about pollution & global warming surely?

 

[fizzy]

I don’t think any one believes that, no more than people believe batteries would ever able to supply the grid for a week. Everything I’ve read on grid sized storage talks of smoothing being in terms of hours, thus reducing the need for “peaker” type gas stations to kick in when demand is high. This is the sort of thing that batteries are good at, so surely it makes sense to use them?

I totally agree but the number of times I see people claiming renewables are great and we can store the electricity is unbelievable. Many people really DO believe it!

 

[fizzy]

I've given up trying to have a reasoned debate on the subject. I wish I could share more details of what I'm working on and what others are, but I do rather like being employed

Why do you always think I am rubbishing what you do and take it personally? I am not. Self contained systems that save people/companies money I am all in favour of.
Like Brewdexta's system. If it saves him money that is brilliant.
Whilst electricity prices are so high all these different systems are very attractive.

 

[DAPPH]

So in the news today….we might get power cuts as our imported french power is in a bit of a shambles. So if you all let your leccy cars go flat over night we should be ok

I've got all the rechargeables recharged, the genny is now serviced & ready to go as well as me checking the two maintained battery backup lights are working when the power to them is removed .

 

[daleyd]

I totally agree but the number of times I see people claiming renewables are great and we can store the electricity is unbelievable. Many people really DO believe it!

I’m sorry but I don’t really follow the argument. Are you saying because we can’t store ALL excess energy we shouldn’t store some, thus reducing our dependency on fossil fuels a little? Or that we should wait until some unspecified point in the future when some as yet unknowable technology appears to allow us to store everything?

We have gone from producing the majority of our electricity from fossil fuel sources in previous decades to producing well over 40% annually in recent years. All this has happened because of little things being added and taken away, incrementally. That’s the way thing work, nothing is a magic bullet and nothing is going to solve “everything” in one go…

 

[Wozzaaah]

Knowing what Fizzy does to earn a living & employ others all enabled by daily trips in his motor, he can still be worried about pollution & global warming surely?

I do daily trips in my motor to earn a crust but I don't rag the hell out of it.
Well, not since I sold the Civic Type-R anyway.

 

[fizzy]

I do daily trips in my motor to earn a crust but I don't rag the hell out of it.
Well, not since I sold the Civic Type-R anyway.

See pot kettle black

 

[Mikes]

It is my only vice
I burn reclaimed pallets. I wear clothes 20 years old and for 20 years never had a holiday so my carbon footprint must be pretty low!

And run a pallet service which saves tonnes of carbon through uneconomical individual trips around the country.

 

[fizzy]

I’m sorry but I don’t really follow the argument. Are you saying because we can’t store ALL excess energy we shouldn’t store some, thus reducing our dependency on fossil fuels a little? Or that we should wait until some unspecified point in the future when some as yet unknowable technology appears to allow us to store everything?

We have gone from producing the majority of our electricity from fossil fuel sources in previous decades to producing well over 40% annually in recent years. All this has happened because of little things being added and taken away, incrementally. That’s the way thing work, nothing is a magic bullet and nothing is going to solve “everything” in one go…

It is down to the cost. Batteries are so expensive for so little gain. It is because renewables are so intermittent that we have become reliant on gas. It does nothing at all for our energy security when we are at the mercy of some very dodgy countries! Why do you think our leccy prices are so high?

 

[Wozzaaah]

See pot kettle black

I do less than 5000 miles a year though, so I deserved the odd bit of V-TEC enjoyment.
I drive a 1.2 litre Grampymobile now, no reward for driving it hard so I just pootle about in it.

 

[fizzy]

And run a pallet service which saves tonnes of carbon through uneconomical individual trips around the country.

It does indeed!

 

[fizzy]

I do less than 5000 miles a year though, so I deserved the odd bit of V-TEC enjoyment.
I drive a 1.2 litre Grampymobile now, no reward for driving it hard so I just pootle about in it.

That must have been a shock to the system! Mind you I rented a Renault Kajur thing in Portugal with a tiny little engine. It was so slow it was dangerous. Then I found that by turning off eco mode it would rev to 6000 - much better and was quite fun in it's own way.

 

[brewdexta]

And run a pallet service which saves tonnes of carbon through uneconomical individual trips around the country.

And the pallets can be recycled to create climate friendly heat too

 

[Wozzaaah]

That must have been a shock to the system! Mind you I rented a Renault Kajur thing in Portugal with a tiny little engine. It was so slow it was dangerous. Then I found that by turning off eco mode it would rev to 6000 - much better and was quite fun in it's own way.

I was only working part time and it was costing me too much to get to work and back.
Annoyingly, soon after I sold the Civic I got a transfer closer to home and have since been made up to full time hours so if I'd know all that was going to happen I could have kept it buy hey ho.
It's replacement is a Peugeot 308 with the 130bhp triple cylinder turbo "Puretech" engine, it's actually a nice little car and for a diddy little engine it pulls like a train.
My first ever car was a Hillman Avenger with a 1250cc engine, I think it had about half the HP the Peugeot has.

 

[daleyd]

It is down to the cost. Batteries are so expensive for so little gain. It is because renewables are so intermittent that we have become reliant on gas. It does nothing at all for our energy security when we are at the mercy of some very dodgy countries! Why do you think our leccy prices are so high?

No, not entirely - mainly we are reliant on gas because we have moved away from coal - look at the history of fuel usage since the early 90’s and you will see coal declining and gas correspondingly increasing - long before wind/solar became significant. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that had we not invested in renewables prices would be higher currently. The alternative would be to have kept coal, but that wasn’t going happen. I know you bang on about nuclear as well but that hasn’t happened either so we are where we are.

Let’s also not forget the main reason bills are currently so high - because ALL electricity supplies get the same price as the most expensive, including nuclear, wind, solar. So to say it’s simply “because, renewables” is not really correct. There’s no denying that needs fixing, but that’s not an issue with renewables rather a fault of the way the energy market works.

Neither of those arguments are reasons why we shouldn’t have at least some battery storage to replace intermittent gas station usage where we can though.

 

[maroon]

It is down to the cost. Batteries are so expensive for so little gain. It is because renewables are so intermittent that we have become reliant on gas. It does nothing at all for our energy security when we are at the mercy of some very dodgy countries! Why do you think our leccy prices are so high?

I'm under the assumption were still sat on a load of coal? Fire those back up. If the other country's start to pissnmoan about pollution then they should sell us the energy cheaper.
China have been doing it for years with our waste. We'll have a law that prevents us from doing something. China will buy it dirt cheap and sell us the processed materials back at extortionate cost as it's legal in that country. There's some right dodgy loopholes going on in that import export carry on.

 

[knighty]

I see everyone complaining about renewables not being able to meet demand in a lul and and batteries not being able to cover that lul....

who's decided how much renewable generation we'll have to know when it is or isn't enough?

if we need X number of wind turbines, Y number of solar panels and Z of other generation to cover us most of the time.... why not just install more? twice that much? three times that much?


if you want to see if from a local perspective, let's install a crap load of renewables and sell the excess power to france/wherever ?