For a change, good news, price of electric being reduced.

[Murdochcat]

Yes, much less windy today, hence far more reliance on CCGT - at the present time ...
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Quite so.

But the UK is no where near any security of our power as yet.

Still lots of work to do

 

[JohnW2]

Quite so. .... But the UK is no where near any security of our power as yet. .... Still lots of work to do

Exactly. Don't you understand that that's what I've been saying?

 

[ericmark]

Do you mean you always drive your car so it's empty every day?

I do not use the petrol in my car to run my home. And although petrol does vary in price, it does not vary from 6.5p to 70p for the same quantity. Also, it does not take 6 hours to fill my car. So a petrol car can't be compared with an electric car as there are so many differences between the two fuels and the way they are used.

I use an e-bike, train, and car, they can all be used for some journeys, but there are some which only really work with one, can't really have a beer feasible on e-bike and car, but it was a very pleasurable ride on the train.

The discussion was about the price of electric, which unlike most other fuels, varies in price according to the time of day the energy is transferred, and also we pay a daily fee in order to be able to use it, even if we don't use any.

Small motor vehicles with very few exceptions use electric or liquid fuel, gas is still carried as a liquid, even a Stanley Steamer used liquid fuel, only when you to wagons did any use solid fuel.

In the home we have used gas, oil and electric for lighting, there were gas fridges, and gas used for cooking, plus solid fuels, but to use gas or solid fuels the home needs to be designed around their use. There are units to turn gas into electric, other than a rotating engine.

But realistically other fuels apart for electric are only used for heating, so we either get a generator, or pay for a grid supply. But today we do have the option to store high quantiles of electric. The lead acid battery could discharge fast, but it is very slow to charge, I saw them used with narrow boats, 4 x 180 Ah batteries, and also fork lifts, and milk floats, and it would take 12 hours to recharge, so even with Economy 10, they were not a viable option.

The nickel batteries have changed this, where we can recharge in 1.5 hours, the limit now is more about the supply. My own house has a 60 amp fuse, and I really need 20 amps overnight for the odd coffee, plus fridges/freezers and lights. So I have a maximum of 40 amps to recharge batteries. And EV chargers typically limited to 30 amps,

So with the 5 hours with most off-peak supplies for EVs, We are looking at 35 kWh to 46 kWh that we can store overnight, so we could use a EV and a 10 kWh battery bank, that is about the limit on a 60 amp single phase supply.

10 kWh (without solar) is not enough for my home, so two options, one is use an EV as a battery store, or fit solar panels. And the new breed of EV does allow two-way transfer. I have a large enough roof for 6 kW of panels, as yet no EV, and 6.4 kW of batteries.

If I went for either or both heat pump or EV, I would need a larger supply. At the moment the tariff is same for 60 amps or 100 amps supply, France has a different tariff depending on supply size, with UK it only changes with single to three-phase.