Electric vehicles (EVs), their emissions, and future viability

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stephenortiz147

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Honda is doing a rear engine hatchback that's about 50mm wider, 80mm taller, and 100mm shorter than a mk2 golf with a higher end interior. 200km range as standard, mostly designed for super urban environments. They kept normal air con knobs which was a smart touch and the camera mirrors aren't in a stupid location like in the etron (if you had your arm on the window sill you would be blocking your rear view screen, these ones are massive instead).

https://youtu.be/MfD67KCFxqI?t=821


Allegedly to be on the market by the end of the year and sold globally. If it's around 2700lbs and 200hp that would be a blast.
Thanks for sharing. Do you know anything about the battery warranty and the battery thermal conditioning system for this Honda EV?
I think no way honda will outperform tesla in any way. By the way want to buy another tesla for my wife, this one looks very cheap https://abetter.bid/en/51833508-2013-tesla-model_s Do you think it's good to buy EV on car auctions and fix them?
 

VeeDubTDI

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I think no way honda will outperform tesla in any way. By the way want to buy another tesla for my wife, this one looks very cheap https://abetter.bid/en/51833508-2013-tesla-model_s Do you think it's good to buy EV on car auctions and fix them?
I would expect that vehicle to sell north of $20,000 and require quite a bit of body work. It's also a 60 kWh battery pack, which is one of the smallest Tesla sold (there were also a limit number of 40 kWh packs) and has a range of about 200 miles.

I think your money would be better spent buying a short range Model 3, which starts at $35,000 and still qualifies for $3,750 in federal tax credit. It'll have 220 miles of range, a full warranty and and will charge significantly faster than the 60 kWh Model S.
 

turbobrick240

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I would expect that vehicle to sell north of $20,000 and require quite a bit of body work. It's also a 60 kWh battery pack, which is one of the smallest Tesla sold (there were also a limit number of 40 kWh packs) and has a range of about 200 miles.
I think your money would be better spent buying a short range Model 3, which starts at $35,000 and still qualifies for $3,750 in federal tax credit. It'll have 220 miles of range, a full warranty and and will charge significantly faster than the 60 kWh Model S.
Hey, Happy Birthday! I agree that a new model 3 would be way fewer headaches. I've watched enough Rich rebuilds youtube vids to see what expenditure of time and money these salvage Teslas can require. The big wildcard is if the battery pack is damaged or not. Just getting parts for salvage cars can be quite the headache as well.

EV West made the national news a few nights ago. The swaps they're doing with salvaged Tesla (among other) parts are cool as heck.
 

rotarykid

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There is plenty of evidence that the wind industry as a whole has been less than honest about the real data relating to when they shut down a turbine to full "0"% deflection, due to wind speed limits, far below what the industry openly claims are limits....

These limits on high-speed limits forced into place by those who gave the loans to build & insurers.....the real enforced limits on allowable high-speed limits by the insurers that limit severely what is actually produced annually compared to what they actually produce....

Max allowed speed is the speed they(insurance policy writers & companies on the line for required maintenance that has shown operating above these limits lead to expensive to the point of losing profitability have been chosen based on real-world data...

The real world data based insurance payouts relating directly to the real data on when these systems actually fail due to brake failure.

(I know of at least two studies funded by the insurance industry that today seem to have been purposely impossible to find on the web, by claiming bs privacy claims )

The data that was shown in a pbs program a while back shows wind turbines must be locked down above set maximums written into insurance policies by applying the locking brakes with blades at no deflexion in attempt to keep them from starting to spin in the high wind..


high Wind speeds far below what are today the claimed maximum safe speed for 10 minutes, making their current claims to be laughable compared to what are widely across the industry to be the actual maximum safe high wind speed range....

Observed wind speeds so much lower than the claimed safe maximums that can & have around the world led to toppling over, blades being broken off sending them flying across the countryside or ocean where ever they were installed...

Not something I think anyone who wants a clear picture of where we are today in relation to how power wind turbines actually are producing compared to what I see as dishonest lies that were used to sell these things, still is being used to sell a dishonest production on return for investment in these multi-million $$$$$ things....

The more I read about what I know first hand to be true, these things due to wear issue and insurance company policy restrictions are far more limited in the time they are allowed to operate than I knew...


Today the limiting of the operation speed range low limits to high allowed limits before they are required to lock these things down shutting down all power production is mainly controlled by the insurance companies that carry their policies which allow operation....


University of Colorado Boulder

By Clint Talbott • Published: Feb. 28, 2017

Incorporating wind energy into today’s electrical grid raises a host of questions about wind forecasting, wind-turbine siting, wind-turbine design in hurricane zones;

CU Boulder lab is investigating these and other questions
With costs falling and installations soaring, wind energy has become a power to be reckoned with. But its rise brings a host of new challenges.

Lundquist

Julie Lundquist

Wind-energy companies need more-accurate wind-resource assessments to persuade banks to loan funds to build new facilities;

wind-farm firms should understand how best to situate individual wind turbines in a farm to maximize production; utility operators should have a better sense of when,

where and how fast the wind will blow up to a day ahead of time so that grid operators can plan to cut fossil-powered plant generation.

And offshore wind farms, which the United States is only beginning to install, need to be able to withstand hurricane winds or have risk management mechanisms to ensure their financial viability.

Researchers in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ATOC) at the University of Colorado Boulder are among a growing body of scientists expanding the frontiers of human knowledge in these and related areas.

They presented an array of their recent findings during the American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting in Seattle this year.

Julie Lundquist is an associate professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at CU Boulder who holds a joint appointment at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden.

She and her fellow researchers are striving to help better integrate wind power into the U.S. electrical grid.

Wind energy now composes about 5 percent of U.S. electrical generation, with 76 gigawatts installed by 2016, up from 34 gigawatts in 2009.

Power production you can bank on

Issue: Wind assessments over-estimate how much energy will be produced at wind farms, so wind-farm prospectors get less-favorable-than-desired financing for these projects.

Finding: Long-term wind data analyzed in a certain way yield better results
In every wind-energy conference Lundquist has attended since 2010,

experts have discussed a problem: wind-resource assessments tend to over-estimate how much wind power will be generated annually in proposed wind farms.

Financial ratings companies such as Moody’s and Fitch Ratings have noted the discrepancy between initially projected and actually produced wind power. Because of this over-estimation, banks have offered less-favorable financing than wind-farm prospectors seek.

ATOC graduate student Nicola Bodini and colleagues Dino Zardi at the University of Trento and Mark Handschy of the CU Boulder Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) worked with Lundquist to probe this discrepancy:

“It seemed like there would be an atmospheric connection, so we started investigating,” Lundquist said.

Their analysis of a 62-year data set of wind speeds measured at 60 sites across Canada identified the source of wind-power over-estimation.

The wind-power industry banks on a site’s estimated “P50” value, which defines the middle of the expected range of annual power production—production should exceed P50 in half the years of a wind plant’s life.

Analogously, the “P90” value is a production floor that the plant should exceed nine years out of 10.

To understand resource assessment errors you need records that are long compared to the 20-year lifetimes for wind plants. Unfortunately, there are very few long-term measurement datasets. ...


Such datasets serve many uses, including providing data that can improve basic weather forecasting beyond energy applications."

Recognizing that the industry’s method of estimating future wind power production at a site relies on statistical methods that assume that there is no correlation in wind speeds from year to year,

Lundquist’s team measured the P50 and P90 estimated wind power that would be produced at these 60 Canadian sites.

First, the team studied the potential impact of the record length (number of years of observations) might have on estimates of wind power at the 60 sites.

They found that the inter-annual variability of winds increased for longer record lengths, which is not what one would expect if the wind speeds each year were independent of each other.

So the group ran a “control” experiment considering the wind speeds out of chronological order.

When the order of the yearly wind speeds was randomly shuffled, there was no increase in inter-annual variability in the estimated power production with longer record length.

The best explanation for this finding is year-to year correlation.

In the “experimental” run (with wind-speeds in chronological order), only 13 (compared to the expected 30) of 60 sites had production beating their P50 value. p90

The dotted line illustrates the projected P50 energy output from a wind farm, while the actual production appears in the blue bars, indicating that the wind assessment was too optimistic. Image from DNV GL.

What’s more, the team found that the error in the P50 values gets larger with records longer than four to five years, which is somewhat counter-intuitive, but which again can be accounted for by year-to-year correlation.

Lundquist said the team’s findings help explain the errors in proposed wind-power production.

“This analysis is consistent with the complaints from the financial industry that P50 and P90 values fail to represent reality,” Lundquist said.

The research team believes these findings could be used to help develop more-accurate wind-resource assessment techniques.

And Lundquist said the results also underscore the need for long-term measurements of wind,

which could help scientists further refine wind-resource assessments.

“To understand resource assessment errors you need records that are long compared to the 20-year lifetimes for wind plants.

Unfortunately, there are very few long-term measurement datasets,” she said.

“A policy change could address this, perhaps federal policy that requires wind farm developers to make their resource assessment data public as well as maintain their towers over the lifetime of the farm.

I understand that European countries have this requirement: Such datasets serve many uses, including providing data that can improve basic weather forecasting beyond energy applications.”

Understanding wakes

Issue: A common weather model does not accurately predict wind "ramps," rapid increases or decreases in wind speed and, hence, generated power.

Finding: Incoporating a wind-farm paramaterization into the model greatly improves forecast accuracy.


Accurately projecting wind power years into the future is one piece of the wind-energy puzzle. Another is that wind turbines themselves alter the characteristics of downstream wind,

prompting scientists to study wake effects and their implications for wind-power production.

In a separate research effort, with contributions from ATOC graduate students Jessica Tomaszewski,

Rochelle Worsnop and Stephanie Redfern, along with colleague Yelena Pichugina of CIRES,

Lundquist discussed the efforts to improve an open-source weather prediction model by including the effects of wind turbines themselves on the atmosphere in and near wind farms.

The effects of wind turbines are seen as wakes, downstream wind-speed reduction and turbulence increase.

Wakes are represented in the wind farm parameterization, which is incorporated into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model.

Using data collected in Wind Forecast Improvement Project-2 (WFIP2), a project led by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Oceanic

and Atmospheric Administration, the Lundquist team compared measurements of the atmosphere, such as wind speed, against modeled values of the same variables.

WindCube

Graduate students Rochelle Worsnop and Clara St.

Martin of Lundquist's research group work on a scanning lidar instrument, used to measure wind speed, direction and veer,

in Oregon at a Wind Forecast Improvement 2 site. Photo by Joseph Lee.

The WFIP2 field campaign is being conducted in the Columbia River Gorge, an area with complex (not simple or flat) terrain.

Ramps, which are difficult-to-predict large increases or decreases in wind speeds that lead to corresponding changes in power production, are modified by turbine wakes.

The study found that the WRF predicts ramps later than ramps actually occur. The study also found that incorporating the wind farm parameterization reduces this forecast error.

In a related line of study, ATOC graduate student Joseph Lee and Lundquist use observations of wind speeds and known values of wind-power production at a 300-megawatt wind farm in Iowa,

collected during the 2013 Crop and Wind Energy eXperiment (CWEX), to verify model results.

As in the previous study, Lee explained, this validation study uses a wind farm parameterization to model the effects of wind turbines on the atmosphere.

However, unlike the WFIP2 study, which uses data collected in complex terrain, the CWEX study in Iowa occurred in flat terrain.

Lee explained that the wind power predicted by the WRF model without any wind farm parameterization over-estimated the amount of power that the wind farm would produce by at least 40 megawatts, or 13 percent of the potential power production, on average over the four-day period tested.

This over-estimation reflects a large positive bias in the WRF model. However, wind power predicted by the WRF model with the wind farm parameterization eliminates the positive bias and has only a small negative bias of -5 megawatts,

yielding more-accurate estimates of wind power than the WRF simulations without the wind farm parameterization.

farm
CU Boulder researchers make their way through an Iowa cornfield with a wind turbine overhead. Photo courtesy of Julie Lundquist.


Additionally, this study found that models with finer vertical grid resolution (10-meter grids instead of 22-meter grids) yield more accurate estimates of power production.

Besides, Lee explained that in high winds, the model with the wind farm parameterization over-estimates wake effects,

whereas in low winds, the simulations with the wind farm parameterization under-estimates wake effects.

Lastly, Lee’s study found that the error in power estimates is independent of the number of turbines in a grid cell and also not affected by atmospheric stability, i.e., whether the weather is calm or turbulent.

These results suggest that modeling the effects of wind turbines on the atmosphere in and near farms will yield more accurate estimates of how much power will be produced at wind farms.

“The impact of using the wind farm parameterization is remarkable, clearly demonstrating that it provides improved forecasts of energy production,” Lee said.

Like Lundquist, Lee emphasized the importance of more data on wind farms. “We had to work hard to acquire the power

data I used in the presentation from the wind farm operator in Iowa, building a trusted relationship over several years” Lee said.

“Usually these data are treated as trade secrets.

However, in my point of view, making the data available to the science community can help us to improve forecasting models, reduce wind power-production uncertainty, and hence push renewable energy forward.”

Working with Bodini and Zardi, Lundquist performed another study from the 2013 CWEX project.


Bodini and the team used data from a scanning lidar instrument, which takes high-resolution measurements of wind speed and direction to look at the effect of changes in wind direction with height (also known as “veer”) on wakes created by operating wind turbines.

They looked at wakes from front-row turbines, because deeper inside the wind farm, the wakes start mixing with one another.

In calm weather, the wakes are easy to detect in lidar data, and the wakes from turbines at the ends of the row differ from wakes from turbines in the center of the row. Further, when there are changes in wind direction, the wakes stretch out.

In turbulent weather, turbine wakes erode quickly by vertical movement of air that is found in unstable conditions. These results can be incorporated into current efforts to optimize the placement of individual turbines within a given wind farm to maximize the amount of power produced by the wind farm,

and incorporated into models such as the wind farm parameterization model to increase the accuracy of predictions of wind power production.

“The wind-power sector has incorporated research on turbine wakes into wind-farm layout, but the models now used need to be refined,”

Lundquist said.

“Understanding wind turbine wakes is an active area of research, and simple wake models are regularly incorporated into wind farm layout design,”

Lundquist said. “Our research shows that wakes are much more complicated than those simple models in ways that regularly impact wind farm operations.”

Like a hurricane

Issue: The U.S. just launched its first offshore wind farm, but wind farms off the U.S. coast could be hit by hurricanes.

Finding: Turbines designed by existing standards would likely be damaged by hurricane wind speed, yaw and sheer, and design standards should incorporate these factors.
Until late 2016, all of the United States’ wind farms were on land. With the installation of the first U.S. offshore wind farm near Rhode Island, hurricanes have emerged as a concern.

At present, the strongest wind turbines are designed to withstand 10-minute mean wind speeds of 50 meters per second (about 111 mph) and three-second gusts of 70 meters per second (about 156 mph), although new international design standards are under discussion.


But mean winds much weaker than these in Japan and China have toppled turbines there and ripped off their blades. A Chinese wind farm was hit and damaged by hurricane-force winds twice in 10 years.

“Wind farms are generally designed to last 20 to 30 years, so when they are damaged by hurricane winds in such a short time, it can pose a problem for wind-farm operators and their financers,” Worsnop said.

Worsnop discussed her study about the effects of hurricanes on potential offshore wind turbines.

Collaborators on this study include George Bryan of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Walt Musial and Rick Damiani of NREL, and Lundquist.

Worsnop and the team found that current wind-turbine designs would not withstand the most intense hurricanes, including those known to occur in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast south of the Carolinas.

The International Electrotechnical Commission sets standards for engineering and design requirements.

The most stringent requirements, currently only set for onshore conditions, are those for turbines that could withstand winds associated with a weak Category 2 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale) at turbine hub height (about 100 meters).

The international commission does not set standards for turbines that could withstand Category 3, 4 and 5 hurricanes.

At present, the strongest wind turbines are designed to withstand 10-minute mean wind speeds of 50 meters per second (about 111 mph) and three-second gusts of 70 meters per second (about 156 mph), although new international design standards are under discussion. But mean winds much weaker than these in Japan and China have toppled turbines there and ripped off their blades.

Using the Cloud Model Version I (CM1) large-eddy-simulation model to simulate hurricane winds that could occur in the lower part of the marine atmosphere where offshore wind farms are being considered for development,

the research team found that mean winds and gusts near the eyewall of a hurricane can exceed current turbine design thresholds.

The team also found that changing wind direction at hub height, called shear, can challenge turbines as they try to orient themselves or yaw into the predominant wind direction.

Turbines designed by IEC standards typically yaw in 10 minutes, but hurricane-force winds can change directions by 10 to 30 degrees in as little as one minute, making it difficult for current turbine yaw systems to keep up, Worsnop said.

Additionally, Worsnop’s team found that wind turbines in hurricanes would encounter veer, which is wind that changes direction with height. Veer is not considered in IEC design standards, Worsnop said, “But we believe it should be, based on our results.”

The next edition of the IEC design standard will have a typhoon/hurricane-resilient subclass of wind turbines, she added. “I hope that our research will further guide this upcoming design subclass to account for gusts, gust factor, and the changes in wind direction that we see in hurricanes.”

The next steps in the hurricane-related research would be to assess the probability of the occurrence of wind conditions that exceed turbine design standards for different regions off the U.S. coast and to determine the combined effect of waves and hurricane winds on offshore wind turbines, Worsnop said.

At the AMS annual meeting, ATOC graduate student Jessica Tomaszewski won a first-place award for her presentation titled “Do Wind Turbines Pose Roll Hazards to Light Aircraft?” Also, graduate student Joseph Lee won third place for his presentation titled “Improvements in Wind Power Forecasts through use of the WRF Wind Farm Parameterization evaluated with Meteorological and Turbine Power Data.” ATOC graduate student Clara St. Martin, who has defended her Ph.D. and just began a wind-resource-assessment position with GE Renewable Energy, also presented on evaluation of the WRF Wind Farm Parameterization in complex terrain. Outside of the energy conference at the AMS annual meeting, Laura Mazzaro presented a poster on “The Influence of Mesoscale, Under-Resolved Convective Structures on Nested Large Eddy Simulations” that provides guidance for simulations to improve forecasting of winds in the atmospheric boundary layer.
 

turbovan+tdi

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I don't know, all the hooplah over electric vs ice, and the final emissions isn't as great as they say it is.

the current Golf TDI (Diesel) emits 140g CO2/km on average over its entire life cycle, while the e-Golf reaches 119g CO2/km,
 

turbobrick240

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As well as the real world life cycle. The EV gets even better with higher mileage.
 

tikal

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City vs long distance highway with desired cargo space matters.

Right now EVs on the market are probably a good value for city driving, better than diesel and hybrids. For highway driving the cost/benefit of an electrical SUV is not yet favorable to the average American buyer.
 

Nuje

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We live in a small town - like 10km end-to-end. It just killed me when we'd drive one of our TDIs to Costco (5km away), shop for 40minutes, drive the 5km home. And most of our driving was like that, unless we were taking a trip.

So, her TDI went away and was replaced by an Audi A3 e-tron, which is the PERFECT car for our situation: We can go literally for weeks on all-electric (30-35km range), but then if we wanted to drive to California, for example, we wouldn't even need to think twice - jump in and let the 1.4T do its thing. :)
 

nwdiver

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The cost disparity between EV and ICE can get absolutely ridiculous. Xcel is shifting more and more of their commercial billing to demand (kW) and away from energy (kWh). A friend of mine charges his car at work. The Electricity where he works is billed at ~$11/kW and $0.004/kWh. Peak occurs in the late evening so when he charges his car in the morning a full charge would cost ~$0.30 for ~300 miles of range. ~$0.001/mi! Even if a TDI got 50 miles/gal and a gallon of diesel was $1 it would still cost ~20x more.
 

Tin Man

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If it was still on the market in North America, a new BMW 5-series diesel is very similar in cost to a new Tesla model S:

BMW 540 dx Total 5 year cost: $99,245
Tesla Model S Total 5 year cost: $99,240

Buying used is not much different:
BMW 535d Total 5 year cost: $65,017
Tesla Model S Total 5 year cost: $60,029

Individual preferences, needs, discounts/incentives, options, local fuel and electricity costs, availability and cost of charging etc. will make the difference.

My next car may indeed be electric depending on these circumstances.
 
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Pat Dolan

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Not so much about the cars themselves, but a lot of this is being driven by some anti-carbon zealots among the Euroweenies. When renewables became "a thing" Europeans had maybe 10% of their power coming from wind farms, etc. and the payback was estimated to be something like 10 years. Well, we work in wind farms on this side of the ocean, and I can tell you, that's total BS. My buddy was in Yurp last week meeting with some power companies, and now they are close to half renewables, but the payback at the current rates of billing is nearly infinite. All this talk of 1/2 cent Kw/hr. billing for charging EVs is nothing but the virtue signalling of people and companies who are only too glad to pass their efforts along to those of us paying for the actual cost of power.

I think there IS a place for EVs in golf courses, short distance commuting and package delivery, but IMHO to try and replace ICEs - ESPECIALLY diesels is fools gold.
 

compu_85

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I think there IS a place for EVs in golf courses, short distance commuting and package delivery, but IMHO to try and replace ICEs - ESPECIALLY diesels is fools gold.
To each their own I suppose. We're heading out in our Tesla for South Dakota on Tuesday. We've put 25,000 miles on the car in one year... range and charging have not been an issue.

-J
 

Tin Man

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What Pat is saying seems to be that current cost of electricity due to renewables is severely under-billed since the payback of renewables is quite longer than initial estimates.
 

nwdiver

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All this talk of 1/2 cent Kw/hr. billing for charging EVs is nothing but the virtue signalling of people and companies who are only too glad to pass their efforts along to those of us paying for the actual cost of power.
Look for yourself. ~$0.004175/kWh This has nothing to do with 'virtue signaling' SPS Xcel could not care less about EVs. They're simply shifting their fees to where the cost are. Their primary cost isn't kWh. It's ensuring there's sufficient kW to meet peak demand.

This highlights the reality that there is significant value in flattening the demand curve which EVs can play a major role in doing. If summer peak is 80GW then the utility needs to have the infrastructure to support 80GW. The further demand is below 80GW the more idle infrastructure they're maintaining. Dispatchable demand like EVs provide the opportunity to use that infrastructure more effectively.

I think there IS a place for EVs in golf courses, short distance commuting and package delivery, but IMHO to try and replace ICEs - ESPECIALLY diesels is fools gold.
They're perfect for any commute <100 miles. If your commute is >100 miles you don't need a diesel.... you probably need to move.

What Pat is saying seems to be that current cost of electricity due to renewables is severely under-billed since the payback of renewables is quite longer than initial estimates.
According to what? The cost of wind and solar continue to fall. Xcel is building a wind farm that will produce energy for <$0.02/kWh. The biggest threat they face isn't cost it's curtailment. Which millions of EVs tied to the grid willing to opportunistically take cheap power from surplus wind and solar would provide the perfect solution.
 
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compu_85

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This highlights the reality that there is significant value in flattening the demand curve which EVs can play a major role in doing.
GM has an integration with Onstar and power utilities, where the car can be set to charge based on grid demand. No extra hardware needed, just some software.

One of our EVSEs (chargers) has Wifi, and can do the same sort of demand based charging, though it's currently only supported in California.

We pay about $0.10/kwh all in, with time of use w/ demand charges. The cars (and clothes dryer) charge at night :) Overall our electric bill didn't go up much, and we have 4 EVs at our house now.

-J
 

Pat Dolan

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Utility grids are FAR more complicated than just having "unused" energy available for cheap off peak. Power comes in from base load plants that have very good turndown capability, and these are the ones that are kept online 24x7. If you put your charging load on line with that as only source, you have to add fuel to the plant (turn it up) that amount...there is no "extra" energy just sitting there being wasted. Since these are more lightly loaded, efficiency falls off at lighter loads, so that makeup fuel is MORE expensive than adding it in when the base load plant is at a fairly high load. When you step demand in the system up above the spinning reserves, you now have to buy power on the open market (usually 1/2 hour or 1 hour blocks, 24 hours in advance) and those plants are far less efficient, and far more expensive to operate. If you are charging at work in the daytime, THAT is most likely the part of the supply pie you are tapping, so sure as hell nowhere near some fraction of a cent cost per Kw/hr. As I said: virtue signally with cost passed on the rest of the consumers on the grid (or the company itself). There is another level of peak shaving power, and if you are using while high seasonal combined with high daily you may be using part of the power bought in panic shortfall moves that cost 10x maybe 100x what base loads charge.

Also: I live in the real world of energy supplies. When you see the "too cheap to meter" BS for plants being designed, built, FINANCED, it is just that: carnival side show to suck in investors. While the wind farms ARE getting better at maintenance, they are by no means competitive with fossil fuels for overall reliability and reasonable cost of operation. Again: I get this from the people who are operating "mature" sites, not the hucksters selling the next scam on the list.
 

nwdiver

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Utility grids are FAR more complicated than just having "unused" energy available for cheap off peak. Power comes in from base load plants that have very good turndown capability, and these are the ones that are kept online 24x7. If you put your charging load on line with that as only source, you have to add fuel to the plant (turn it up) that amount...there is no "extra" energy just sitting there being wasted.
You're forgetting that we have wind and solar on the grid now too. More and more everyday. Curtailment of wind or solar is exactly that. 'extra' energy that is just sitting there being wasted. Last month CAISO curtailed 190,000,000 kWh of renewable energy. That's enough energy for ~750,000 EVs. There's no reason that most of the energy for EVs can't come from wind or solar that would have otherwise been curtailed (wasted).

Even without curtailment there may not be extra 'fuel' but there is extra 'capacity'. The utility is paying for that capacity whether it's used or not which is why off-peak is cheaper.

Also: I live in the real world of energy supplies. When you see the "too cheap to meter" BS for plants being designed, built, FINANCED, it is just that: carnival side show to suck in investors. While the wind farms ARE getting better at maintenance, they are by no means competitive with fossil fuels for overall reliability and reasonable cost of operation. Again: I get this from the people who are operating "mature" sites, not the hucksters selling the next scam on the list.
So what is your expert opinion on the value of a buffer? At 2am when the wind farm is capable of producing 2GW but the grid is only capable of accepting 1GW what would the value of 100k+ networked EVs be that can take that excess capacity the majority of the time? Then 2 hours later when the wind speed drops what's the value of being able to reduce the charging demand of those EVs by 3GW instead of firing up a gas turbine?
 
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Tin Man

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Until I hear about solar panels or wind farms that "pay for themselves" in a reasonable amount of time, apparent low operating costs that are not calculated truly including the fixed costs involved in creating and maintaining such enterprises will be, like Pat said, "hucksters selling the next scam on the list."

Fixed costs are hidden from these sales pitches it seems. What happens is that investors, taxpayers, and regular customers bear the cost of opening up the grid for variable renewable power, so running cost/kWhr may not represent the combined cost of development and building infrastructure.

To keep it simple, if solar panels were so good, people would have them everywhere and the local Walmart would sell them. It doesn't work that way. So far, the cost of set-up is too high. That's how the market works.

Reminds me of the arguments for rail transport. Variable costs per mile are never properly reimbursed while fixed costs are incredibly more expensive per passenger mile than a compact hatchback.
 

nwdiver

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Until I hear about solar panels or wind farms that "pay for themselves" in a reasonable amount of time,
What's your definition of 'reasonable'? I'm always amused by people that claim the ~10 year payback period for solar or wind is too long while supporting nuclear which takes >25 years. If you roll solar into a mortgage it can effectively pay for itself on day 1 since your mortgage payments go up ~$100 and your electric bill goes down ~$120.

In the last rate case Xcel was able to get their solar farm approved because the 20 year LCOE of the wind project is ~$18/MWh while they pay ~$30/MWh for gas. The state verified the numbers and approved the project. The wind farm will save $$$ by reducing fuel use... it's that simple. 1MWh from wind is 1MWh not from gas because physics. Variability is irrelevant. The only real threat is curtailment which is where having cars that can take energy that would be otherwise curtailed is beneficial.

To keep it simple, if solar panels were so good, people would have them everywhere and the local Walmart would sell them. It doesn't work that way. So far, the cost of set-up is too high. That's how the market works.
And if opioids were so bad people would stop taking them.... right? Humans are not known for rational behavior.... It doesn't work that way.

Buying solar is WAAY better than leasing solar yet leases are more popular. Solar isn't 'common' for the same reason most people can't cover a $400 emergency expense. They're terrible at planning beyond 6 months. Doesn't mean it's 'good'.
 
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Tin Man

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And if opioids were so bad people would stop taking them.... right? Humans are not known for rational behavior.... It doesn't work that way.
Buying solar is WAAY better than leasing solar yet leases are more popular. Solar isn't 'common' for the same reason most people can't cover a $400 emergency expense. They're terrible at planning beyond 6 months. Doesn't mean it's 'good'.
Yet the "common" car buyer spends upwards of $35,000 for the sale price of the car and generally keeps it at least 3 years.

Perhaps technology has become the opioid of, er, at least some....
 
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Tin Man

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What's your definition of 'reasonable'? I'm always amused by people that claim the ~10 year payback period for solar or wind is too long while supporting nuclear which takes >25 years. If you roll solar into a mortgage it can effectively pay for itself on day 1 since your mortgage payments go up ~$100 and your electric bill goes down ~$120.

In the last rate case Xcel was able to get their solar farm approved because the 20 year LCOE of the wind project is ~$18/MWh while they pay ~$30/MWh for gas. The state verified the numbers and approved the project. The wind farm will save $$$ by reducing fuel use... it's that simple. 1MWh from wind is 1MWh not from gas because physics. Variability is irrelevant. The only real threat is curtailment which is where having cars that can take energy that would be otherwise curtailed is beneficial.
Is this before or after the massive subsidies kick in?

Ever look inside the head of a home builder? The cost of solar would not be in there, with the mentality needed to stay profitable I would guess.

It would have to be contracted separately and approved through the bank. A good idea yes, but hardly ready for mainstream home buying. Until solar set-ups are considered a value added home improvement, it remains a peripheral for dedicated techsters.
 

nwdiver

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Is this before or after the massive subsidies kick in?
Ever look inside the head of a home builder? The cost of solar would not be in there, with the mentality needed to stay profitable I would guess.
It would have to be contracted separately and approved through the bank. A good idea yes, but hardly ready for mainstream home buying. Until solar set-ups are considered a value added home improvement, it remains a peripheral for dedicated techsters.
Before. Solar set-ups do add value.
 

Pat Dolan

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Depends on who owns the wind generating capacity. Different states and provinces do things differently and the ones we work with seldom own renewables, those are generally IPPs (Independent Power Producers). IF the distribution utility owns a wind farm, the considerations NWDiver poses could be the case. From what I see, though, many parts of the power infrastructure are broken down to generation, transmission and distribution, with the distributors buying in advance from the generators. There ARE some who are still vertically integrated, and those would have the flexibility to optimize wind availability on demand, rather than from a power pool contract.

Also: one the "new plant honeymoon" is over and maintenance rears its ugly and very expensive head, it isn't all that cheap to diddle around with a partially loaded wind turbine.
 
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