Electric charging a thought

[labrat]

Here's an interesting theory...

 

nissan has been using the old Nissan leaf batteries to make house batteries... these are around 10kwh

 

they're fairly small, so if you had a large car you could put two lots in the boot, possibly 3 lots if you have a trailer/pickup

 

what if...

 

you had a connector on the house for these batteries, but this was on a cable that reached to your car/trailer

 

what you could do is tow the battery pack to an electric car charge point, and charge the batteries

then when you got home you could connect the trailer/car to the house, this would then run off the batteries and only switch to the grid when empty

 

although some charge points charge others are free

Our work charger is only 7p/kwh

 

so 3 battery packs would be around 30kwh for a normal house battery, or if you used an old leaf battery 3 packs would be 72kwh

thats £2.10 for the 30kwh or £5.04 for the 72kwh - or free if you use other chargers

4.5 hours to charge off a standard charger for the 30kwh or 10 hours for the larger pack

if you use one of the 22kwh chargers however its all done in less than an hour

 

according to google the average house uses 4648kwh a year, or just under 13 a day

so the 30kwh battery would last around 2 and a 72kwh battery five and half days

 

that would make running the average house only 70p a day or free if you used a free charger

even if charged at work that would make a YEARLY electric bill £255

 

just a thought

[dx100uk]

cost of car

cost of trailer

fuel to drag that lot around...

[king12345]

Some councils were offering to install free chargers outside people's home when they bought electric cars.

That would have been great, however, would it be a bit like stealing electricity from a lamp post?

[sgtbush]

Old Nissan leaf batteries....

They degrade and need replacing after around 7-10 years costing thousands.

Also the efficiency degrades so an oldbattery only works at around 50% efficiency so double your figures first. Add in the 1000's to replace the batteries etc etc

[hightail]

Some councils were offering to install free chargers outside people's home when they bought electric cars.

That would have been great, however, would it be a bit like stealing electricity from a lamp post?

Do you mean a free charge point or a charge point delivering free electricity? My charge point was free but I still pay for the power.

[labrat]

Just wondered really

 

The leaf batteries are coming down in cost is why I wondered plus I saw a written off one a while ago with batteries in going fairly cheap

 

Mines only the 24kwh one so it would only last a day - but on the bright side work has a 22kwh charger now

 

I know their looking at the two way chargers for the car so this was kind of a logical extension idea from that

[ericsbrother]

of course you will need a huge inverter to trun your battery power into 240V ac.

 

 

Now the govt havent thought through the battery powered car scenario very well, they subsidise the cost of the vehicle by £5k-£25k, charge no road tax despite the electric cars wearing out the road surface at twice the rate of a normal car and also if everyone had one we would need to double the capacity of our electricity supply ans we are barely coping as it is. There would be no money from fuel duty and every parking meter would also need a charge point so the capital expenditure wouild be massive to say the least.

 

 

Tesla lose £100k on every car they sell, they would be better off just giving away money and save the planet by not using up precious natural resources.

 

 

It is bad enough that I subsidise rail travel and smart meters when I use neither without having to pay for someone to stop in a motorway service station overnight becuase they cant make a 2 hour journey in one day. I only have a pension to live on and 60% of that goes in direct and indirect taxes.

Edited October 4, 2018 by honeybee13
Paras

[labrat]

Motorway chargers are anywhere between 50kwh and 150kwh

 

Charge time is around 20-30 mins not sure why I would stop over night?

 

Why do they wear road out twice as fast? Just curious as I use the same tyres as everyone else

 

I have solar panels and a 5kw invertor anyway so the invertor isn't an issue and I'm not really straining the network either...

[colin11]

Motorway chargers are anywhere between 50kwh and 150kwh

 

Charge time is around 20-30 mins not sure why I would stop over night?

 

Why do they wear road out twice as fast? Just curious as I use the same tyres as everyone else

 

I have solar panels and a 5kw invertor anyway so the invertor isn't an issue and I'm not really straining the network either...

 

 

I should imagine they wear out the road faster because electric cars weigh more than petrol cars due to the weight of the batteries

[unclebulgaria67]

The future is making your own fuel using household waste. Think of all of the poop, food waste etc that would be available in every town/city to convert to energy.

 

There is a bus in the Bristol area, that runs using human excrement. It is timetabled as the No.2 service.

 

Just needs investment.

 

Tackles two issues at the same time. Waste and energy !

[ericsbrother]

My comments were to show that if this was to become the model for being normal for the future it would all go pear shaped pretty quickly. Yes, the fast charge points can top up in half an hour to an hour but if every car was electric even with a dozen charging points the service stations would be overwhelmed hence the necessity to wait an age. Also the draw on current for thsi fast charging will overwhelm the national grid and offer no cash retun in the way of road tax etc.

If you got your PV on your roof early enough you are getting paid about twice the going rate fro your feed in and that isnt sustainable either. Even at those reates it taes about 15 yeras to recover your capital outlay and peopel buying into the scheme now weill have to wait 20 years before they show a profit.

Using waset to create energy is not new but the tree huggers dont like it because ultimately the more ardetn ones wat us all living in the woods living off foraged nuts rather than working for a comfortable life. I laughed at one who insisted that everyone should comport their watse and grow their own food in the resultant muck. Not very helpful or nice if you live in a 13th floor flat that is overcrowded. It takes a minimum of 4 acres of decent land per head of population to feed yourself and that means a population of under 50 million is sustainable for the UK so who decides who gets to eat when we are all growing our own nut cutlets?

 

 

However, I do like your idea of using the council provided free charing points to power your home. It highlights the stupidity of the project.

Motorway chargers are anywhere between 50kwh and 150kwh

 

Charge time is around 20-30 mins not sure why I would stop over night?

 

Why do they wear road out twice as fast? Just curious as I use the same tyres as everyone else

 

I have solar panels and a 5kw invertor anyway so the invertor isn't an issue and I'm not really straining the network either...

[labrat]

I'll admit people can't easily self support now

 

Not sure on the "solar panels aren't worth it though"

 

I had mine in recently so on the currnt feed in tariff not the "unsustainable" one

 

The cost was just over £4,500

 

My bill for electricity is down anywhere between £60 - £70 a month so far (yes I'm a high user) that's about £700 a year

 

The feed in tariff is sending me about £50 every 3 months (although its more in summer less in winter)

 

They should be paid back in about 5-6 years hopefully

 

The only thing I wish I had done differently is added a battery system to store the excess (you still get paid for exporting 50% of what you make even if you don't export it)

 

Ive self wired a panel system into the summerhouse that's on a controller which stores the excess in a car battery then the lights work off that - if it wasn't for the fact it's too much to self wire I'd be expanding it to the house lights as that's one of my few costs now

[hightail]

I should imagine they wear out the road faster because electric cars weigh more than petrol cars due to the weight of the batteries

How much more than a normal engine do the batteries weigh? You'd also have to factor in the size of the car. I'm really not so sure that my i3 weighs more than my 5 series tourer.

 

 

Just looked it up - 5 series kerb weight 1710 - 1865kg, i3 1345 - 1365kg.

Even looking at a more like for like comparison a one series is 1380 - 1555kg.

[unclebulgaria67]

My prediction is that electric cars will be a temporary fad that lasts no more than 20 years.

 

Yes battery technology will advance, making them smaller and able to store more power, so cars can cover more miles. Also the recharging time will reduce.

 

But I think that other technology will take over, as Government looks to avoid the issues that come with electric vehicles. The amount of electric that will be consumed overnight, as so many vehicles will be presumably put on to recharge overnight, so they have a fully recharged batteries ready for the morning commute. Also the amount of recharging points that will be required around the country. The problems caused by electric vehicles running out of power in a traffic jam, causing problems for services to get them removed. With a petrol car, you can fill them up from a can, if they run out. With an electric vehicle, you can't currently recharge them very quickly to get them moving again.

 

 

But

[hightail]

as so many vehicles will be presumably put on to recharge overnight, so they have a fully recharged batteries ready for the morning commute.

You are discussing old technology. It takes about half an hour to recharge a vehicle at a public fast charge point. It takes a couple of hours on a home charge point. The overnight thing was when they were plugged in to a normal household socket - days long gone. If you don't object to filling stations around the country why would you object to recharging points? They could just take the place of petrol pumps. It takes 5-10 minutes to stand and fill a car now so as the technology continues to advance it won't be any more of an inconvenience having to stop and fill up. There's no more chance of an electric vehicle running out of power in a traffic jam than there is of a petrol vehicle doing so, probably less because they don't use/waste power when at a standstill. Why would you think there is?

[labrat]

I have to admit my leafs max weight is 1995kg 1550kg unladen - but mine is an older electric car (61 plate but older style)

 

Hightail is right they don't use power when stood still - do enough rush hours to have proved that

 

I think there will be other new types of car but I think they will go alongside electric - I was looking at the map of charging stations at work (forgot to charge overnight - stopped at local pub for a bit) and there's already several hydrogen refill points in the uk

 

The bit that interests me is the current look at 2way chargers for cars - if you get home with extra power it will use that to run your house - it then knows how long the car will take to recharge and has it charged for a time you specify

 

What I would love to see put in is a communal solar scheme, say a street of about 30 houses all with panels on - average solar scheme is 5kwh per house so 150kwh there.

 

Add in a communal battery in the substation say 200kwh (easily build able looking at the 129Mwh one in Australia)

 

I don't think a community scheme like that wouldnt need to draw much from the grid - most people use power at different times so their panels would charge the battery or power other houses, if someone's panels couldn't cover their needs it would draw from the battery

 

The only thing that doesn't seem easy is how to split what is drawn from the grid as there's no easy way (even if you did it on a by house basis how would it deal with someone who drained the battery constantly causing others to use the grid?)

 

There's a few buildings near me I would LOVE to get my hands on, ones an old mill brought by a developer but never developed - think that would be a science park as there's none near us, it has a nature reserve attached, it still has the mill run which would look great with an old wheel running a generator, it's south facing so solar brilliant

 

There's also an abandoned cottage in wales its been urban explored multiple times and is getting delapidated, lake views, 2 bedroom, old coal fire, waterfall in garden (I'm thinking hydro again) and 2 small outbuildings - I'm thinking holiday cottage for rental

[tobyjugg2]

A subject close to my heart - and perhaps the very survival of the world.

 

Batteries are really dirty things to make and dispose of, but are what we have at the moment.

 

Its a shame the economics (existing factories, investment, jobs, government incentives) dont drive what I would call real hybrids

 

A battery powered car with a small highly efficient ethanol or preferably hydrogen peroxide 'motor' generator on board to supply continuous top ups to the batteries when necessary -

the batteries always deal with the running of the car.

 

The on board charger would be unlikely to be able to keep the car running just using that motor, but a small efficient clean on board generator would easily double or even treble the distance with very small cost to the environment and massive gains in usability and practicability giving perhaps huge benefits to the environment.

 

Tapping the heat output of the on board charger motor would also negate the high energy requirements of heating the car in winter as a total loss drain on the battery and its distance.

 

Hydrogen Peroxide turbine maybe, not talking about fuel cells.

 

Oh - and maker the charger motor small and standard mount - maybe foot squareish size and you could change to use diesel, ethanol or whatever alternatives as they became available. Maybe even use two and pay more car tax depending on whats used.