A quick Giggle shows that we use 49 billyun litres of fuel a year for transport needs. If we change to electric vehicles, this will need to be replaced by power stations. 49 billyun litres a year is around 5.6 million litres/hour. A litre of petrol/diesel is about 10 units of electricity, so we're talking about 56 million units/hour. IOW, we're talking about 56GW of grid capacity IN ADDITION to what we have now.
2) Where's it gonna come from?
A EV possibly can achieve 30 miles per 10kW. A petrol car more like 30 miles per gallon (4.5 litres or 45kW equivalent)
One of your figures needs to be scaled by a factor of 4.5
On the low side I'd say.
It isn't.
I trust you :-)
About a 20% increase in currently generated electricity. Not outrageous - especially /if/ coupled to lower use and greater efficiency.
I'd also add the extra load from ground/air heat source space heating over the next 30 years.
The bigger question for me is where the lost tax revenue is coming from - which is the best part of a £1/litre at the moment. About 7% of total receipts:
it will never happen
the people will come to there senses and ditch net zero one way or another
The performance of heat pumps, especially air sourced ones, is dubious at best.
How is this magical 20% decrease in use to come about when things like heating and transport are switching to using electricity, not to mention increasing population etc.
It is tree hugging wishful thinkers like you who ignore basic details that have got us into this mess.
Using your figures:-
ICE vehicles are on average only 25% efficient, so that reduces extra capacity required to 14GWh.
In addition it takes 6kWh of electricity to process 1 gallon. or
1.3kWh/litre of fuel. So we save another 5.6 million litres x 1.3kWh = 7.28GWh.So the shortfall is actually only 7GWh of capacity as things stand.
Not so much of a problem then!
I take it you mean 10kWh.
45kWh.Mine does 55-60 mpg.
20% increase? More like 120% I'd say.
Are electric vehicles 100% efficient? Unlikely.
Only if the EV is 100% efficient.
Oh, it's much more than that, another 263GW according to this estimate by the National Grid if we are to achieve net-zero by 2050, although that's not just for transport
unicorns harnessed to wind generators
Isn't 56 million units equal to 56MW rather than GW?
Ha ha ha, I wondered when someone would ask this.
No, because a unit is 1000 Wh.
UK's own production is about 320 bn kW/hr. More like 20% if your figures are correct.
Yes, I'm seeing mixed results. But whether that's do to design, installation or method (etc.) isn't clear AFAICT.
Who's referencing a magical 20% decrease? And it doesn't take much imagination to work out how to cut electricity use. A simple price hike for example?
What am I wishing for that makes me a 'tree hugger'? And which basic details? Like learning to read? ;-)
Modern petrol engines are more like 30% efficient.
EVs also have losses and, according to US Government figures, only convert 77% of the energy they take from the grid into energy at the wheels.
You haven't understood the numbers. As I type, the UK is producing 37.6GW. I am talking about increasing that by 56GW. That's more than doubling.
And what do you mean by kW/hr? That is meaningless. Unless you imagine that the UK's output increases or decreases by 320,000 GW every hour. We'd soon melt the planet or freeze the universe if that were the case.
If you mean that the UK's ANNUAL production of electric energy is 320 bn kWh, then if you divide that by 365 and then by 24, you get 37.45 GWh every hour, or 37.45 GW, nicely in line with what Gridwatch is now showing for actual production.
The other factor missing from the original calculations is that although there are 49 billyun litres of fuel a year for transport needs, only 30% of that actually propels vehicles, the rest is waste heat.
There's far less waste heat in an EV, a so a greater proportion of its energy store goes to propulsion.
So, you don't need to supply the energy equivalent of the fuel used.
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