Thursday 27 July 2017

How, on current trends, peak demand for electricity is likely to fall in spite of rapid adoption of electric cars

Just as in 2005 the UK was rushed into an ill-judged nuclear programme by scare-stories of imminent power blackouts, we are now being herded into a panic mode by lop-sided projections of future energy demand out of fear of electric vehicles.

EVs are the future of motorised road transportation of course, and I'm sure it will happen quite quickly. But if you work out the figures based on past trends you find out that after re-working the National Grid's recent projections peak demand is actually likely to FALL, not increase.

There is always a supply-side bias in energy projections, and the numbers that are pouring out of the newspapers are the latest manifestation of this phenomenon.

One factor which almost everybody seems to have missed is that electricity demand has fallen since 2005 by around 12 per cent (in 2006 the Government talked about dramatic increases in demand). If you carry this forward to the future then this rate of decline would be more than the increase associated with the expansion in the number of EVs that was assumed by the National Grid in their most recent report. Given the fact that they identified opportunities for load shifting, in particular through 'time of use' charging that would reduce peak demand by up to 4.5 GW, that adds up altogether to a substantial FALL in the amount of peak generating capacity required in 2030.

In fact EVs supplied with electricity by sources such as wind, solar or marine energy are extremely efficient. First, the EVs themselves are, in terms of energy used to move a given distance much more energy efficient than conventional motor vehicles - and this difference is likely to increase as EVs mature as a technology. They have about a threefold advantage in energy efficiency. If the electricity is generated by these renewable energy sources then very little will be wasted (mainly grid losses) before the power is used in the vehicle. In fact the extra electricity needed to power the NG's projected expansion in EVs will be easily covered by the expansion in renewable energy if we assume recent trends continue.

Using the National Grid's assumption that around 9 million road vehicles constituting around one quarter of Britain's road transport fleet will be EVs by 2030 then some 108 TWh of petrol/diesel consumption will be replaced by around 40 TWh of electricity. Since 2012 renewable energy production has increased by over 40 TWh between 2012 and 2016.

There have been some ridiculously exaggerated numbers printed in one leading newspaper (I won't dignify them by mentioning their name) about the numbers of wind turbines needed to cover the extra production for EVs. In fact there are now around 7600 wind turbines in the UK. Given increasing sizes of offshore wind turbines (soon to be 10 MW each) and also increasing levels of efficiency for the newest models (with capacity factors approaching 50 per cent) then no more than 1000 new wind turbines would be needed to generate the demand for all of the EVs in operation by 2030. 

Now, for various reasons, including cutting carbon emissions and reducing our dependency on imported natural gas, we ought to be doing a lot more than that. Which, I suppose, if I were more cynical might lead me to forget about about countering the exaggerated stuff about the need for new power plant since this boosts the need for renewable energy. But getting further towards the objective of providing close to 100 per cent of our energy from renewables, as well as promoting energy efficiency, are good things in themselves and enough of an incentive to do a lot more than what we are doing now.



Some notes:

Nissan leaf 30 KWh per 100 miles

Average miles per gallon uk
38 mpg or 2.6 gallons per 100 miles


10 KWh per litre of petrol or 46 KWh per gallon or 2.6xs 46 KWh per 100 miles =120 KWh per 100 miles

Electricity from RE is at least 3xs as efficient as a petrol driven motor. Or 120 divided by 3.3 = 3.6xs as efficient.

37 mtoe used in road transport in 2016

11.63 MWh in1 tonne of oil. 11.63 TWh in 1 million tonnes of oil or 430 TWh from 37 mtoe divided by 3.6 comes to about 120 TWh.
A quarter of this is 40 TWh if approaching 50 cf is reached no more than 10 GW of capacity is needed. Already got 7.600 machines.



National grid report https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/13/electric-car-boom-power-demand-national-grid-hinkley-point-c 9 million electric cars and vehicles in 2030 = 8GW of extra peak.

UK electricity demand has fallen from a peak of 406 TWh in 2005 to 357 TWh in 2016.
Renewable Energy Production has increased from 41 to 83 TWh from 2012 to 2016.

Monday 24 July 2017

How Brexiteers are undermining their claimed objective of a free trade deal with the EU

British politicians are engaging in what can only be seen as a self-defeating series of postures on Brexit that undermine their self-declared aim of securing a free trade agreement with the EU.

As I commented last November,( http://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/why-leaving-eu-is-bit-like-building.html ),
the best that the UK can hope for in the medium term is a Norweigian or Swiss type deal that leaves us in the Single Market with at best a face-saving deal to obscure the continuation of current rules on freedom of movement.

The Government knows that the much-touted 'free trade deal' will take several years to negotiate and that if the UK left the EU without them any government in power would become extremely unpopular because of the border and business chaos that would happen in March 2019. A sense of self-preservation has forced the Government to agree to the notion of a 'transitional' or 'implementation' phase that will last at least two years (more I'm sure). 'Hard Brexit' or the notion 'no deal is better than a bad deal' was never anything more, for the Government, than a phrase used as a party management device.

This  'implementation phase' will involve a Norweigian or Swiss type deal -and that includes free movement of people from the EU to take up jobs in the UK. British politicians debate the extent to which we can choose labour market rules. But it is all farcical. It is not up to them to choose. They can either take the EU's terms - which cannot, for obvious reasons be better than Norway or Switzerland's deal - or suffer the famed 'hard Brexit'. Hence their wish to avoid political disaster by bowing to the inevitable and agreeing to a 'implementation' phase. A comment from the EU on how the UK's wishes to 'cherry pick' the Single Market are unrealistic can be seen at http://www.epc.eu/pub_details.php?cat_id=4&pub_id=7865

The Brexiteers in the Government thus have faced a dilemma - resign or accept the notion of a 'transitional' phase.
But the Brexiteers, if they seriously want a good trade deal with the EU, are their own worst enemy. This is because the last thing the UK needs in negotiating a free trade agreement is a time limit for the talks. This is a set of bargaining that only the UK really wants. The EU would be perfectly satisfied with the status quo - that is the UK continuing to belong to the Single Market. It's only the UK who want what is, in trading terms an inferior  arrangement of a free trade deal which would leave a lot of areas, including access to services, uncovered (see https://www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/services-trade-and-free-movement). The UK only want it because of the illusion that getting rid of free movement of people into the UK will do it any good.

The point is that the EU aren't going to be in a hurry to agree to the inferior position of a 'free trade' deal. So if Britain wants one quick then it will have to accept whatever terms the EU want to offer - it will not have the time to argue about it!

That is the craziness of the Tory Brexiteer vision. Either they destroy their party electorally as they take the blame for a disastrous 'hard Brexit' or they destroy the UK negotiating position for a free trade agreement. Liam Fox may be the first minister in British history to be busy negotiating for international agreements that give the UK a worse economic deal than they have already!