UK - Zero-Carbon Electricity Overtakes Fossil Fuels - Shock

"The cars' charging systems will be reversed so their batteries can feed electricity back to the grid when demand peaks – like when people are cooking supper."

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48711649

I'm wondering how many people will want to discharge their electric cars back into the grid. I'd probably want mine kept fully charged for maximum range.

If you think about it, the grid needs the bulk of its night-time draw from electric cars from 5:00 to 10:00 PM and once again in the morning when people wake. That's when people are cooking, bathing, watching TV, etc. Between 10:00 PM & 6:00 AM people have gone to bed the draw is reduced. Cars can be fully charged.

I'd also hope they don't take a huge amount back from the cars, i.e. leave them 75% or 80% charged. I'm sure the "smart grid" can be adapted in that way.

I expect people will be compensated in some form for allowing their car batteries to be part of the temporary storage system for the grid. A simple status switch at the charger connection could easily indicate if your battery storage was available or not.

Most people have supper in the evening ,the time period that most people will be charging their cars to be ready for the next mornings commute.

And some said this would never happen.

Its the second "extinction of dinosaurs", people who couldn't or wouldn't see the future.

Greening the grid is absolutely a necessary place to start. At this point, you can switch to electric car or electric furnace, but a lot of that electricity is still coming from fossil fuels, so you are waiting for the grid to catch up with the consumer's good intentions....

Who said anyone is waiting for anything? It looks much more to me that the UK is actively proceeding with improving their energy resources without endangering their economy along the way. (Brexit might do that all on its own but Brexit is their choice, not mine.)

Waiting for anything... that would be us, not the UK. Canada's energy policies are hard to fathom.

Is this seen as another way to make money from the consumer where the price paid to the consumer is one quarter the price that the consumer is charged for the use of grid electricity.

Money for nothing where the user foots the bill for renewable generation, storage and maintenance and pays a premium when they need external power.

Here in the US, I pay about .11 USD per kWH in the locality where I live. Since I have solar panels, some years I'll come up net positive, i.e. I've generated more than I've used. The utility settles the books once a year and pays me wholesale prices for any excess that I've generated. That turns out to be .08 USD per kWH. Not quite a quarter of the cost, but certainly less than the retail price.

I would hope that electric vehicle owners are smart enough not to let the utility use their vehicle battery at will without being compensated!

Here in Queensland the cost per unit is 26c /KWH +99c per day, the return for energy supplied to the grid is 7.35c ?KWH so maybe a 4:1 was an exasperation.

https://www.power-technology.com/news/scotland-renewable-energy-record/

Possibly, sorta, kinda in the fake news bundle...

"National Grid says clean energy has nudged ahead with 48% of generation, against 47% for coal and gas."
Back in the day, when I were a boy, basic maff's says that equals 95% (of power generation), all well and good, but...
"The UK has 15 reactors generating about 21% of its electricity ..."
Now me maff's apples only goes to 100, but I'm pretty sure that 95 apples + 21 apples is more than 100 apples

Why lie about something like this? Maybe a question beyond the engineers ambit - unless the gingerbeer is a psycho...

Psychologist - I meant the engineer is a psychologist

When one sums fractions from different sample group studies taken at different times then it is very easy to exceed 100%. When carelessly taking numbers from the same study it is still easy to exceed 100%. If the 15 reactors generating 21% of the power were already included in the "clean" energy subset of 48% then double dipping can sum to greater than 100%.

This "clean" energy still has a carbon footprint that has to be factored in. The carbon it takes to produce a photo-voltaic cell, wind turbine, nuclear power plant, and batteries needs to be included, as well as carbon emissions from moving and installing the systems needs to be calculated over their energy production lifetime. It's not carbon free renewable energy until we can create them without factories creating emissions. Photovoltaic cells, for example, are responsible for 60g of CO2 emissions per kwH, or about 10% as much as it's coal counterpart. Albeit much lower than coal, that is still not zero carbon electricity.

Grams of CO₂ per kWH doesn't make any sense. Once the panel is in place, after the manufacturing and installation, it stops emitting CO₂. It doesn't stop generating. If a panel generates 1 kWH and then is disconnected then it has emitted x grams of CO₂ and generated 1 kWH. If it generates for 20 years, then it still has emitted x grams of CO₂, but it's generated many kWH of energy.

Grams per watt makes a little sense, but panels are getting more efficient as time goes on.

Grams per panel makes a little sense, but again, smaller panels are making more power and it's only getting better.

Keep in mind, as well, that most panels will produce energy far beyond their 20 or 25 year lifespan. You can say that you've used a certain amount of fossil fuel to produce and install a panel and use the nominal lifespan of a panel to calculate the kWH generated by that panel per gram of carbon. However, if the panel is in place and generates longer than that, it only improves that calculation.

You are so right. The R&D has not been done. Now it is getting done and we are finding that things are no where near as efficient as we could make them. It's simply the blind faith addiction to oil that is so hard for people to get past. We have alternatives. We don't need to soil our nest.

CO2 per kwH is calculated taking the total grams of CO2 emitted during production and dividing it by the total kwH produced. Do that for all cells produced and in use, and you get an average CO2/kwH. It makes perfect sense. That number tells you how much carbon emissions are produced by a cell in a way that is comparable to other energy sources.

kWH produced will vary with location (latitude), mounting orientation, lifespan and weather. There's no way to even estimate the total kWH produced.

It's not an estimate... Otherwise, how would you get production of electricity from any of these sources in the first place. Of course there are those variables. Including them in your calculations must be done to get the most accurate statistics possible.

Ahh, so your 60g of CO₂ is a statistically calculated number. What variables did you take into account to get this number?

It's a variable, though. As more and more solar capability becomes available, the <...CO2 per kwH...> drops, because solar energy from installed generating plant is being used more and more to manufacture solar generating plant by displacing CO₂ generating plant.

Because of that its use as an index to justify, or not as the case may be, the installation of solar generation equipment at any juncture is a non-starter.

Don't the vehicle batteries have a finite number of charge and discharge cycles? This seems as though supplying the grid everyday and then recharging again would greatly reduce the life of the batteries...

For the first time:

In August 2018, 55% of the consumed power on the Texas Statewide grid was wind produced. Since 2015 annually, at least 40% of Texas e-power is Texas-produced wind, solar and hydro (yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus).

Yep, the writing is on the wall. More and more we see the renewables taking over and rightly so.

As for electric cars being used as battery backup, the Tesla Power wall system had that as one of its features that you could use the cars battery as a reserve source.

In places like Australia they are installing renewables and battery systems and using fast start NG as back up. I believe Europe is also heading that way.

Does a full life cycle evaluation of these renewable's actually exist?

One that takes in;

The birth i.e. the idea and lab/testing, the manufacture - including the mines/refineries (All massive consumers of energy), etc. - the distribution (All massive consumers of energy), the installation;

The life, i.e. the maintenance, the grids - the grid itself is a massive consumer of energy in its construction and maintenance, etc.:

The death, i.e. the demolition, the funeral - will it be cremation or burial -, or the recycling...or are they simply left to rot in place?

Or is this going to become the next "plastic", "electronic's goods" waste phenomenon?
It probably is the future, but it isn't the panacea.