Installation of new electric boat charging bollards

[PD1964]

43 minutes ago, George and Dragon said:

Preferably with road access.

 

The former. It would be trivial to ensure that the boater has the correct cable for a standard 16 or 32A connection. The idiocy of multiple connectors for different EVs could be avoided.

Why would you want road access, your on a boat?

I doubt CaRT would put roads in for service/maintenance purposes also. Just too much of a logistical nightmare getting access rights.
 It will be expensive enough fitting a National network of bollards, never mind having road access in rural locations to them.

Edited May 3, 2022 by PD1964

[cuthound]

55 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

So as I said the pole-mounted transformers are fine for rural charging stations, 16kVA (the smallest) will do 2 boats at 32A (or 4 at 16A) which is plenty.

 

Alan's case is different because his house is not (for example) 5 miles long so you can choose to connect to it anywhere along this length, wherever it's nearest to the grid -- don't you see the difference? They had to make a (trenched?) connection over (IIRC) half a mile or so, and he paid a fortune for this.

 

Yes there are rural stretches where there's very little nearby, but how long are they? Even on the most remote stretches I can think of, I doubt that there's *nothing* nearby for (say) 5 miles, there's almost always some habitation (presumably with a mains supply) or a crossing 11kV line at least this often. And even if there aren't then the number of places where a longer connection is needed is likely to be a tiny fraction of the total number of charging points needed, so the overall cost should be acceptable.

 

I'm not trying to be over-optimistic here, just looking at the realities of what is needed, and not using false comparisons to stoke up FUD -- for example, unlike caravans there aren't over a million canal boats to supply, unlike cars charging is not at >100kW per station, and unlike Alan's house you don't need to run a cable miles to one specific spot.

 

If you're so worried about copper theft then surely all EV charging networks are non-viable, as well as all grid connections to remote houses, electric rail lines and so on. Since this obviously is not the case, why are you so insistent that canals are somehow different? You seem to be clutching at any straw to try and show why canal charging stations can't work... 😉

 

(and there may well be good reasons for this (e.g. lack of CART/gov will), but not any that you've come up with as far as I can see...)

 

You seem to think the national grid is a limitless source of energy. It isn't.

 

If you tap into an existing overhead line it may or may not be able to support the additional load without having the transformer in the substation supporting it uprated. Then the substation supporting that substation may or may not need upgrading and so on. This (as well as cable and trenching costs) is why an apparently easy upgrade can cost many thousands of pounds. The grid seek their costs from the DNO, and the DNO adds this to their costs, mark it up and charge the end user.

 

Alan's case is typical. The DNO decides where to source the supply from.if it can be done by tapping a nearby overhead line then fine it may be relatively cheap. If it can't, or can with upstream substation upgrades then it will be relatively expensive. The point is you don't know until you ask them for a connection quote.

 

The location of the charging stations is only slightly flexible. If CRT promise one at say every 4 hours cruising, then electric boatbuilders will size batteries to this and a charging station say 5 hours away, but near an extant electricity supply might prove too far.

 

I'm not worried about cable thefts, but I did provide evidence that it does exist. You seem to want to ignore it because it is inconvenient. It can only be mitigated to a certain degree, even with the use of CCTV. It is not surprise that many thieves wear hoodies and cover their faces, as can be seen regularly on the local TV news.

 

I am not trying to create FUD (whatever that is, why do you resort to insults when anyone has a different point if view to you?), or clutching at straws, but to bring over 40 years practical experience of connecting loads to the DNO's electrical supply. What experience do you have in this field?

 

When (if) the charging station distribution is adequate for my cruising style I would convert my boat to electric drive, but unless this is funded from outside of existing CRT monies I and I suspect most CRT boaters would prefer money to be spent on maintenance rather than diverted to provide charging for a handful of electric boats.

 

 

 

 

40 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

If this idea ever comes to fruition, what would be best, normal Bollards with sockets where the boater plugs in his own cable or Bollards with an attached umbilical lead with fitted plug? 

 

I'm sure the latter could be engineered so that any boater who forgets to unplug would have the connector on his boat damaged rather than damage the captive charging cable.

 

Edited May 3, 2022 by cuthound
To change ISA to wot I rote "is a". Blurry spillchucker

[PD1964]

8 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

And a boater who pulls away without unplugging and damages the bollard will find themselves -- or their insurer -- paying for the damage, since the system will have to know which boat was moored there (and who is paying) for the billing/payment system to work. I guess that hire firms will do the same as for pumpout toilet blockages and charge the boater (e.g. £100), which should do wonders for their memories...

Not if a prepaid card system was used and you could buy 10Kw, 25Kw, 50Kw cards depending on your needs, that just deducted Kw’s off the card when card and boaters cable inserted.

There’s lots to think about to make the system work with all options for payment to suit all potential users.

[TheBiscuits]

2 minutes ago, cuthound said:

The DNO decides where to source the supply from.if it can be done by tapping a nearby overhead line then fine it may be relatively cheap. If it can't, or can with upstream substation upgrades then it will be relatively expensive. The point is you don't know until you ask them for a connection quote.

 

I think this is agreeing with @IanD's point.

 

Alan's house was in a fixed place so needed to get a cable directly to it.  With a range of e.g. 4 hours (10-15 miles?) between preferred locations you'd ask the DNO where they should be sited for ease and price of installation.  

 

I accept your point that not all canalside transformers-on-a-pole could be used, but surely some of them could, even if only for one or two chargepoints rather than 4 or 6.

 

 

[IanD]

6 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

You seem to think the national grid ISA limitless source of energy. It isn't.

 

If you tap into an existing overhead line it may or may not be able to support the additional load without having the transformer in the substation supporting it uprated. Then the substation supporting that substation may or may not need upgrading and so on. This (as well as cable and trenching costs) is why an apparently easy upgrade can cost many thousands of pounds. The grid seek their costs from the DNO, and the DNO adds this to their costs, mark it up and charge the end user.

 

Alan's case is typical. The DNO decides where to source the supply from.if it can be done by tapping a nearby overhead line then fine it may be relatively cheap. If it can't, or can with upstream substation upgrades then it will be relatively expensive. The point is you don't know until you ask them for a connection quote.

 

The location of the charging stations is only slightly flexible. If CRT promise one at say every 4 hours cruising, then electric boatbuilders will size batteries to this and a charging station say 5 hours away, but near an extant electricity supply might prove too far.

 

I'm not worried about cable thefts, but I did provide evidence that it does exist. You seem to want to ignore it because it is inconvenient. It can only be mitigated to a certain degree, even with the use of CCTV. It is not surprise that many thieves wear hoodies and cover their faces, as can be seen regularly on the local TV news.

 

I am not trying to create FUD (whatever that is, why do you resort to insults when anyone has a different point if view to you?), or clutching at straws, but to bring over 40 years practical experience of connecting loads to the DNO's electrical supply. What experience do you have in this field?

 

When (if) the charging station distribution is adequate for my cruising style I would convert my boat to electric drive, but unless this is funded from outside of existing CRT monies I and I suspect most CRT boaters would prefer money to be spent on maintenance rather than diverted to provide charging for a handful of electric boats.

 

I'm sure the latter could be engineered so that any boater who forgets to unplug would have the connector on his boat damaged rather than damage the captive charging cable.

 

 

I'm not ignoring the theft problem, just saying that many other electrical systems manage to survive in spite of being much more attractive to copper thieves than canals (hence the road access comment above...)

 

I understand your experience and concerns about the network load (yes I'm an engineer too), but honestly I think you're making too big an issue of this -- we're not talking here about a new housing estate or a big load, the kind of rural points being discussed have about the same load as a single house installation, and it seems unlikely that points can't be found every few miles (say 10) along the canals to support this without incurring huge costs.

 

Any boatbuilders with any sense will size batteries (and solar panels) so that the boat doesn't need charging every single night when travelling in case you can't get to a charging point, hence me suggesting every other day.

[IanD]

12 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

Not if a prepaid card system was used and you could buy 10Kw, 25Kw, 50Kw cards depending on your needs, that just deducted Kw’s off the card when card and boaters cable inserted.

There’s lots to think about to make the system work with all options for payment to suit all potential users.

Indeed there are various ways to make this work, but there's a good reason that many EV charging station use web access and charging. They've tried prepaid cards and they don't work very well, partly because you need to preload them up, but secondly web access lets you see which stations are working/free/occupied, and for boats would allow you to book a charging slot ahead of time to make sure you don't end up unable to use one. Many of the boats are also web-enabled to allow things like remote battery monitoring, so it's even possible that the charge could be made directly to "the boat" (i.e. the hire base).

 

But there are many ways to skin this particular cat, and this is really a non-issue compared to getting the stations built and connected up in the first place...

Edited May 3, 2022 by IanD

[cuthound]

3 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

I think this is agreeing with @IanD's point.

 

Alan's house was in a fixed place so needed to get a cable directly to it.  With a range of e.g. 4 hours (10-15 miles?) between preferred locations you'd ask the DNO where they should be sited for ease and price of installation.  

 

I accept your point that not all canalside transformers-on-a-pole could be used, but surely some of them could, even if only for one or two chargepoints rather than 4 or 6.

 

 

 

My point is that you don't know how easy or cheap it is to get a new electricity supy until you ask. It all depends on the closeness and capacity available in the local network.

 

Traditionally a 10kVA transformer (say) would supply a theoretical load of 20kVA, because not all customers would take their peak power at the same time. It is called the diversity factor.

 

Nowadays, rather than increase capacity the grid and DNO's try to get customers to time shift their load, which reduces the diversity factor.

 

Yes there is some flexibility in charging station location, but not much as future boats will typically be designed around the average distance between them.

 

Yes some transformers on a pole will have spare capacity, but not all.

 

Also the overall installation costs will be cheaper to provide fewer but larger charging stations (points for more boats) than many smaller ones, particularly on popular cruising routes.

[cuthound]

8 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

I'm not ignoring the theft problem, just saying that many other electrical systems manage to survive in spite of being much more attractive to copper thieves than canals (hence the road access comment above...)

 

I understand your experience and concerns about the network load (yes I'm an engineer too), but honestly I think you're making too big an issue of this -- we're not talking here about a new housing estate or a big load, the kind of rural points being discussed have about the same load as a single house installation, and it seems unlikely that points can't be found every few miles (say 10) along the canals to support this without incurring huge costs.

 

Any boatbuilders with any sense will size batteries (and solar panels) so that the boat doesn't need charging every single night when travelling in case you can't get to a charging point, hence me suggesting every other day.

 

Of course many electrical systems survive theft. It depends on what anti-theft measures the owner coughs up for. At present car charging cables are being stolen because they are easy to steal and not of a high enough value to warrant effective anti-theft measures. I suspect it will be the same for boats.

 

Regarding me making too big an issue, time will tell.

 

The problem with big battery banks is that they are more costly and require larger chargers to charge them in short periods of time. Unsurprisingly the larger chargers require larger power supies which also cost more

 

Given that hire boats are likely to be the early adopters of electric boats, I think they will opt for smaller batteries and overnight charges and thus CRT will install smaller and cheaper chargers.

 

 

[IanD]

17 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

My point is that you don't know how easy or cheap it is to get a new electricity supy until you ask. It all depends on the closeness and capacity available in the local network.

 

Traditionally a 10kVA transformer (say) would supply a theoretical load of 20kVA, because not all customers would take their peak power at the same time. It is called the diversity factor.

 

Nowadays, rather than increase capacity the grid and DNO's try to get customers to time shift their load, which reduces the diversity factor.

 

Yes there is some flexibility in charging station location, but not much as future boats will typically be designed around the average distance between them.

 

Yes some transformers on a pole will have spare capacity, but not all.

 

Also the overall installation costs will be cheaper to provide fewer but larger charging stations (points for more boats) than many smaller ones, particularly on popular cruising routes.

 

All true. Don't forget that boat charging is likely to be mainly overnight when other loads are smaller -- especially in rural areas -- so the added load is less likely to be a problem.

 

The highest demand for charging stations will be on popular routes, where they will undoubtedly be needed in larger groups to support the demand, which as you say is cheaper. The less popular/rural routes won't need this, probably at most 2 32A points in each location (or 4 points which drop to 16A if all in use) will be enough to reduce the chance of it being blocked by another boat. Booking ahead (e.g. for the following night) should also help to avoid this -- just like may happen with moorings... 😉

 

To put all this into perspective from a difficulty point of view, there are 1000x more cars and households in the UK than boats on the inland waterways, and today almost all these houses have grid power and in future most of the EVs will have the chargers they need (with about 10000x more kWh capacity than the canals will need).

Edited May 3, 2022 by IanD

[IanD]

9 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Of course many electrical systems survive theft. It depends on what anti-theft measures the owner coughs up for. At present car charging cables are being stolen because they are easy to steal and not of a high enough value to warrant effective anti-theft measures. I suspect it will be the same for boats.

 

Regarding me making too big an issue, time will tell.

 

The problem with big battery banks is that they are more costly and require larger chargers to charge them in short periods of time. Unsurprisingly the larger chargers require larger power supies which also cost more

 

Given that hire boats are likely to be the early adopters of electric boats, I think they will opt for smaller batteries and overnight charges and thus CRT will install smaller and cheaper chargers.

 

 

I doubt that E-boats that need charging every night will be acceptable to the market, because if all the chargers at your planned stop are full your holiday is screwed -- or you run out of charge in the middle of nowhere -- so I think they will need the capability to miss at least one overnight charge. To support this (2 days cruising, allowing for solar topup) typically needs a battery bank of about 35kWh, which is between 2/3 and 1/2 the size of those being fitted to most EVs nowadays, and these are affordable -- more so for hire boats, which typically cost around 3x what a typical EV does to build.

 

It's like water tank size -- the hire base advice is to top up daily, but in real life I've always found every other day to be fine -- but push it beyond this and you risk running out. I'm pretty sure a similar buffer will be needed for electric hire boats.

Edited May 3, 2022 by IanD

[Chris Lowe]

3 minutes ago, IanD said:

I doubt that E-boats that need charging every night will be acceptable to the market

Do they come with the torpedos for when you meet those bad boaters?

[IanD]

1 minute ago, buccaneer66 said:

Do they come with the torpedos for when you meet those bad boaters?

If only... 😉

[cuthound]

1 minute ago, IanD said:

 

I doubt that E-boats that need charging every night will be acceptable to the market, because if all the chargers at your planned stop are full your holiday is screwed -- or you run out of charge in the middle of nowhere -- so I think they will need the capability to miss at least one overnight charge. To support this (2 days cruising, allowing for solar topup) typically needs a battery bank of about 35kWh, which is between 2/3 and 1/2 the size of those being fitted to most EVs nowadays, and these are affordable.

 

It's like water tank size -- the hire base advice is to top up daily, but in real life I've always found every other day to be fine -- but push it beyond this and you risk running out.

 

I think battery size will be driven by the rollout of the charging stations.

 

Initially there will be more than needed for the low number of electric boats on popular cruising routes.

 

Then it will be a question of funding. If rollout matches the increase in electric boats, then smaller battery banks will be ok, but if it lags behind (likely in my opinion) then larger battery banks will become a necessity.

 

What remains to be seen is how affordable electric hire boats will be compared to diesel powered ones. Hiring in peak season is already eye wateringly expensive and if hiring an electric boat costs more than a diesel one will it limit demand for them?

[PD1964]

Are brand new £250K electrical boats affordable to most people? Maybe a good future business would be converting all the Liverpool/Collingwood boats from Diesel to Electric propulsion.

  It would be interesting to see how many full electric boats were built last year, compared to Hybrid engine and Diesel engine.

Edited May 3, 2022 by PD1964

[IanD]

25 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

I think battery size will be driven by the rollout of the charging stations.

 

Initially there will be more than needed for the low number of electric boats on popular cruising routes.

 

Then it will be a question of funding. If rollout matches the increase in electric boats, then smaller battery banks will be ok, but if it lags behind (likely in my opinion) then larger battery banks will become a necessity.

 

What remains to be seen is how affordable electric hire boats will be compared to diesel powered ones. Hiring in peak season is already eye wateringly expensive and if hiring an electric boat costs more than a diesel one will it limit demand for them?

 

Until there are lots of charging stations everywhere so you know for sure you'll be able to find one free every night, electric boats will need 2 days range -- especially with no generator on board.

 

One big reason electric/hybrid boats are expensive is the need to put a cocooned diesel generator on board because there aren't any charging points.

 

Take this away and -- like EVs -- it won't be long before an electric boat reaches cost parity with a diesel one, for exactly the same reason as this will happen in EVs because the costs are essentially the same.

 

Once that happens the running costs will also be lower, again for the same reasons as EVs -- lower fuel costs, and lower maintenance costs, also better reliability and less downtime between hires.

 

At this point, electric hire boats will be cheaper to both build and hire than diesel ones. But only with charging stations... 😞

17 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

Are brand new £250K electrical boats affordable to people. Maybe the future is converting all the Liverpool/Collingwood boats from Diesel to Electric propulsion.

 

They're expensive now because of generators, and the only market for them being small-volume and high-end, all of which pushes the cost up. This won't always be the case, but charging stations are needed before the cost can come down.

Edited May 3, 2022 by IanD

[PD1964]

2 minutes ago, IanD said:

They're expensive now because of generators, and the only market for them being small-volume and high-end. This won't always be the case, but charging stations are needed to bring the cost down.

I don’t really see why a generator would add so much to the cost. Obviously it would depend on make of generator.

[IanD]

Just now, PD1964 said:

I don’t really see why a generator would add so much to the cost. Obviously it would depend on make of generator.

It's not just the generator itself, it's the other stuff needed -- cooling, exhaust, soundproofing, control system, more expensive electrical system -- all of which adds to the build cost. And you have to find somewhere to put it, and maintain it.

 

The other problem is that generator prices are going up, the opposite direction to EV components. Don't ask me how I know... 😞

[cuthound]

Quiet build in marine generators are not cheap 

 

https://www.manelservice.com/en/generator-sets-for-sale/marine-generators/cummins-onan-mdkdl-quiet-diesel-marine-generator-set-7-kw-avr

[PD1964]

The best boat I’ve seen built over the last couple of years was fitted with a Beta Marine hybrid and 24x 2v batteries 48v DC system. No generator fitted.

Edited May 3, 2022 by PD1964

[IanD]

17 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

The best boat I’ve seen built over the last couple of years was fitted with a Beta Marine hybrid and 24x 2v batteries 48v DC system. No generator fitted.

 

I spent a lot of time looking at the Beta Marine solution (parallel hybrid) which looked very attractive at first sight.

 

After a lot more in-depth investigation (several months!) I decided against it in favour of a series hybrid, for various reasons described elsewhere... 😉

Edited May 3, 2022 by IanD

[David Mack]

1 hour ago, PD1964 said:

The best boat I’ve seen built over the last couple of years was fitted with a Beta Marine hybrid and 24x 2v batteries 48v DC system. No generator fitted.

Surely that Beta Marine Engine is a generator, which is used to charge the batteries (with or without direct prop drive at the same time).

[George and Dragon]

2 hours ago, PD1964 said:

Why would you want road access, your on a boat?

 

To make my getaway with the 200g of copper.

 

1 hour ago, IanD said:

It's not just the generator itself, it's the other stuff needed -- cooling, exhaust, soundproofing, control system, more expensive electrical system -- all of which adds to the build cost. And you have to find somewhere to put it, and maintain it.

 

The other problem is that generator prices are going up, the opposite direction to EV components. Don't ask me how I know... 😞

You're just being difficult.

And you missed fuel system. But why not put it under the stern? It could even be used to drive the boat which would reduce the need for battery charging stations.

 

Oh! I see someone else had the same idea:

1 hour ago, PD1964 said:

The best boat I’ve seen built over the last couple of years was fitted with a Beta Marine hybrid and 24x 2v batteries 48v DC system. No generator fitted.

 

[PD1964]

17 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Surely that Beta Marine Engine is a generator, which is used to charge the batteries (with or without direct prop drive at the same time).

Without looking into the actual tech stuff, yes it will charge the batteries and also propel the boat, far cheaper then having an electric motor/control system and generator.
 Is a Hybrid the way to go in the costing battle rather then having a separate expensive electric propulsion unit and expensive generator to charge the batteries? 

[Ronaldo47]

Don't forget that, other than in summer ( and sometimes even then), the electricity supply is probably  going to need to meet the requirement for cooking and heating as well as charging batteries for the next day's cruising.  Or will electric boats need to be fitted with solid fuel stoves, whose carbon dioxide emissions  will run counter to the zero carbon objectives of going electric?  Electric charging is not like charging an electric car, or  using a water point, where you can fill up and be on your way in 20 mins or so. Once plugged in, you will probably need to stay plugged in overnight  until you depart next day. 

[peterboat]

6 hours ago, IanD said:

 

So as I said the pole-mounted transformers are fine for rural charging stations, 16kVA (the smallest) will do 2 boats at 32A (or 4 at 16A) which is plenty.

 

Alan's case is different because his house is not (for example) 5 miles long so you can choose to connect to it anywhere along this length, wherever it's nearest to the grid -- don't you see the difference? They had to make a (trenched?) connection over (IIRC) half a mile or so, and he paid a fortune for this.

 

Yes there are rural stretches where there's very little nearby, but how long are they? Even on the most remote stretches I can think of, I doubt that there's *nothing* nearby for (say) 5 miles, there's almost always some habitation (presumably with a mains supply) or a crossing 11kV line at least this often. And even if there aren't then the number of places where a longer connection is needed is likely to be a tiny fraction of the total number of charging points needed, so the overall cost should be acceptable.

 

I'm not trying to be over-optimistic here, just looking at the realities of what is needed, and not using false comparisons to stoke up FUD -- for example, unlike caravans there aren't over a million canal boats to supply, unlike cars charging is not at >100kW per station, and unlike Alan's house you don't need to run a cable miles to one specific spot.

 

If you're so worried about copper theft then surely all EV charging networks are non-viable, as well as all grid connections to remote houses, electric rail lines and so on. Since this obviously is not the case, why are you so insistent that canals are somehow different? You seem to be clutching at any straw to try and show why canal charging stations can't work... 😉

 

(and there may well be good reasons for this (e.g. lack of CART/gov will), but not any that you've come up with as far as I can see...)

The local line has had a couple of thefts recently (one today) its been months before these. Of course some Gypsies have just come to town coincidences or what? The transport police asked me if I had seen or heard anything this morning whilst walking Oscar