Oil tight Austin Seven?

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Can I listen in, please?

[jansens]

Scotland for a pint, I can do that one day!

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Pints of Malt awaiting your arrival....

[jansens]

Technically, being a glutard, I shouldn't but you've convinced me. I was planning a trip over that side of the world this year but expensive house repairs have put that off somewhat.

[stuartu]

In addition to the points Simon raises, a further question that interests me is, will the infrastructure to supply enough power be in place?

We have been known to get power cuts if everyone switches on their electric ovens at the same time. It's all very well having 68% of your electricity provided from renewable sources but what fraction of the potential demand is that when everyone who currently has an ICE powered car is charging up their electric runabout? However clever the battery technology, you still need enough energy to feed it.

How long does it take to build a power station? How many more will we need?

Now may be the only time an electric vehicle is a practical proposition, while there aren't too many of them.

Regards,
Stuart

[Ruairidh Dunford]

I hear you Stuart - we need many solutions, some yet to be found!

In Scotland we have an interesting solution to dealing with short term power surges and energy gluts at low usage times, see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruachan_Power_Station

[jansens]

When I was working for the EV place in the 90s that was one of the things they considered. When on 3 phase power you could actually put power back into the grid. We literally ran the meter backwards. The idea was all these battery packs could be used to even out local power demand surges (it could also correct for power factor which was cool). I find it amusing that now, over 20 years later, people mention this as a new idea.

Currently the way they handle it is with power pricing and offering cheaper rates later in the evenings (say after 9pm) to get people to charge after the early evening peak. Is that sustainable when more people do it is hard to say. I think some of the home chargers are smart enough now that you can tell them what hours to charge between.

One of the things I have noticed is a lot of the talk about EVs and the advantages is based on there not being many around. For example the 20 minute charging time on the road doesn't seem so bad if the charger is available which, with few cars on the road, is likely. They never mention the wait if you're the third in line for the charger say!

Simon

[Ruairidh Dunford]

I find it amusing that now, over 20 years later, people mention this as a new idea.

I think Cruachan was started in 1959...

[Chris KC]

Pints of Malt awaiting your arrival....

Strewth! Count me in...

[jansens]

I mean the idea of using plugged in EVs as short term storage. Same idea on a smaller but more distributed scale. I was never sure how consumers would take to the idea though, telling them you plug your car in to charge but sometimes we'll take power back out of it! And I am sure the power companies would find a way to charge you for both directions.

That's cool how the turbines at Cruachan work both ways around, as generators and as pumps.