Electricity Supply

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

NDIY, the improvements that you list having carried out to your house almost mirror the improvements to mine, cavity insulation, loft insulation, replacement doors and windows, we haven’t sealed our flue in the living room but have installed an inset wood burner which generates a large amount of heat that circulates throughout the house meaning the condensing gas boiler only needs to provide some background heating, meaning low gas bills. Recently had solar PV panels fitted on the roof, so far this last winter we reduced our electricity bills by £50 a month and we also get a payment for all solar electricity that is generated so a win win situation. Next project will be a battery to store solar generated electricity but not till the prices come down to a sensible level. I keep threatening the wife I would like to erect a wind turbine in the side garden to make use of the wind, we live in a coastal area so no shortage of wind, she is not keen on the turbine idea. In respect of modern houses I personally wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole, there are currently 5 estates of new houses being built in or around our village, watching them go up I shudder at how tacky they are, even down to a fake fibreglass chimney perched on the roofs. They may be a more thermally efficient building than mine was when built but will they last, I think the jury is still out on that.

Dave W

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

UK energy use

Suprisingly we appear to be reducing total energy demand albeit importing a heck of a lot more as a percentage. If we switch to an electric based system and try to go renewable then the figures are quite scary – something of the (guesstimated) order of a 50 fold increase in off-shore wind and a huge increase in solar deployment (every south facing roof and road embankment?). Wind I understand has an order of 80x payback for deployment compared to solar in the UK at about 4x. Allowing for calm and sunless times one also needs a method of storage.. molten salt apparently is one method, perhaps with enough space leccy one could consider electrolysis and H2. Biomass is a waste of farmland better used for crops and CO2 sequestration

Undoubtedly there needs to be a will to succeed and undoubteldy we are going to be forced along that route. At least there is a benefit to reduced imports and balancing our lousy economy.

Of course none of this makes a jot of difference unless the rest of the world complies.

[doubletopParticipant @doubletop]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 13/06/2019 10:11:08:

Posted by Doubletop on 12/06/2019 21:01:17:

Posted by Alan Bone on 12/06/2019 19:28:52:

I don't see renewable energy as a one-for-one alternative to fossil fuels. Instead I see them as a way of softening the blow. Ideally most people most of the time can carry on. Otherwise, given time, people always adapt to what's available.

…

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 13/06/2019 10:13:25

Dave

Thats exactly what Transpower said in their document that I quoted

We will see the mainstream commercialisation of distributed solar, electric vehicles and energy management systems. These will start to significantly change the profile of demand and operation of the system with solar and batteries as well as other distributed energy resources enabling load to be partially flattened within a day but also adding additional intermittency. Despite growth in distributed supply, there will also be significant growth in grid energy demand. In the short and medium term we do not expect these batteries and distributed energy resources to be sufficient to flatten the daily or annual load curve, however it has an important potential to shave off peaks and it is critically important that it doesn’t accentuate existing peaks and troughs

[Anonymous]

Posted by Samsaranda on 13/06/2019 11:00:51:

…………………so far this last winter we reduced our electricity bills by £50 a month

Wow, that's quite a bit more than I pay in total per month for electricity. Obviously I'm not using my machine tools enough!

Andrew

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Farmboy,

You have completely missed the point, once again.

Liquid petroleum burned as liquid fuel for transport is very inefficient, – I repeat that petrol engines are only a little over 25% efficient. Diesel are more like 30% efficient.

The same amount of electrical power as the energy content of the fuel is just not required! Electric vehicles are over 70% efficient (indeed, the Tesla electric motors were 93% efficient and the latest versions are 97% efficient. Compare 25% to 90% and you might understand that only one third of electrical energy is needed compared to energy input for internal combustion engined transport!

Burning oil to raise steam is only about 40% efficient as an electricity generating energy source (much the same as coal), but if utilised in the same manner as combined cycle gas powered plants the efficiency could rise to about 60%.

So your sums are totally flawed. Using all that oil efficiently, could provide twice the amount of electricity needed to replace the oil as liquid transport fuel. Instead of 69GW (your units seem to be all at sea – as power is not energy), assuming your poor use of units is still providing the correct numerical values, only about 20GW extra of electricity would be required. Current maximum generation of the grid is currently about 50GW (little leeway for any unplanned outages) and average grid usage about 35 GW.

Clearly, without extra generators, the extra power required (20GW could not be provided – and certainly not in winter. In twenty or thirty, or more, years time, it could be. But the simple point is that your sums are a completely worthless. Comparing gross heat energy with nett electricity requirement is FLAWED.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Farmboy,

You have completely missed the point, once again.

Liquid petroleum burned as liquid fuel for transport is very inefficient, – I repeat that petrol engines are only a little over 25% efficient. Diesel are more like 30% efficient.

The same amount of electrical power as the energy content of the fuel is just not required! Electric vehicles are over 70% efficient (indeed, the Tesla electric motors were 93% efficient and the latest versions are 97% efficient. Compare 25% to 90% and you might understand that only one third of electrical energy is needed compared to energy input for internal combustion engined transport!

Burning oil to raise steam is only about 40% efficient as an electricity generating energy source (much the same as coal), but if utilised in the same manner as combined cycle gas powered plants the efficiency could rise to about 60%.

So your sums are totally flawed. Using all that oil efficiently, could provide twice the amount of electricity needed to replace the oil as liquid transport fuel. Instead of 69GW (your units seem to be all at sea – as power is not energy), assuming your poor use of units is still providing the correct numerical values, only about 20GW extra of electricity would be required. Current maximum generation of the grid is currently about 50GW (little leeway for any unplanned outages) and average grid usage about 35 GW.

Clearly, without extra generators, the extra power required (20GW could not be provided – and certainly not in winter. In twenty or thirty, or more, years time, it could be. But the simple point is that your sums are a completely worthless. Comparing gross heat energy with nett electricity requirement is FLAWED.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Andrew, we as a household are big energy users, previously our combined electricity and gas was costing us a direct debit of £135 a month. Need to explain that I have two large ponds in our garden, both using power for circulating pumps, air pumps, and UV sterilisers, these are working 24 hours a day so approx 8kw per day, a lot of energy. The install of solar PV has meant a big reduction in energy usage from the grid, we also now observe the rules of using the washer, dryer and dishwasher whenever the sun is shining, that means free electric, I am sure my wife will also cotton on to restricting use of lathe and mills to only when the sun is shining. The install of solar PV has certainly made us very aware of our energy usage.

Dave W

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

There are issues with retrofit cavity insulation like damp as moisture is transmitted between outer leaf and inner as we found out (1965 bungalow) on a wall that faces the prevailing weather. That cavity insulation was removed as I can live with slight increase in heating bill but not damp. Probably compensated for that loss of insulation when I had the garage/workshop built on the end as the whole roof was insulated at rafter level with 120mm of Kingspan/Celotex between and over rafters.

[doubletopParticipant @doubletop]

More from Transpower. This time their views on battery storage from a grid owners perspective.

**LINK**

The conclusion being that its better done at the consumer end of the network. Which aligns with suggestion of using your EV as a battery backup and to feed power back to the grid. You EV probably has the biggest battery you own.

What it does to the lifecycle of the battery is another consideration.

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

Regarding ground-source heat pumps, I recall my physics teacher, forty years ago, telling the class that we could all install them but we'd very soon have a thick layer of permafrost.

Incidentally, around the same time, I seem to remember that the experts were telling us we were heading for another Ice Age – "polar bears on the Thames" springs to mind.

[FarmboyParticipant @farmboy]

More good news if you're Australian; not only does the continent have generous reserves of fossils fuels, there's also plenty of sun! It may be necessary for 60,000,000 winging poms to move in…

But if we all move there, surely the World will tilt on its axis and Australia will end up at the south pole

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

Given that Oil Tankers are being attacked in the Gulf things might come to a head rapidly and which of type of power we use in our cars and homes might become one of the lesser worries in life.

We might even have to start digging dirty coal and stop closing power stations fuelled by it, who knows where it all might end up!

Pessimist thinking over for today, the Wife says “we” are going shopping.

Edited By V8Eng on 14/06/2019 10:32:32

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

One solution to the range problem for EVs might be to only allow them to be made with say 100km range for lightness and hence efficiency but arrange for small power trailers with say a 3ookm range that you hire part way down the motorway. It would power you while also charging your internal battery and you would drop it off 50km from your destination. To combat a shortage/pile of them in the wrong place the remaining diesel trucks running in the opposite direction would receive a small payment for pulling a train of half a dozen to another location, perhaps recharging them a bit with regenerative braking on the downhills.

Another big change is needed in planning for domestic solar and wind. I have room for both but National Parks would stamp on the idea and anyway the application fee alone would be about ten years electricity cost after allowing for interest on the expenditure let alone capital repayment.

[doubletopParticipant @doubletop]

Here we go, and no mention of EV's

government-s-energy-policy-could-drive-electricity-prices-up-39-percent

[Stuart BridgerParticipant @stuartbridger82290]

Ref Ground Source heat pumps. I have been running one for coming up 13 years.
They do work best with very well insulated homes with underfloor heating and I have neither! Though the former has been much improved, which has helped with running costs. We run it with radiators. It works well, but we do supplement it with a wood burner in the winter. The ground loop is about 5 feet underground and does reach temperatures of 20C in the summer. For the first year I did used to regularly check the temperatures regularly, but now I just let it run. In the winter the ground loop can get well below freezing and the system efficiency does drop as the pump has to work harder with the greater differential.

Our village has no gas, so it is either Electric, oil or bulk LPG. Our unit draws about 2.2Kw which is not bad for the hot water and heating the whole house.

As for costs it was very expensive to install, we did get a small grant which helped a bit. We were laughing when heating oil rocketed a few years back, but oil is cheaper now.
Big advantage is no annual service cost. Just had the unit serviced for the first time as a sanity check. Nothing to report. All working well within expected parameters. Air Source are much more popular now, they weren't an option 13 years ago. Much lower install cost and efficiency has improved.

[vintage engineerParticipant @vintageengineer]

So what are the Aussie going to do? If you drive from Adelaide to Perth ( 2700km) you have to cross the Nullarbor Plain which only has fuel stops every 300km and no charging points. If you breakdown it could be days before someone rescues you!

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Posted by Bazyle on 14/06/2019 10:37:31:

One solution to the range problem for EVs might be to only allow them to be made with say 100km range for lightness and hence efficiency but arrange for small power trailers with say a 3ookm range that you hire part way down the motorway. It would power you while also charging your internal battery and you would drop it off 50km from your destination. To combat a shortage/pile of them in the wrong place the remaining diesel trucks running in the opposite direction would receive a small payment for pulling a train of half a dozen to another location, perhaps recharging them a bit with regenerative braking on the downhills.

Another big change is needed in planning for domestic solar and wind. I have room for both but National Parks would stamp on the idea and anyway the application fee alone would be about ten years electricity cost after allowing for interest on the expenditure let alone capital repayment.

Tesla's original plan was battery swapping and the cars were designed for that to be an automated process taking less than a few minutes. I undertand they did build one swap-facility before abandoning the proposition (reason unknown)

Either the public shells out for longer battery life, accepts the need for stops on those relatively rare long trips UK or we go back to car-trains. Battery prices have come down lots as mentioned earlier $100/KWh is close now with efficiencies meaning upto 4 miles/KWh on the way – pick your pack size.

I've also got 2 south-facing slopes with enough acreage on them for 3MW of solar panels. Quite apart from the unlikelihood of getting planning I might live long enough to see the payback but unlikely to be in a position to enjoy it…

pgk

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

A solar energy calculator **LINK**

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

The problem with any sort of interchangeable battery scheme even if the batteries and vehicles are all sufficiently cloned to allow it, is that vastly more batteries than vehicles would be needed; and they'd still need augmenting by chargers for the cars themselves.

A point lost on those pushing to have us all drive battery-only cars, is that presently we enjoy the opportunity and often the need, to travel where and when we wish, sometimes at short notice. Going all-EV will curtail this freedom drastically, and even for those fortunate still to be able to have a car at all, schemes like battery-swapping or car-borrowing (hiring, more likely,??? ), would only worsen that situation.

Eventually, fossil-sources of fuels will run out, via scarcity that pushes the price way up, but with such depletion will also come the loss of so many materials we take for granted that our loss of being able to drive freely will seem a minor point compared to the far greater losses overall.

I foresee society reverting over the next century or so to something closer to 200 years ago now: very isolated communities with limited creature-comforts and little mutual contact. Someone a while back here wondered what the portable 'phone might transform into by then. History, I think, there being nothing left to make it from.

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

yes we could go back to 200yrs ago – minor problem is the disposal of maybe 4billion people – maybe a few unchecked epidemics or a war in some heavily populated but isolated area would suffice.

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

Just shrink the population as it is out of control population growth

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Frances-

That is rather unworthy, and certainly not what I either meant or implied.

I was commenting on styles of living, not numbers of the living.

Bob –

Yes, I think many do say that but it's politically a very sensitive area so politicians tend to ignore it. The People Republic of China tried limiting its own population expansion but subsequently realised that policy brought serious problems of its own.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

I don't think anyone here is pushing you into EV.. it's more a case of it'll be that or hydrogen or no car.
As for society coming to any great isolation with fewer cars – there's no reason for that to happen. It was only 60 years ago that folk owning cars were relatively uncommon – they were only starting to talk about the need for the M1.
I clearly recall going to school by bus as did most folk who travelled where i lived and the myriad bicycles on the roads being used for a few miles of commute. It was that or the pre-Beeching trains. We've become a greedy society making lots of really unnecesary journeys often just for minor social and pleasure reasons and for an item or two of shopping.
If anything we've lost a lot of neigbourliness and community in the process and there's probably more folk isolated at home because they don't know folk locally – all part of centralising schools, hospitals and so forth in the name of efficiency and profit and opening stores 24/7 to encourage folk to part with money.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I realise that is so, PGK, but the nub of the problem lies in your last paragraph.

So many have come, or been forced, to accept all the services they need are fewer and more scattered, and is not just for bureaucratic convenience. It also the result of heavy commercial convenience and its synthetic "now-we-all" policy by vicious-circle.

It means so many people have no choice but to drive, possibly fair distances, to shop, to work, to find a bank or post-office, attend a hospital, for their children's schools, etc. etc.

So towns and villages lose their own services; so the residents have to use their cars. Consequently, bus companies cannot afford these routes because too few people use them; everything becomes diffuse and isolating. Whilst it is up to individuals to form their own social circles their chances are slimmed because there are now far fewer local shops, pubs, schools, libraries, banks, etc. fulfilling their everyday needs. (The banks are a case in point – "everyone uses internet banking they bleat" – yes, part of the banks' policy to close branches.)

You say we make unecessary social journeys – well, in other words let's all stay at home? That's not isolating?

Anyway, members of a specialist forum like this cannot criticise anyone else's social lives, given we like to travel to club meetings and tracks, exhibitions, rallies and so on. Just as others like to travel to play sports, visit theatres, go fishing or hill-walking or whatever. (And in my case caving – the hills or caves you wish to visit, or the football matches you want to watch, may a hundred miles or more away, though the sports grounds might still be in public transport reach.)

The TV and Internet are no substitute if you want a pursuit or social life your locality does not support. Yes, if we can afford an electric or more remotely, hydrogen-fuelled car, we can still drive to the nearest supermarket maybe only 20 miles away; to work assuming we have found employment, to the doctor, dentist or hospital if one exists anywhere near.

Whether we'd have any reason to travel anywhere else is another matter because I think one effect of all these environmental policies will be the slow destruction of vast swathes of the country's cultural and social activities, save perhaps for commercial arts and sports events within cities.

For anyone else, certainly outside of major towns, I see no guarantee whatsoever that their lives won't become limited to a very parochial existence with limited interest and social lives; leaving home only for the necessary shopping. They'd be lucky even to have a pub in which to reminisce to each other about once being able to go hill-walking, watch sports matches, rally miniature steam-engines…

In other words, back to at least the situation you cite of 60 years ago. In fact worse when even the "item or two of shopping" is now miles away, thanks to the supermarkets deliberately destroying the local shops just as officialdom is destroying local public services; the former also for profit, but both to suit centralising planned by remote spread-sheet jockeys and commercial estate-agents.

'

it's all very well saying what people did 60 years ago, but what they could have done, or had to do then, is now no longer possible for many people; and there is no political will or wish to repair that damage.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

**LINK**

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48760247?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology&link_location=live-reporting-story

[Author]

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