Electric vans

[Ian Mills]

Load throttling is the way. Chargers are now using ct clamps to lower the charging load if the house is using more. You can it a charger to a house with 60amp fuse with risking the dno fuse blowing. The wonders of ct clamps.
There is capacity in the network if used correctly.

Load limiters are used a bit in France as a house might have anything from a 15A supply or a 3 phase 15A per phase up to 60A mono phase or 45A 3 phase they work well but I think we need a clever system using smart meters and wifi so,chargers can be turned on and off to balance out load on the system, by electric company's I think the most that can be done is maybe 20% all electric and 30 to 40% plugin hybrids still think changing heating to electric is a easier than changing your car to run on electric, but they is no money savings there and no green brownie points

 

[Mike Johnson]

DPG Quote: "Having a second home in the south of France is not typical"

happyhippydad Quote : "that made me laugh a lot"

Makes me think back to how much you guys charge for your service's and to quote one of the expression used on here a lot "The race to the bottom"

 

[UNG]

Load throttling is the way. Chargers are now using ct clamps to lower the charging load if the house is using more. You can it a charger to a house with 60amp fuse with risking the dno fuse blowing. The wonders of ct clamps.
There is capacity in the network if used correctly.

While load throttling might help it is not the single household that is the big issue, it is multiple households on the already overstretched DNO cable network.
You say "There is capacity in the network if used correctly" I'm assuming you are referring the the network cabling that has in a lot of cases been in the ground for around 80 or so years.
Chatting with some DNO guys a while back after a major power cut as a result of a cable failure and they were saying that it is not that unusual and they are getting cable failures more often because the existing cables can't cope with the normal load even before an EV charging boom

The problem is all those chargers have to be linked, not just CT on the house supply, but back to the local substation to monitor the overall loads on the cable(s). Remember the typical past assumption for house load diversity when sizing the substation and cables is around 3-5kW, not 14kW or more.

So in that sense technology can reduce the risk dramatically, but people have to get used to the idea that their "1 hour" charger might take several hours or even overnight when lots of others are trying to use the supply for EV charge, cooking, showers, etc.

I think you have hit the nail on head, the DNO's diversity would probably be ok during the day but during the overnight charging period it would be way under what is needed to service EV charging.

With most home charging limited to 3 - 7 Kw recharging a 50Kw battery is going to need
a minimum of 6 - 7 hours charge so any sort of smart charging would have to account for this so you have a fully charged vehicle the following day then to put a spanner into that what about the 2 or 3 car households.

Talking to one of my customers recently and a club she belongs to acquired some land adjacent their playing fields to build a car park they have been told for planning permission they need to include EV charging for 1 in 10 of the proposed spaces to comply with some goverment legislation (100 spaces proposed) having looked into it a bit deeper the legislation requires that the infrastructure, which I think could just be ducts has to be installed so EV charging could be extended to 1 in 5 spaces. This car park would only be used at weekends and a few evenings per week and locked when the club is not being used. It is not clear what charging capacity has to be available but if all the points are used at the same time there will be little or no diversity to be applied to the new supply needed and I think it will be an interesting conversation with the DNO as to whether the local network could support this

 

[snowhead]

It is not clear what charging capacity has to be available but if all the points are used at the same time there will be little or no diversity to be applied to the new supply needed and I think it will be an interesting conversation with the DNO as to whether the local network could support this

It works the same as P.V.
The DNO own the Network, if it can't support what the customer is asking for then the customer can't have it, unless they pay towards the upgrade of the network

So if the network won't support the potential load of E.V then that means no car park unless they pay possibly 10's of thousands or even hundreds of thousands towards the upgrades.

 

[UNG]

It works the same as P.V.
The DNO own the Network, if it can't support what the customer is asking for then the customer can't have it, unless they pay towards the upgrade of the network

So if the network won't support the potential load of E.V then that means no car park unless they pay possibly 10's of thousands or even hundreds of thousands towards the upgrades.

I'm well aware of the procedure you ask for a supply the DNO responds with the options and the telephone numbers then you have to find the compromise that both parties are happy with
Done it quite a few times over the years

 

[Ian Mills]

This looks like a good option and think it is the sort of thing we will all be driving in 10 years

View: https://youtu.be/G508L0swhNk

 

[freddo]

This looks like a good option and think it is the sort of thing we will all be driving in 10 years

Interesting, but too small and I still can't get past the price, well out of my reach. I was surprised at the weight too, though that should have been obvious as it's filled with the batteries. I get the feeling I'd be using the engine more than the batteries alone to save the hassle of finding somewhere to charge it and then waiting for it to charge.

 

[bigspark17]

Glad to see my op has generated alot of responses in the subject. However i have decied to go with a bran new vivaro L2 120ps diesel as i feel more comfortable than taking a risk in the unknown market. Hope next time i buy new in 4/5yrs i will have enough confidence to buy electric.

 

[freddo]

However i have decied to go with a bran new vivaro L2 120ps diesel

Let us know what you think, I drive a 19 reg 1.6L vivaro and it's junk. One of the poorest designed vehicles I have ever operated. They have got so much wrong it's unbelievable, I get the feeling the designers have never driven a vehicle before. The 1.6L engine is a bit small, it struggles with hills. Uphill means dropping down 2 gears, and downhill there is no engine braking like you would get in a normal vehicle so you need to use the brakes a lot. When driving you need to change gears far more often than my car or the previous 3 vans I've had. At 50MPH it demands you drive in 6th gear. And the less said about the hill start 'assist' feature the better.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Most modern (normal) cars do not have engine braking it improves the published consumption figures, in fact my current (sorry) vehicle disconnects the drive train on the overrun.