Will The Next-Gen Grid Upgrade Prove The EV Haters Wrong?

EV critics have long decried the state of the UK's national grid, claiming it can't handle the demand of electric vehicles. And yet, the grid is coping just fine. What's more, there's a new technology around the corner that may prove a gamechanger for the grid. So to find out what's going on, stick around as Dave Takes It On.

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[ianmac]

Great points, thanks Dave. in the last week we have had 3 x 1hour free electric from Octopus, we get 24 hours notice, plug the car in, set the timer on the charger to come on 5 minutes before the hour(warm up). load the washing, and set the timer on the emersion heater. that's a few quid not fortunes but hey its quick and easy free money!

[RickBeton]

Just a minor point: average consumption per household may be 8kWh per day, but this average is misleading. It includes millions of households that still depend on gas or oil heating.

We'll see a much higher average as homes switch to electric heating eg. heat pumps. As long as it's affordable, this is of course a Good Thing in the green transition.

[raymondleury]

I estimate that here in Canada, up to 90% of people will be able to charge at home. Because of our cold weather, we have outlets for "block heaters" (a device that keeps the motor warm so it starts in cold weather). We think that just like block heater plugs, EV charging will be ubiquitous in any parking where there is an assigned parking space (at home). There are some places where cars don't have an assigned parking spot, but that is only the case in high density cities like old parts of a few cities in Canada. Yes, building capacity allows that because of the low demand at night.

[GiovanniMazzeo-rn]

I like the idea's of battery storage in general whether it's at a site or at the house, makes alot of sense to me!

[hansj]

UK domestic and commercial electricity consumption is down 22% since 2010.
Total electricity usage is reduced by 91000 GWh since it peaked in 2005.... I didn't notice any blackouts then 😂
This is nothing to worry about.

[peterjones]

Most properties use a out 7 kwh per day, which is about 10% of the average EV battery, so not deep cycling if the battery if you do it sensibly.

[garrycroft]

Most of today and most of tomorrow I am being paid to take as much electricity as I can take. I don’t have Solar panels or a backup battery but I do have an apartment and an electric car. So how is this possible? Well I’m with Octopus Agile and when it’s breezy they pay me to take the excess power.

[Joe-lbqn]

I currently run 99% (literally) off peak thanks to a home battery. Thats dropped my electricity costs for the home by about 70%.
Battery costs are getting so low that it may be that V2x isnt needed for gridbalancing, because at say £4k for an average home, a battery thats always there always connected and can be easily managed by software that loads and unloads as needed (such software alread there from the likes of Octopus and others) the additional complexity of fitting in vehicle batteries may not be needed.
Plus from what I've seen thoug it may change, the costs of the hardware needed to to do V2G are equivalent to a home battery and home battery prices are falling fast, whilst V2G will not decline at the same rate.

[Grizzold-HP]

Strange thing is, in the Netherlands the electricity providers will pay Solarpanel owners to switch off the panels in periods the grid has to much energy . . .
The providers could also use money to make battery storage and use that surplus energy, but rather pay people to not make it in the first place. . . . .

[solentbum]

We have a home set up that uses off peak mains and solar to charge a battery pack, which then supplies the house as necessary, all automatically.

[rugbygirlsdadg]

The main issue to me appears to be the number of different battery/inverter manufacturers.
All havd different software interfacex/command sets.
For example, octopus only supports two or three car chargers (Zappi, Ohme) and one (to my knowledge) home battery inverter, Givenergy.
Also, there are currently a limited number of cars which support VTx and an even more limited range of chargers.
For example, Skoda only support it on the 80kWh models.

[briangriffiths]

I think that your take on the National Grid could be seen as offensive. Sure there are issues but these are as a result of the licence conditions and failure of Ofgem to gear up quickly. The Grid in Scotland is run by SSE (The Hydro) in the north and Scottish Power in the south and National Grid south of the border. By reviewing the DNO operations and linking with the Grid some 8 GW of additional capacity for new generation has just been released. The Grid itself has the capacity to carry 75 GW except that with renewable generation tending to be at the periphery of the Grid as designed for fossil fuels there are points of constraint where power has to be turned off. Compare this to say your home ring circuits where in your kitchen you might have one circuit for dishwasher, kettle, toaster and tumble drier which together consume 30 amps. You could not plug a 2 kW heater into that circuit. We have a similar problem in Scotland where new wind farms connected into the Grid in Caithness have to be turned down because the lines running south from Beauly and Peterhead are at their limit. But The Hydro is investing to carry power south from Beauly to Denny via an upgraded 2nd circuit and an HVDC link from Peterhead to Drax. Scottish Power has some £30 billion of works just started and out to tender to get power flowing through the Central Belt towards the Scottish Border and the substation at Harker is being rebuilt to provide for much more power to flow into England from Scotland. All the Vehicle to Grid stuff is a misnomer, it is more relevant to call it vehicle to DNO. It will sort out the stress on the local power networks.

[michaelmcnally]

Well what I would point out is that the EV nay sayers actually say that is if everyone was to replace their ICE cars with EV overnight then the grid couldn't cope, and the grid would need an upgrade to cope with the demand of everyone having EV cars
You then proceed to talk about an upgrade to the next-gen grid.
Which does kind of make their point.
They say it needs an upgrade, and here you are talking about an upgrade.
Not saying it is a bad thing but it does kind of make there point for them, where talking about an upgrade.
The grid is always getting upgraded as would expect so it is a bit of a pointless point but it does show that it isn't really untrue what they claim, just that it is a pointless claim as there isn't that overnight replacement of ICE with EV.

[bangkokbullmoto]

Does it yet make sense to fit free solar/battery to UK houses, funding from not building new nuclear and other power plants, nor massive grid update (as house will not be drawing much power)? It is also a way of proofing against bombing attacks during either war or via terrorism.

[oliverowner]

In the UK, most home chargers (on a single phase supply) can provide 7 kW, or a little more, to the car. I don’t expect that same supply is going to feed back any more power than that - or it would be over-loaded.🙂

This high grid demand period is usually 16:00 - 20;00h each ‘normal’ day. Go work out the maths. It can’t be too difficult to see that the battery is not normally going to be stressed. My EV limits the VTL to above 40% (I think) of battery charge level.

On top of that, one might be aware that DNOs don’t allow more than 3.6kW to be supplied to the grid for solar energy home generation (on single phase), so don’t get too fussed about depleting the car battery….

[stephenbrickwood]

Remove grid costs to customers and grid expansion costs then the economics is brilliant. Brilliant 👏 👏 👏
Petroleum costs are removed except for road building and maintenance and petrochemical industry and emergency use.

[franciscoshi]

We are already doing that. We have 180kWh worth of batteries and 40kW worth of inverters. We buy electricity during the day when the price is next to nothing and sell it back during peak demand for a profit. The funny thing is that the batteries we are using are the ones the trolls claim are going to land fill.

[Gazer]

I would never accept my battery being used to power others. I'd have to be extremely well paid for it to cover wear and tear on an expensive battery. Maybe V2H in a pinch, but the grid here in Norway is green anyway. The wind and solar farms can buy used EV batteries and set up grid storage instead tbh.
The difference between buying and selling from my EV would have to be high enough to offset all the charging cycles which obviously are not unlimited on a battery.

[snodgee]

The grid can’t cope that’s why they are doing the great grid upgrade, the Isle of Wight ferry was going to go electric but they can’t get a 3 mega watt supply

[johndoyle]

Thanks, I would love vehicle to home in the Winter, but I just export in Summer at 15p/Kwh after buying at 7p overnight.For about 8 months I only use cheap overnight rate, but Winter is difficult unless you have a big battery.
V2H is currently very expensive and limited, you could use the adapter to run a few things but not connected to the house.
Octopus are giving free electricity for 1 hour periods, hope this continues in Winter, doubt it as no solar, but it would be good to top up the home battery.
Finally the "I am not having a smart meter fitted" brigade will miss out and pay more.