1.4GW !

So a private household suddenly gets dedicated access to a public amenity at the exclusion of others ?

What government is going to give away the public highway like that ? And get re-elected ?

and so we are back to the real problem x2. Storing excess energy and to pump it back to the grid when demands exceeds generation. If the general public are in sole control of feeding back from their EVs then it's not really a solution. Why would anyone want their EV connected permanently if its going to devalue the car with extra charge and discharge cycles. There is no predictability in how much can be fed back in. Much better to have a dedicated backup with a known availability.

The infrastructure to support this solution is likely to be complex and costly and is only being proposed because of the intermittent nature of the wind and solar renewables. Build power generation sources that can supply the base load reliably 24/365 and what we already have (or with a few more similar facilities) can meet the need. A few storage facilities to provide the extra need for a few hours rather than millions of individual backups spread over 90,000 square miles.

As soon as a green initiative starts needing more and more (expensive) extras to make it viable then we should really question the policy and perhaps go down a different route.

This also assumes one car per household and no parking in empty spaces along the road because they are allocated to the adjacent household. It's much like residents parking permits. A great idea for some until they find out there is a annual fee and insufficient permits along a road for the number of cars.

Well quite. There are some roads round here, with terraced houses both sides, and cars nose to tail along both sides. This leaves enough space for single car tp gt through. A fire engine wouldn't manage it, or an ambulance. Now, how you going to divvy up that road space? Those folk well *never* have kerbside chargers,

The CHP at Sellafield also uses waste heat to produce steam for the site.

If Just stop oil get their way I would be more worried amount the amount of arable land dedicated to growing crops solely to synthesise the products previously using oil as their main ingredient.

It appears that in the USA 40% of the corn crop is used to make ethanol used in petrol mix. Yes I'm aware that this wouldn't be needed if ICE vehicles were banned tomorrow but it does give an indication of the consequences of of adopting some green policies. If it's more profitable to grow a crop for industrial use a nations food security could be put at risk

Possibly not if it changes what can grow under the shade of the panels. Grassland on shallow soil stops erosion. The surface of the panels will channel rain into narrow streams. Even if you grow something on the land occupied by a solar farm you wouldn't want it to grow too tall nor when it dies off to produce a good source of tinder and fuel for a fast spreading fire.

Speak for yourself! :-)

Meanwhile, I could have space for 3 at least, off road.

In some ways I & SWMBO are poster children for EVs. Mileage of about 100/ week. Plenty of space for off road (indeed, on site, behind the gates) charging. Car generally used only at weekends.

And yet they still can't fob me off with one now the lease is up and it's time for another.

Of course, if TPTB were serious about EVs (they aren't) then there would have been a scheme in place for the past decade whereby I could lease/ rent out that spare off road charging space in service to the cause.

Jethros infamous "If they were serious..." test.

My lad is quite mock-sad sometimes. He remembers growing up and me pointing out that it's deeds not words that demonstrate sincerity. And that's made him very much a protege of club TNP, to my delight. However it doesn't always go down well with his mates.

That’s been possible for years for anyone who seriously wants to do it. There are several schemes whereby you can make your charger available to others and get paid for providing the service.

That said, in reality most folk don’t want someone else’s car in their driveway and folk without home chargers due to lack of driveways often live too far away to be happy to walk back and forth between their own homes and yours.

Tim

This is the sort of street I had in mind:

Hmmm - not all that got to be part of the link. Well - highlight all the URL (not the <>), drag it to the Desktop and then double-click it.

a) the horrid long link did work here without "repairing it"

b) rather than copy the link from your browser's address bar, click the [...] in the call-out box, then share, you'll get a nicer link, e.g.

Installing some sort of smart EV shouldn't be beyond the wit of most transport planners. Sheffield recently replaced every single street lamp, including digging up the streets for recabling. I suggested that would be an ideal opportunity to install some EV points, especially on terraced streets. They did at least reply - but said 'it's not part of our plan', whatever that meant.

call-out box? What that?

-- What you must understand is that, for today's left intellectuals, education is useful only to the extent that it endorses their prejudices. Beyond that, they refuse to go.

Roger Scruton

How is this any different from an allocated space through a resident's parking permit? The only extra is the "parking meter" plug-in; the space remains the same. The whole idea is to make the EV available as a sort of mobile powerwall. Of course, this would require specific parking spaces directly outside the houses concerned, rather than a parking area covering several houses.

It doesn't assume anything more than what's available for the space provided by a resident's parking permit. Whether that's insufficient or not for the number of cars at No.99 Anystreet isn't the point. It's to make that parking space available for temporary power backup if the council and utility supplier could work together to put that connector in.

If the houseowner doesn't have a car, then that space could be made available to anyone who wanted to park there by agreement with the houseowner. I'm sure that it wouldn't be an insurmountable issue to charge the car if it was an EV using the houseowner's supply, with payment made by the owner of the parked EV to the householder for the electricity used. It might even be possible to arrange for that EV to act as a backup and money "refunded" to the EV owner.

At a guess, all your near neighbours have similar or adequate space for off-road charging and will not need this facility.

It doesn't help those who live in an area of terrace housing with front yards not suitable for vehicle parking. In these areas there will not be spare off-road charging points because no-one has an off-road space.

What may be viable in a affluent suburb is not viable for millions that live elsewhere.

Interesting. That's the sort of thing I was referring to. Looks like I'm late to the party as usual! :-)

If parking is allowed on the road then the space is there. An off-road space isn't necessary; see the link provided by RJH's post at

It is if schemes like Ubitricity's are put into practice, and the space for parking an EV on the road is available.