EV Charging in the UK

[Rick C]

On Sunday, June 16, 2019 at 1:21:51 AM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jun 2019 20:12:30 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 6/15/19 6:19 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 15 Jun 2019 17:29:59 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 6/15/19 4:05 PM, Rick C wrote:
I'm being told EV charging will be a lot more difficult in the UK than it is here in the US.

I looked at the typical daily cycle and they have some 10 to 20 GW between the peak and minimum each day with resonably flat consumption in the trough. That will allow off peak charging of a third of the 30 million vehicles for 50 miles.

But I'm being told there are two problems with that. One is that distribution is sized for an average of 2 kW consumption per household in many older areas (which they seem to have a lot of). This clearly makes it hard to charge EVs overnight at just 3 kW which otherwise would be fine for a typical user. In this case it would require replacement of a lot of distribution cabling.

The other is that many individual homes are on PME circuits where no separate ground is provided to the home, only the neutral. This neutral is bonded to water pipes and any other exposed metal that could be grounded my any means, like an old radiator heating system. This is considered safe since even if the neutral to the home opened there would be no shock hazard since there is no ground to make contact with as the grounds in the house are all at neutral voltage. This does make it hard to use electricity outside where you could contact a true earth ground and suffer electrocution with any grounded appliance. To mitigate this a ground rod at the house is required which in many cases is prohibitively expensive to install with an adequately conductive path.

So are these two problems being presented realistically?

I'm also being told it will be a huge problem to provide enough charging capability for the many potential EV owners who park on the street or in public facilities. I expect it is practical to install curb side and parking lot outlets with some outlay which is small, in fact tiny compared to the cost of a car. But I kinda have to take them at their word for that one.

Rick C.


Makes a lot more sense to have centrally located charging facilities in
the UK.

https://www.electrive.com/2018/02/19/national-grid-install-high-power-charging-across-uk/

50 charging stations and the claim is that would position all EV drivers
always within at least 50 miles of a charging station.

Cool. Drive 100 miles round trip to charge your car.



Only if you live in far northern Scotland or Cornwall or something, most
of the UK's population lives in, y'know, population centers.

The average round-trip work car commute in the UK is less than 20 miles
(thru god-awful traffic.) Even 2kW overnight charge is enough for that

If you only drive a few miles a day in a regular car, you won't use
much gasoline so you won't Destroy The Planet. You can spend 5
minutes, every few weeks, filling up. That's just about the right
amount of time to squeegie the windows.

If you drive long distances, charging an electric car becomes a
nuisance.

John is one of those people who refuse to learn. Literally refuse! I've explained to him that you don't need to charge any more on trips than you need to stop for bathroom and food breaks. In fact, when I charge (which is nearly all the time because I do little local driving) I have trouble getting back to the car when it is done charging. I get some Chinese at one place or a sandwich and salad at another and the car is usually at 90% when I am done eating. I typically set the max charge for 100% so I have time to use the facilities even though I don't really want more than a 90% charge. There is slightly more wear on the battery if you take it to the limits on every charge cycle.

I expect John is one of those people who get in the car and drives hard, not stopping to eat, not drinking so he doesn't need a bathroom break. No thanks. I'm not such a masochist.

I also like that my car will beat just about anything on the road in the stop light derby. I never have to worry about getting rear ended when merging on the highway like some of the tired iron on the roads.

--

Rick C.

--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Sunday, June 16, 2019 at 1:33:41 AM UTC-4, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (15 Jun 2019 16:42:45 -0700) it happened Winfield Hill
winfieldhill@yahoo.com> wrote in <qe3vpl02a43@drn.newsguy.com>:

tabbypurr@gmail.com wrote...

On Saturday, 15 June 2019, Rick C wrote:

But I'm being told there are two problems with that.
One is that distribution is sized for an average of
2 kW consumption per household in many older areas ...

So are these two problems being presented realistically?

Bogus. I can't believe houses don't have enough
current capacity (2kW/230V = 9A) to run 1.5kW
microwave ovens, dishwashers, washers, electric
dryers, lights, TVs, HVAC, and a few electric
water heaters. In my visits to England, they
even had heated towel racks in their bathrooms.
A household without those basic amenities isn't
going to be buying EV cars anyway.

My car charges in 4 hours overnight, taking only
1.4kW while doing so. I've driven 4k miles so
far, and still have 80% of my second tank of gas.

The infrastructure Rick is thinking about is for
level 2 fast charging, which might be useful for
a few long trips, but not for everyday commuting.

I just wonder if UK leaves EU if they will go back to 240 V ;-)
Or maybe even 380 just to make a difference.
US 110 is also a possibility, if trump says so.


In the end the whole climate hype is a hoax,
climate change is not human caused,
it is set by orbital parameters:
https://old.world-mysteries.com/alignments/mpl_al3b.htm

So, we need to bring all power we can online for the future.
diversify,
even that will not be enough, mass migration, and possibly a big reduction in human species
will happen.

Oil will get us through a while..
Where does the oil come from?:
It is the condensed early earth atmosphere, it is everywhere in the ground.

Kid's brains were polluted by climate games played by that what's his name
(cannot remember the polar bears idiot) politicians for profit.
It is a political game for profit.
Mass manipulation.

Making all transport electric is wrong, you need to diversify.
One hacker, one solar storm , one high altitude nuke, is all it takes
to kill most of civilization if all is electric,
It will happen, (looks up date, oops)...
Al Gore, that is where the crap started.

I don't like to deal with these discussions of climate change because like politics there is no reasoning with people who have made up their minds in spite of the facts. But this one is so idiotic it's hard to ignore. The breadth of the ignorance displayed is just mind boggling.

I don't even know how to explain how wrong these ideas are. The very reference provided very clearly shows and plainly states Milankovitch cycles are not the cause of the recent climate change.

"Though Milankovitch cycles do explain long-term climate change, they can't account for changes being made by humans, which appear to have an even greater effect than variations in earth-sun interaction"

You only need to look at the graphs to see the Milankovitch cycles have periods of many thousands of years. Climate change we are experiencing has happened in less than 200 years.

Why are some educated people such idiots???

--

Rick C.

--+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Martin Brown]

On 15/06/2019 21:05, Rick C wrote:

I'm being told EV charging will be a lot more difficult in the UK
than it is here in the US.

I looked at the typical daily cycle and they have some 10 to 20 GW
between the peak and minimum each day with resonably flat consumption
in the trough. That will allow off peak charging of a third of the
30 million vehicles for 50 miles.

The problem is that charging parked cars during the day will coincide
with peak industrial demand and supply is already so tight during winter
that they have had to pay major industrial users to drop off to avoid
rolling blackouts. Prevarication over new nuclear build hasn't helped.

Charging overnight would work but then the generating capacity would
have to run flat out on a continuous basis.

But I'm being told there are two problems with that. One is that
distribution is sized for an average of 2 kW consumption per
household in many older areas (which they seem to have a lot of).
This clearly makes it hard to charge EVs overnight at just 3 kW which
otherwise would be fine for a typical user. In this case it would
require replacement of a lot of distribution cabling.

The distribution isn't quite that bad. It can cope with the likes of 3kW
kettle loads on almost simultaneously in 80% of households when there is
a major football final on at half time or a wimbledon final ends. But
they have to prepare for it.

Compared to some continental electrical supplies where a 3kW kettle
would fry the house electrics UK mains is quite robust.

The other is that many individual homes are on PME circuits where no
separate ground is provided to the home, only the neutral. This
neutral is bonded to water pipes and any other exposed metal that
could be grounded my any means, like an old radiator heating system.
This is considered safe since even if the neutral to the home opened
there would be no shock hazard since there is no ground to make
contact with as the grounds in the house are all at neutral voltage.
This does make it hard to use electricity outside where you could
contact a true earth ground and suffer electrocution with any
grounded appliance. To mitigate this a ground rod at the house is
required which in many cases is prohibitively expensive to install
with an adequately conductive path.

This is correct in parts. Neutral is the balanced return loop and is
usually somewhere close to 0v but not guaranteed to stay that way. Live
is 240v on any one of three phases and local earth bonding is done at
each premises. UK soil is wet so getting a decent earth isn't that hard.
A 1m 1cm diameter copper rod driven into the ground will usually suffice.

A UK mains plug is polarised and has Live, Neutral and Earth - and there
is a fuse in the live feed. Neutral and Earth are at about the same
voltage most of the time but physically separate. Leakage current to
Earth will trip the main circuit breaker in premises that have one.

Very old electrical installations have fuse wire only.

> So are these two problems being presented realistically?

The big problem is that there is nothing like enough electricity
generating capacity to provide all the extra power needed.

I'm also being told it will be a huge problem to provide enough
charging capability for the many potential EV owners who park on the
street or in public facilities. I expect it is practical to install
curb side and parking lot outlets with some outlay which is small, in
fact tiny compared to the cost of a car. But I kinda have to take
them at their word for that one.

Street parking will be the killer for electric vehicles in the UK.
Imagine how bad it would be with trailing cables running across the
pavement (footpath) every car length in a country where people do still
routinely walk between nearby locations. This is a daytime google street
view - you have to imagine it with a solid wall of cars parked on either
side of the street and with no preference as to where you park.

<https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.5679098,-1.2259691,3a,75y,152.73h,90.68t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1scmSICc2Tq98xoHWefBLBwA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DcmSICc2Tq98xoHWefBLBwA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D128.31041%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100>

You don't get to park in front of your own house in street parking it is
first come first served. Leads could be trailing for up to 30m.

There are chargers for Teslas and some other brands on motorway service
stations but they are quite coy about their capabilities. I am actively
considering an electric car now that diesel is out of fashion. Figuring
out if I can cover the distances I need sensibly is a part of that.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Martin Brown]

On 16/06/2019 05:00, Rick C wrote:

On Saturday, June 15, 2019 at 7:43:03 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:
tabbypurr@gmail.com wrote...

On Saturday, 15 June 2019, Rick C wrote:

But I'm being told there are two problems with that. One is
that distribution is sized for an average of 2 kW consumption
per household in many older areas ...

So are these two problems being presented realistically?

Bogus. I can't believe houses don't have enough current capacity
(2kW/230V = 9A) to run 1.5kW microwave ovens, dishwashers, washers,
electric dryers, lights, TVs, HVAC, and a few electric water
heaters. In my visits to England, they even had heated towel racks
in their bathrooms. A household without those basic amenities
isn't going to be buying EV cars anyway.

They can easily run a 3kW kettle and a 3kW electric fire without
breaking a sweat. Even the smallest houses are mains fused for 60A.

The problem is when everyone uses their kettle at once as happens during
major sports finals - hte grid has to be prepared to handle that but it
is a problem for the supply genertaion not the distribution network.

These guys get very touchy if I ask them too many questions or probe
too deeply about what is behind what they tell me. But I think the 2
kW figure is for older neighborhoods (estates) that were wired in the
70s when aluminum was being used. They talk about the ground sheath
being erroded away losing safety grounds or on PEN (PME) type
circuits losing the neutral that cause the house neutral to become
high voltage.

That makes no sense at all. My brother in law has a house built just
post war that has never been rewired and still has round pin plugs. It
was on a 60A fused supply and can still do that (and a a bit more).

A typical modern house is fused for 80A or 100A depending on its size.

Aluminium is used in modern mains cables too. The oldest copper ones in
my village (which unusually for the UK are overhead on poles) were
replaced by three phase aluminium steel cored cable.

I don't off hand know what the national grid maximum load capacity would
be but it is certainly a lot more than 2kW per household since some
homes rely on all electric heating and also have a kettle which would
represent a peak load of 6kW for starters. Hardly any have aircon though
- the climate is never really warm enough for that to be needed.

The average load presented by a home over 24 hours is reckoned to be
around 6-8kWhr or 250-300W continuous load. My own house 24/7 base load
at night is less than 50W.

They talk like there are a lot of these which have never been
upgraded. Remember this is a country that shortchanged the grid to
the point it is constantly on the verge of collapse at peak times.

The distribution grid can cope. There is nothing like enough generating
capacity to cope with a very cold still cloudy winters day though.

My car charges in 4 hours overnight, taking only 1.4kW while doing
so. I've driven 4k miles so far, and still have 80% of my second
tank of gas.

Your car is a hybrid with a very limited battery range and your
driving pattern is of very limited range needs. Not many people can
make that work the way you do.

My annual mileage is now down to 20k (it used to be 30k). I get 64mpg
lifetime average across the range of driving I have to do. I am looking
into the viability of an electric car when I replace my diesel.

The infrastructure Rick is thinking about is for level 2 fast
charging, which might be useful for a few long trips, but not for
everyday commuting.

No, I am talking about level 2 charging, but there is nothing fast
about it. A typical outlet in the UK provides 3 kW which will
provide 150 miles of range in a Tesla model 3 overnight. Overnight
charging also prevents stressing the generation and transmission
infrastructure since it won't be until the country is 33% EVs that
the spare capacity is used up. The UK does not appear to be an early
adopter, so that will likely take some 10 years. That will give them
plenty of time to build additional generating capacity.

It will take longer than that before there is any additional electricity
generating capacity. There is also a problem that most of the consumers
are in the south and south east where as the main generation plant is
mostly in the north and north west. Transmission losses are higher than
they would be if things were more equitably distributed.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Cursitor Doom]

On Sat, 15 Jun 2019 22:21:45 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

If you drive long distances, charging an electric car becomes a
nuisance.

Even if you drive short distances, charging an electric car becomes a
nuisance.



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On Sun, 16 Jun 2019 05:33:10 GMT, Jan Panteltje
<pNaOnStPeAlMtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

I just wonder if UK leaves EU if they will go back to 240 V ;-)
Or maybe even 380 just to make a difference.
US 110 is also a possibility, if trump says so.

I have wondered the same and not just mains voltages but also to some
old non-SI units, such as pounds.

 

[Cursitor Doom]

On Sat, 15 Jun 2019 15:36:59 -0700, tabbypurr wrote:

Everything I've heard indicates that kerbside charging would be very
expensive to install in quantity. The infrastructure to support iy isn't
there.

In seriously built-up urban areas there is so much necessity to park on
public roads; very few people have the luxury of a parking space in front
of their homes, so kerbside charging would be the only realistic option.
Can't see that happening for a good while yet.




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[Rick C]

On Sunday, June 16, 2019 at 4:58:17 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

On 16/06/2019 08:15, Tom Gardner wrote:

That's a good example of where the mean value can be misleading.

My normal daily travel is, I guess, less than 20 miles. But one
day last week it was 450 miles. I need a car that can do both.

That is more than twice the safe recommended daily journey length. I
have known travelling salesmen fall asleep on the way home doing those
sorts of distances.

Really? That's about 7-8 hours. Truckers do that without breaking a sweat. I do it when I drive to TN or back.

That took ~12 hours, including stops in the middle of nowhere
to relax and snooze. The latter would not have been possible
in a petrol forecourt.

The chargers I looked at on motorway services claimed to boost the
battery back to 80% range capacity in 20-40 minutes.

Doesn't that rather depend on the size of the battery???

Charging is rated in kW. I don't see how any other metric is useful or practical. Some people try to rate them as MPH. But that also depends on the car.

IIRC the first major standardisation was to 240V with 5A
sockets. In the 50s/60s most places were rewired to 13A
sockets. I remember as a kid (early 60s) having to change
mains plugs when I took toys to my friend's house because
they still had the old plugs.

2A, 5A plugs and 16A (-o-) plug socket for the kettle in the kitchen.
One of my college rooms still had those 2A sockets in places.

Yes, individual sockets are rated to deliver 13A continuously.
However, they are usually on ring mains which have 5A (lighting)
or 30A (sockets) thermal fuses.

Then there are electric showers and electric ovens, which have
dedicated lines run from the fuse box, and are rated up to 7kW.

Modern houses may be different, but in the UK many houses
are 100-200 years old and will have been rewired in the 50s
or 60s.

I think it is an average vs peak issue here. Peak household load can go
as high as its main fuse permits 40,60 or 80A. The nominal average daily
load that a household presents is usually estimated at 6-10kWhr.

Lower numbers being favoured by green campaigners as it makes how many
houses a wind farm can supply sound bigger.

10 kWh per day in the winter seems very light. I've used $60 worth of electricity in three days when the nights were really cold.

--

Rick C.

+-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Sunday, June 16, 2019 at 5:26:13 AM UTC-4, Cursitor Doom wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jun 2019 22:21:45 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

If you drive long distances, charging an electric car becomes a
nuisance.

Even if you drive short distances, charging an electric car becomes a
nuisance.

Gosh, someone even more ignorant than Larkin!

Let me repeat myself yet again. Charge at home, always have a full battery in the morning and never have to drive to a busy, smelly, nasty gas station again. Also, now regular maintenance, no oil changes, no noise... just the smoothest power you've ever felt in a car!

--

Rick C.

+-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Cursitor Doom]

Rather than have guessing games among Americans as to what the situation
in the UK is, just ask the Brits direct!



On Sat, 15 Jun 2019 13:05:26 -0700, Rick C wrote:

I'm being told EV charging will be a lot more difficult in the UK than
it is here in the US.

I looked at the typical daily cycle and they have some 10 to 20 GW
between the peak and minimum each day with resonably flat consumption in
the trough. That will allow off peak charging of a third of the 30
million vehicles for 50 miles.

But I'm being told there are two problems with that. One is that
distribution is sized for an average of 2 kW consumption per household
in many older areas (which they seem to have a lot of). This clearly
makes it hard to charge EVs overnight at just 3 kW which otherwise would
be fine for a typical user. In this case it would require replacement
of a lot of distribution cabling.

The other is that many individual homes are on PME circuits where no
separate ground is provided to the home, only the neutral. This neutral
is bonded to water pipes and any other exposed metal that could be
grounded my any means, like an old radiator heating system. This is
considered safe since even if the neutral to the home opened there would
be no shock hazard since there is no ground to make contact with as the
grounds in the house are all at neutral voltage. This does make it hard
to use electricity outside where you could contact a true earth ground
and suffer electrocution with any grounded appliance. To mitigate this
a ground rod at the house is required which in many cases is
prohibitively expensive to install with an adequately conductive path.

So are these two problems being presented realistically?

I'm also being told it will be a huge problem to provide enough charging
capability for the many potential EV owners who park on the street or in
public facilities. I expect it is practical to install curb side and
parking lot outlets with some outlay which is small, in fact tiny
compared to the cost of a car. But I kinda have to take them at their
word for that one.

Rick C.

--
This message may be freely reproduced without limit or charge only via
the Usenet protocol. Reproduction in whole or part through other
protocols, whether for profit or not, is conditional upon a charge of
GBP10.00 per reproduction. Publication in this manner via non-Usenet
protocols constitutes acceptance of this condition.

 

[Rick C]

On Sunday, June 16, 2019 at 4:44:01 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

On 16/06/2019 05:00, Rick C wrote:
On Saturday, June 15, 2019 at 7:43:03 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:
tabbypurr@gmail.com wrote...

On Saturday, 15 June 2019, Rick C wrote:

But I'm being told there are two problems with that. One is
that distribution is sized for an average of 2 kW consumption
per household in many older areas ...

So are these two problems being presented realistically?

Bogus. I can't believe houses don't have enough current capacity
(2kW/230V = 9A) to run 1.5kW microwave ovens, dishwashers, washers,
electric dryers, lights, TVs, HVAC, and a few electric water
heaters. In my visits to England, they even had heated towel racks
in their bathrooms. A household without those basic amenities
isn't going to be buying EV cars anyway.

They can easily run a 3kW kettle and a 3kW electric fire without
breaking a sweat. Even the smallest houses are mains fused for 60A.

That number has nothing to do with the issue.

The problem is when everyone uses their kettle at once as happens during
major sports finals - hte grid has to be prepared to handle that but it
is a problem for the supply genertaion not the distribution network.

25 million homes times 3 kW is 75 GW, 50% more than the entire country's generating capacity. Yeah, even a third doing the same thing at the same time is an issue. I'd say the UK is a bit screwed if they don't add capacity.

These guys get very touchy if I ask them too many questions or probe
too deeply about what is behind what they tell me. But I think the 2
kW figure is for older neighborhoods (estates) that were wired in the
70s when aluminum was being used. They talk about the ground sheath
being erroded away losing safety grounds or on PEN (PME) type
circuits losing the neutral that cause the house neutral to become
high voltage.

That makes no sense at all. My brother in law has a house built just
post war that has never been rewired and still has round pin plugs. It
was on a 60A fused supply and can still do that (and a a bit more).

Again, the 60 amp number is meaningless in the context of average use for the distribution grid. Sports finals tea kettles vs. heating system kicking on and off.

A typical modern house is fused for 80A or 100A depending on its size.

Aluminium is used in modern mains cables too. The oldest copper ones in
my village (which unusually for the UK are overhead on poles) were
replaced by three phase aluminium steel cored cable.

I think the problem they are talking about is the poor quality of the cable with the aluminum sheath. Over the years they give up the ghost.

I don't off hand know what the national grid maximum load capacity would
be but it is certainly a lot more than 2kW per household since some
homes rely on all electric heating and also have a kettle which would
represent a peak load of 6kW for starters. Hardly any have aircon though
- the climate is never really warm enough for that to be needed.

The generation capacity is around 50 GW. I don't know for sure, but Bill, the guy with the 2 kW number, works in the industry.

"And as I stated in previous other subject postings, when a new housing estate has its electrical network loading calculated the cable sizes are calculated on a loading of no more than 2kW per household. This is of course using diversity in the calculations as not every one has everything switched on at the same time."

The average load presented by a home over 24 hours is reckoned to be
around 6-8kWhr or 250-300W continuous load. My own house 24/7 base load
at night is less than 50W.

They talk like there are a lot of these which have never been
upgraded. Remember this is a country that shortchanged the grid to
the point it is constantly on the verge of collapse at peak times.

The distribution grid can cope. There is nothing like enough generating
capacity to cope with a very cold still cloudy winters day though.

Not according to Bill.

My car charges in 4 hours overnight, taking only 1.4kW while doing
so. I've driven 4k miles so far, and still have 80% of my second
tank of gas.

Your car is a hybrid with a very limited battery range and your
driving pattern is of very limited range needs. Not many people can
make that work the way you do.

My annual mileage is now down to 20k (it used to be 30k). I get 64mpg
lifetime average across the range of driving I have to do. I am looking
into the viability of an electric car when I replace my diesel.

Do you have a means to charge at home? Trips longer than one charge can be a bummer if you get a car with a shorter range. But they are obviously cheaper. You will save significantly on fuel costs, over the life of the car it will nearly pay for the car.

The infrastructure Rick is thinking about is for level 2 fast
charging, which might be useful for a few long trips, but not for
everyday commuting.

No, I am talking about level 2 charging, but there is nothing fast
about it. A typical outlet in the UK provides 3 kW which will
provide 150 miles of range in a Tesla model 3 overnight. Overnight
charging also prevents stressing the generation and transmission
infrastructure since it won't be until the country is 33% EVs that
the spare capacity is used up. The UK does not appear to be an early
adopter, so that will likely take some 10 years. That will give them
plenty of time to build additional generating capacity.

It will take longer than that before there is any additional electricity
generating capacity. There is also a problem that most of the consumers
are in the south and south east where as the main generation plant is
mostly in the north and north west. Transmission losses are higher than
they would be if things were more equitably distributed.

If the UK can't build power generation in 10 years, I think there is no hope for the UK. Maybe the Germans should have won the war. You would not have any power shortage if they were running things.

--

Rick C.

-++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

On Sat, 15 Jun 2019 13:05:26 -0700 (PDT), Rick C
<gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm being told EV charging will be a lot more difficult in the UK than it is here in the US.

I looked at the typical daily cycle and they have some 10 to 20 GW between the peak and minimum each day with resonably flat consumption in the trough. That will allow off peak charging of a third of the 30 million vehicles for 50 miles.

Sounds reasonable. The daily commuting distances in Europe is shorter
than in the US.

>But I'm being told there are two problems with that. One is that distribution is sized for an average of 2 kW consumption per household in many older areas (which they seem to have a lot of). This clearly makes it hard to charge EVs overnight at just 3 kW which otherwise would be fine for a typical user. In this case it would require replacement of a lot of distribution cabling.

That 2 kW/household sounds right for selecting a distribution
transformer. A 200 kVA distribution transformer could serve 100
households.

Even older houses had 35 A ring mains fuses and the distribution
cabling must at least be able to feed that amount (8 kW) to each
house. After all, fuses protect the _feeding_ network.

The other is that many individual homes are on PME circuits where no separate ground is provided to the home, only the neutral.
This neutral is bonded to water pipes and any other exposed metal that could be grounded my any means, like an old radiator heating system. This is considered safe since even if the neutral to the home opened there would be no shock hazard since there is no ground to make contact with as the grounds in the house are all at neutral voltage.

Equipotential bonding puts all bare metallic parts to the same
potential. Note that when metallic tubes are used to feed water and
gas into the house, so if the bare tubes are used, these function as
earthing electrodes. Anyway with multiple houses connecting to the
same service (water/gas) the equipotential bondings of multiple houses
are tied together and to their separate neutral connection. So even if
the neutral connection to one house is lost, the current will flow
through other connections, limiting the potential rise to a safe
level.

Loss of neutral is a large risk with open wire lines, not so much with
ABC (Air Bundled Cable) or ground cables.

>This does make it hard to use electricity outside where you could contact a true earth ground and suffer electrocution with any grounded appliance. To mitigate this a ground rod at the house is required which in many cases is prohibitively expensive to install with an adequately conductive path.

If the ground is dry and sandy the earth electrode grounding
resistance would be high, causing some ground potential rise, but
most likely the earth under the EV would also be high resistance,
reducing the current through humans. and of course, there are RCDs if
there is a severe problem.

 

[Cursitor Doom]

On Sat, 15 Jun 2019 15:19:09 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

> Cool. Drive 100 miles round trip to charge your car.

Fortunately, the douchebag level of electric car ownership in the UK is
still very low. Just a handful of virtue-signallers who only use them for
public appearance and keep *at least* one real car at home for when they
really need to go anywhere.



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[Martin Brown]

On 16/06/2019 05:44, keith@kjwdesigns.com wrote:

On Saturday, 15 June 2019 21:16:10 UTC-7, Rick C wrote:
On Saturday, June 15, 2019 at 9:23:42 PM UTC-4,
ke...@kjwdesigns.com wrote:
On Saturday, 15 June 2019 13:05:31 UTC-7, Rick C wrote:
... ..
Yes, US outlets can provide 1.5 kW. Can UK outlets provide a full
13 amps continuously? I think someone told me that which is

Yes. Though cheap and nasty sockets or corroded ones may run very warm.
The fuse in a mains plug gets quite warm at 13A continuous load too.

Although increasingly there has been a push to make portable equipment
draw a maximum of 10A = 2.4kW.

different from the US where continuous loads have to be derated to
80%, so 12 amps at 120 volts.

I've never seen a formal derating. Items such as kettles can be the
full 13A (~3kW) but they take the load for a short time. The house
wiring is actually good for high current as it is usually on a ring
main.

I see that the BMWi3 and the Leaf both are set to 10A when powered
from a normal outlet. (2.4kW)

Even so I would prefer to use a 32A dedicated circuit in the garage for
charging the car. It is not unlike a welding set in terms of load.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Martin Brown]

On 16/06/2019 08:15, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 16/06/19 05:16, Rick C wrote:
On Saturday, June 15, 2019 at 9:23:42 PM UTC-4, ke...@kjwdesigns.com
wrote:
On Saturday, 15 June 2019 13:05:31 UTC-7, Rick C  wrote:
I'm being told EV charging will be a lot more difficult in the UK
than it
is here in the US.

I looked at the typical daily cycle and they have some 10 to 20 GW
between the peak and minimum each day with resonably flat
consumption in
the trough.  That will allow off peak charging of a third of the 30
million vehicles for 50 miles.

The average car mileage in the UK is about 8,000 miles per year, even
allowing for increased usage during weekdays it probably only amounts to
25-30 miles per day to recharge. Not 50 miles.

That's a good example of where the mean value can be misleading.

My normal daily travel is, I guess, less than 20 miles. But one
day last week it was 450 miles. I need a car that can do both.

That is more than twice the safe recommended daily journey length. I
have known travelling salesmen fall asleep on the way home doing those
sorts of distances.

That took ~12 hours, including stops in the middle of nowhere
to relax and snooze. The latter would not have been possible
in a petrol forecourt.

The chargers I looked at on motorway services claimed to boost the
battery back to 80% range capacity in 20-40 minutes.

IIRC the first major standardisation was to 240V with 5A
sockets. In the 50s/60s most places were rewired to 13A
sockets. I remember as a kid (early 60s) having to change
mains plugs when I took toys to my friend's house because
they still had the old plugs.

2A, 5A plugs and 16A (-o-) plug socket for the kettle in the kitchen.
One of my college rooms still had those 2A sockets in places.

Electric kettles in UK usually have a 3kW heating element (240V @
13A) and
it is a well known phenomenon that during intervals of popular TV
programs
a large percentage of the population goes to "make a cup of tea"
causing a
huge increase in electrical consumption.  The system can already
tolerate
that. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup)

Also the 3kW of power available from a normal outlet means that
charging is
significantly faster than in the US. It would provide 10-12miles/hour
for
most EVs. ~100 miles overnight, without any special wiring.

Yes, US outlets can provide 1.5 kW.  Can UK outlets provide a full 13
amps
continuously?  I think someone told me that which is different from
the US
where continuous loads have to be derated to 80%, so 12 amps at 120
volts.

Yes, individual sockets are rated to deliver 13A continuously.
However, they are usually on ring mains which have 5A (lighting)
or 30A (sockets) thermal fuses.

Then there are electric showers and electric ovens, which have
dedicated lines run from the fuse box, and are rated up to 7kW.

Modern houses may be different, but in the UK many houses
are 100-200 years old and will have been rewired in the 50s
or 60s.

I think it is an average vs peak issue here. Peak household load can go
as high as its main fuse permits 40,60 or 80A. The nominal average daily
load that a household presents is usually estimated at 6-10kWhr.

Lower numbers being favoured by green campaigners as it makes how many
houses a wind farm can supply sound bigger.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Rick C]

On Sunday, June 16, 2019 at 4:18:06 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown wrote:

On 15/06/2019 21:05, Rick C wrote:
I'm being told EV charging will be a lot more difficult in the UK
than it is here in the US.

I looked at the typical daily cycle and they have some 10 to 20 GW
between the peak and minimum each day with resonably flat consumption
in the trough. That will allow off peak charging of a third of the
30 million vehicles for 50 miles.

The problem is that charging parked cars during the day will coincide
with peak industrial demand and supply is already so tight during winter
that they have had to pay major industrial users to drop off to avoid
rolling blackouts. Prevarication over new nuclear build hasn't helped.

What will allow charging during the day is increased electric production from renewable sources. Solar is getting cheap enough that it is profitable to install it on a mass scale... although may not so much in the UK which is more northern than anyplace in our lower 48. But it won't be long before that is true in the UK as well. Please don't go off about cloudy days and such since EVs don't need charging every day for most people and solar still produces reduced amounts of energy even on cloudy days. So some charging will be supportable in the day time with out impact. Just give it a few more years. From what I'm hearing EVs aren't very popular in the UK for now anyway.

Charging overnight would work but then the generating capacity would
have to run flat out on a continuous basis.

And that is a good thing. The UK has gotten themselves in a bind by not expanding their capacity enough. So they will certainly be doing something about that. In the mean time night time charging won't come anywhere near capacity for likely some 10 years or more. If the UK can't figure it out by then, well... there's no hope for them.

But I'm being told there are two problems with that. One is that
distribution is sized for an average of 2 kW consumption per
household in many older areas (which they seem to have a lot of).
This clearly makes it hard to charge EVs overnight at just 3 kW which
otherwise would be fine for a typical user. In this case it would
require replacement of a lot of distribution cabling.

The distribution isn't quite that bad. It can cope with the likes of 3kW
kettle loads on almost simultaneously in 80% of households when there is
a major football final on at half time or a wimbledon final ends. But
they have to prepare for it.

What does that mean, "they have to prepare for it"? What can you do to beef up distribution capability? The problem isn't generation or transmission typically. It's the local residential distribution.

Actually, this may not be an issue in the UK at all. In many parts of the US we use heat pumps. The distribution can handle 10-15-20 kW furnaces kicking on all night when the weather gets too cold for the heat pump to work. My concern has been that a 7 kW *continuous* load will be added in a significant portion of homes without coordination of timing.

My understanding is that the UK doesn't use heat pumps with electric back up. The total demand is lowest at night, but what about residential demand, does that go up significantly on winter nights?

Compared to some continental electrical supplies where a 3kW kettle
would fry the house electrics UK mains is quite robust.

"Continental" is not the issue.

The other is that many individual homes are on PME circuits where no
separate ground is provided to the home, only the neutral. This
neutral is bonded to water pipes and any other exposed metal that
could be grounded my any means, like an old radiator heating system.
This is considered safe since even if the neutral to the home opened
there would be no shock hazard since there is no ground to make
contact with as the grounds in the house are all at neutral voltage.
This does make it hard to use electricity outside where you could
contact a true earth ground and suffer electrocution with any
grounded appliance. To mitigate this a ground rod at the house is
required which in many cases is prohibitively expensive to install
with an adequately conductive path.

This is correct in parts. Neutral is the balanced return loop and is
usually somewhere close to 0v but not guaranteed to stay that way. Live
is 240v on any one of three phases and local earth bonding is done at
each premises. UK soil is wet so getting a decent earth isn't that hard.
A 1m 1cm diameter copper rod driven into the ground will usually suffice.

I'm told a good earth is hard to get in many places. But the most recent exchange seems to show that adding an RCD and a separate earth even if not low resistance does the job. One poster said he had this done in his place including swapping out the panel (what we call the circuit breaker box) for one with RCDs.

A UK mains plug is polarised and has Live, Neutral and Earth - and there
is a fuse in the live feed. Neutral and Earth are at about the same
voltage most of the time but physically separate. Leakage current to
Earth will trip the main circuit breaker in premises that have one.

I don't think it is that simple. In PME systems the power company provides a PEN conductor, combined neutral and earth. In the house this is bonded to all metal conductors like pipes and a safety ground is provided separately. If the PEN opens between the house and the transformer where the earth rod connects it to ground, the safety earth wire becomes hot! Since everything in the house is at that same potential, there is no path for a shock hazard.

Very old electrical installations have fuse wire only.

So are these two problems being presented realistically?

The big problem is that there is nothing like enough electricity
generating capacity to provide all the extra power needed.

Bzzzz! Sorry, you lose. But please play again. You should have been listening rather than playing those old 78 rpm records in your head. Excess, idle capacity at night can very adequately charge enough EVs to be a third of your entire fleet of vehicles. That won't be fully utilized for some years to come.

I'm also being told it will be a huge problem to provide enough
charging capability for the many potential EV owners who park on the
street or in public facilities. I expect it is practical to install
curb side and parking lot outlets with some outlay which is small, in
fact tiny compared to the cost of a car. But I kinda have to take
them at their word for that one.

Street parking will be the killer for electric vehicles in the UK.
Imagine how bad it would be with trailing cables running across the
pavement (footpath) every car length in a country where people do still
routinely walk between nearby locations. This is a daytime google street
view - you have to imagine it with a solid wall of cars parked on either
side of the street and with no preference as to where you park.

Yes, for this to work outlets will be needed at the curb. Not an insurmountable obstacle. But gauging from the seemingly unremitting resistance I encountered in the UK group I was discussing this with, there won't be much progress any time soon on this matter.

Although, I see about half these cars are in driveways. Install an outside outlet or two on each of these homes and you are halfway there to charging at home!

BTW, why is that one house blotted out? Any idea?

--

Rick C.

-+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.5679098,-1.2259691,3a,75y,152.73h,90.68t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1scmSICc2Tq98xoHWefBLBwA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DcmSICc2Tq98xoHWefBLBwA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D128.31041%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100

You don't get to park in front of your own house in street parking it is
first come first served. Leads could be trailing for up to 30m.

There are chargers for Teslas and some other brands on motorway service
stations but they are quite coy about their capabilities. I am actively
considering an electric car now that diesel is out of fashion. Figuring
out if I can cover the distances I need sensibly is a part of that.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[John Larkin]

On Sun, 16 Jun 2019 09:26:09 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom
<curd@notformail.com> wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jun 2019 22:21:45 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

If you drive long distances, charging an electric car becomes a
nuisance.

Even if you drive short distances, charging an electric car becomes a
nuisance.

It sure would be for me. I park on the street, not always in the same
place.

And I don't want my food choices limited to joints close to charging
stations.

Teslas rarely show up at ski areas in the dead of winter.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

[Cursitor Doom]

On Sat, 15 Jun 2019 20:50:29 -0700, Rick C wrote:

I have to acknowledge that if this 2 kW number is correct and a large
fraction of homes in the UK receive such meager distribution, home EV
charging of any significant fraction of the cars would be impossible.
Otherwise adding a simple 13 amp outlet accessible to the EV would
suffice for charging up to 150 miles per night or more.

The maximum draw per single domestic socket outlet is 13A. HOWEVER, most
homes can legitimately have up to 60A -100A by taking a dedicated spur
off the house's consumer unit/distribution board. The general limit per
domestic installation is limited by the power co's fuse which is
generally 100A maximum. I'm sure that's plenty for even an American. ;-)

No one in the right mind would attempt to charge an EV from a 13A socket
(unless time was not a consideration.) ;-)



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[Cursitor Doom]

On Sun, 16 Jun 2019 05:33:10 +0000, Jan Panteltje wrote:

Kid's brains were polluted by climate games played by that what's his
name (cannot remember the polar bears idiot) politicians for profit.
It is a political game for profit.
Mass manipulation.

Exactly.

Making all transport electric is wrong, you need to diversify.
One hacker, one solar storm , one high altitude nuke, is all it takes to
kill most of civilization if all is electric,
It will happen, (looks up date, oops)...
Al Gore, that is where the crap started.

Aren't we all supposed to be dead by now, according to Gore's apocalyptic
hockey stick? ;-)




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[TTman]

So are these two problems being presented realistically?

I'm also being told it will be a huge problem to provide enough charging capability for the many potential EV owners who park on the street or in public facilities. I expect it is practical to install curb side and parking lot outlets with some outlay which is small, in fact tiny compared to the cost of a car. But I kinda have to take them at their word for that one.

Rick C.

UK house supplies are earthed. Typical current supply capacity to a
house is 60A- 100A at 230V. So no problem there....
The problem will come with mass takeup, which won't happen.Fortunately
there will always be just a gradual takeup.The infrastructure is just
not there to allow lots of households to charge their cars.
I often wonder what would happen if oil ran out... armageddan ?


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