How the National Grid will work with electric cars

Whole life cycle an important factor

Still, two decades is a long time and what unfolds over the next couple of years will to some extent depend on the UK government’s approach to de-carbonisation and achieving net zero carbon by 2050. Life cycle analysis (LCA) is now emerging as the most accurate way to assess the carbon impact of any manufactured thing and takes into account every stage of a vehicle’s life rather than just the “use phase.” Ricardo, with partners E4tech and ifeu (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Heidelberg) has just completed a substantial study for the European Commission giving it the information it needs to base emissions policies on the whole life impact of vehicles, from cradle to grave. The UK government thinking is still inclined towards point of use (for example, ban all combustion engines by 2030) which some view as a simplistic approach to a complex subject. But if that approach should change, so might the speed of uptake of EVs. Either way, the transition to fully electric vehicles at some stage is now inevitable.

The Grid’s transmission system is continually upgraded and it’s expected that specific, EV-related, upgrades will only be needed for ultra-fast charging. That work will initially centre on motorways where heavy-duty electrical systems already exist. Given that plug-in electric powertrains look certain to form the backbone of road transport sooner rather than later, and not just for passenger cars, but taxis, vans and some trucks and buses, sustainable electricity to feed them is essential. If any significant amounts of greenhouse gasses or regulated pollutants like NOx are produced during its generation then the whole concept becomes a futile.

Massive offshore wind farms

Working on the LCA basis, vehicles need to be manufactured using sustainable energy, fuelled by it and eventually disposed of using it. It’s well known that greenhouse emissions do the same damage whether coming from a tailpipe or elsewhere and that feeding electric vehicles with fossil fuel-produced electricity just shifts regulated emissions away from tailpipes to the power generating stations. But in the UK the picture looks good. Though often the butt of jokes, sustainable energy generation is rapidly increasing and 2019 was a record year with sustainable sources like wind power (both on and off shore) solar, plant biomass and hydro, to name a few, outstripping fossil fuels. In the first quarter of 2020, 47.8 percent of all UK energy came from renewables and in the second quarter, it was a similar story at 44.6%. That said, by 2021 there had actually been a slump in renewable energy production, and in the second quarter of the year it represented just 37.3% of the total mix, a drop of 7.2%. That certainly puts a dent in the government's ambitious plans to cut carbon emissions, including upping offshore wind generation from 10GW today, to 40GW by 2030, which would be enough to power all the homes in the UK, including any EV wallboxes they may have.

Can I earn money from my EV?

Vehicle to grid (V2G) charging is not a wild idea and it’s already being trialled by in the UK and Europe. The idea is that while your EV is plugged in, a special two-way V2G charger can take energy out of the EV battery when it’s not needed to balance the network during peak demand. So far, trials are restricted to business fleets, one of the latest being undertaken by Nissan and E.ON. The two companies predict that E.ON fleet customers could save the equivalent energy needed to drive 10,000 miles per annum (£308). Figures assume a 40kWh Nissan Leaf, 168 mile WLTP range on a full charge, consuming 0.238kWh per miles and an energy cost of 12.93p per kW/h (a unit). It’s still early days yet and similar plans for domestic customers have yet to be announced. One factor affecting domestic use will be cost and space, although the price of V2G chargers is coming down all the time. And the next step is Vehicle to Home (V2H) charging, where your domestic energy supply can be fed by electricity that was fed into your EV's battery when it was chaging at a lower tariff, or even using power from solar panels if you have them. Not only does this reduce cost, it lowers the your carbon footprint.

Where exactly does renewable energy come from?

Switching completely to renewable energy will be crucial if EVs are to make any sense. It’s easy to assume renewable energy, which soared to nearly a half of the UK’s total energy supply at the beginning of this year, comes mainly from wind power and it’s true, on and offshore wind power does represent the lion’s share, but that’s not the whole story. Government figures list 12 forms of “installed” renewable energy sources ranging from shoreline wave and tidal, still in its infancy and capable of producing only 22MW, to onshore wind at the top, with an installed capacity of 48,487MW at the last count. Some of those in between may come as a surprise. Following behind onshore wind at 14,143MW is solar photovoltaics, then offshore wind and in fourth place, plant biomass at 4,551MW. Given it’s been around since the Victorian era, large-scale hydro electric’s contribution is surprisingly modest at 1,473MW especially since energy from waste and landfill gas follows close behind at 1,337MW and 1,055MW respectively. We all have a part to play in contributing to renewable energy though. Sewage sludge digestion contributes 247MW and Anaerobic digestion, 559MW. In the second quarter of 2020 bioenergy and waste contributed an impressive 14.7 percent of the UK’s total energy consumption.

Changing driving habits could affect the grid