Electric boats - the future???

[ditchcrawler]

I wonder if you could mount a turbine generator on the back, people think it works on cars.🤑 You can’t recharge an electric car by attaching a generator to the wheel - Full Fact

[DHutch]

On 15/10/2018 at 14:36, cuthound said:

 

The maths just doesn't add up.

 

Acording of the link below, streetlamps have bulbs of up to 250 watts, or 60 watts if they are of the LED type. 

https://www.quora.com/How-much-power-does-a-regular-street-light-consume

 

It is a safe bet that the wiring for any existing streetlamps will be sized for this, so capable of delivering a continuous current of about 1 amp.

 

Electric car chargers are rated between 3.0kW single phase  (12 amps) and 120kW 3 phase (about 160 amps per phase at 0.8 pf)

https://www.spiritenergy.co.uk/kb-ev-understanding-electric-car-charging

 

Therefore all of the wiring to all of the street lamps (and probaly the infrastructure feeding them) will have to be replaced for this to be viable.

Agree that on that basis, it doesn't make sense.

You save maybe 200w per light converted to LED from Sodium, and need say 3000w per charge point even if they are fairly slow overnight chargers.

 

HOWEVER from what I have seen, a lot of street lights are actually fed with reasonably with/from chunky underground  cables to the point where I wonder if a reasonable number are actually wired directly into a phase the main domestic feed for the street. Certainly this is how most rural street lights are wired. At which point the load capacity of a street light could well be equal to that of a domestic 7kW single phase charger.

 

[cuthound]

15 minutes ago, DHutch said:

Agree that on that basis, it doesn't make sense.

You save maybe 200w per light converted to LED from Sodium, and need say 3000w per charge point even if they are fairly slow overnight chargers.

 

HOWEVER from what I have seen, a lot of street lights are actually fed with reasonably with/from chunky underground  cables to the point where I wonder if a reasonable number are actually wired directly into a phase the main domestic feed for the street. Certainly this is how most rural street lights are wired. At which point the load capacity of a street light could well be equal to that of a domestic 7kW single phase charger.

 

 

The chunky cables will be to keep volt drop to acceptable levels over long cable runs.

 

Increasing the current to the current carrying capacity will cause even more volt drop.

[Alan de Enfield]

17 minutes ago, DHutch said:

Agree that on that basis, it doesn't make sense.

You save maybe 200w per light converted to LED from Sodium, and need say 3000w per charge point even if they are fairly slow overnight chargers.

 

HOWEVER from what I have seen, a lot of street lights are actually fed with reasonably with/from chunky underground  cables to the point where I wonder if a reasonable number are actually wired directly into a phase the main domestic feed for the street. Certainly this is how most rural street lights are wired. At which point the load capacity of a street light could well be equal to that of a domestic 7kW single phase charger.

 

 

 

Many moons ago I worked for a cable manufacturer and we supplied 'Split Concentric Street Lighting cable' (which ran along the street and each street light was spurred off) and it was only 6mm2 conductor, which depending on specification used gives a rating between ~30 to 46 amps.

If a convenient 'domestic supply' was available in the street then the street lights are spurred of that using the Split-Concentric cable.

 

 

Maybe street lighting cables have changed over the last 40 odd years, but until the advent of LEDs the lights were generally Low Pressure Sodium (SOX) and rated at 180watts, so it is not possible to 'save' 200 watts even if you turned the lights off completely,

 

 

 

A quick Google suggests that Councils use :

 

Typically, lights on residential roads contain a 35 watt lamp, while those on main roads contain a 150 watt lamp. In simple terms, the electricity consumed by an ‘average’ light will cost between £25 and £65 a year.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Alan de Enfield

[IanD]

17 minutes ago, DHutch said:

Agree that on that basis, it doesn't make sense.

You save maybe 200w per light converted to LED from Sodium, and need say 3000w per charge point even if they are fairly slow overnight chargers.

 

HOWEVER from what I have seen, a lot of street lights are actually fed with reasonably with/from chunky underground  cables to the point where I wonder if a reasonable number are actually wired directly into a phase the main domestic feed for the street. Certainly this is how most rural street lights are wired. At which point the load capacity of a street light could well be equal to that of a domestic 7kW single phase charger.

 

And urban ones -- why run a separate mains feed for the streetlights when they sit next to the cable running the 3-phase mains down the street? (usually, alternate houses tap into alternate phases to try and balance the load across the phases).

[David Mack]

On 15/11/2021 at 12:35, Briss said:

 

“Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” – Darryl Zanuck, co-founder of 20th Century Fox, 1946

Well that has indeed come true. When did you last see a TV in a plywood box?😀

[ditchcrawler]

5 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

The chunky cables will be to keep volt drop to acceptable levels over long cable runs.

 

Increasing the current to the current carrying capacity will cause even more volt drop.

But that may not be a problem if the chargers are designed to run at lower voltages, 110 -240 etc likewise the lights.

3 hours ago, David Mack said:

Well that has indeed come true. When did you last see a TV in a plywood box?😀

I am looking at one at the moment, it lives in a cupboard and the doors are closed when not in use, The repair shop is on at the moment

[peterboat]

6 hours ago, DHutch said:

Agree that on that basis, it doesn't make sense.

You save maybe 200w per light converted to LED from Sodium, and need say 3000w per charge point even if they are fairly slow overnight chargers.

 

HOWEVER from what I have seen, a lot of street lights are actually fed with reasonably with/from chunky underground  cables to the point where I wonder if a reasonable number are actually wired directly into a phase the main domestic feed for the street. Certainly this is how most rural street lights are wired. At which point the load capacity of a street light could well be equal to that of a domestic 7kW single phase charger.

 

They are already a reality

https://thedriven.io/2020/03/24/siemens-converts-all-lamp-posts-on-residential-street-to-electric-car-chargers/

[cuthound]

On 22/11/2021 at 18:00, peterboat said:

They are already a reality

https://thedriven.io/2020/03/24/siemens-converts-all-lamp-posts-on-residential-street-to-electric-car-chargers/

 

I note that the article doesn't mention the power rating of these lampost chargers.

 

Presumably low power to avoid having to uprate the cables and supporting infrastructure, unless that was replaced as well.

 

Still every little helps and it is a good solution for urban areas.

[IanD]

1 hour ago, cuthound said:

 

I note that the article doesn't mention the power rating of these lampost chargers.

 

Presumably low power to avoid having to uprate the cables and supporting infrastructure, unless that was replaced as well.

 

Still every little helps and it is a good solution for urban areas.

Instead of presuming wrongly, you could always spend a moment finding out...

 

https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/new-energies/europe/analysis/1300-street-lights-converted-ev-chargers-london?a=JMA06&t[0]=Siemens&t[1]=Ubitricity&t[2]=electric vehicle&t[3]=charging infrastructure&t[4]=London&curl=1

 

"The lamppost chargers typically operate at 5.5kW. "

[ditchcrawler]

Back to boats Electric Ships Vs. Green Ammonia: Yara's Got Both (cleantechnica.com) All I know about ammonia is it stinks and is corrosive 

[IanD]

21 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Back to boats Electric Ships Vs. Green Ammonia: Yara's Got Both (cleantechnica.com) All I know about ammonia is it stinks and is corrosive 

 

"There being no such thing as a free lunch, thyssenkrupp emphases that “green methanol technology makes particular sense in countries where there is plenty of renewable power as well as a legal framework that further[s] renewable energy and its conversion into chemicals.”

 

Because using renewable energy to make "green methanol" and then burning this in IC engines on ships is even more stupidly inefficient than using it to power fuel cell ships/trains/cars/whatever, since somewhere around 80% of the energy is wasted.

 

So you'd better have *lots* of spare cheap/free renewable energy and be unable to do anything else more useful with it for this to make sense...

 

If the renewable energy is used in a power grid together with non-green fossil fuel power sources (like almost everywhere today) it makes less than no sense; for every MWh you take out of the "green renewable energy" bucket in the grid (to make the "green methanol") you have to put a MWh in to replace it from fossil fuels, which in a 50% efficient power station means burning 2MWh worth of fossil fuels. And in exchange for this, the losses in making the methanol and then burning it in an IC engine means you get about 0.2MWh of usable energy out to the propeller. If you just took the same 2MWh worth of fossil fuel and burned it in a ship diesel engine (about 50% efficient) you'd get 1MWh out to the propeller.

 

Which means the "green methanol" engine ends up causing 5x the CO2 emissions compared to the "non-green" diesel engine it's replacing. Utter madness.

 

Yes I'm perfectly well aware that we need to find a better solution for powering ships than what we have now, but this isn't it -- even methane/hydrogen/ammonia fuel cells are better, and they're still terrible...

 

In that sunlit uplands future where the entire world is powered by 100% renewable green energy with no fossil fuels used to generate power -- and we've got so much to spare we can afford to throw 80% of it away to power ships -- it's slightly less stupid, but still much worse than fuel cells. Until then, it's just a way to greenwash a solution which is economically illiterate and not have to do much to change ships.

Edited November 24, 2021 by IanD

[cuthound]

3 hours ago, IanD said:

Instead of presuming wrongly, you could always spend a moment finding out...

 

https://www.fleeteurope.com/en/new-energies/europe/analysis/1300-street-lights-converted-ev-chargers-london?a=JMA06&t[0]=Siemens&t[1]=Ubitricity&t[2]=electric vehicle&t[3]=charging infrastructure&t[4]=London&curl=1

 

"The lamppost chargers typically operate at 5.5kW. "

 

No need to be facetious

 

No mention of where the power to feed the lamposts comes from in your link.

 

Almost certainly the original cabling wasn't rated for 5.5kW when the original bulb would have been around 200-300 watts, no designer I know has ever allowed such a margin for overheads, it simply would cost too much. So the cabling and infrastructure behind it must already have been upgraded to enable the chargers to be fitted in less than an hour.

 

 

[IanD]

8 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

No need to be facetious

 

No mention of where the power to feed the lamposts comes from in your link.

 

Almost certainly the original cabling wasn't rated for 5.5kW when the original bulb would have been around 200-300 watts, no designer I know has ever allowed such a margin for overheads, it simply would cost too much. So the cabling and infrastructure behind it must already have been upgraded to enable the chargers to be fitted in less than an hour.

 

 

I wasn't being facetious, I just get fed up of people raising objections to things -- especially anything to do with EV or e-boats -- which a minute or two of investigation would show were unfounded...

 

(there are enough real issues without raising imaginary ones)

 

The link says that the cables are rated at either 4.6kW or 7.4kW and that:

 

"The lamppost chargers typically operate at 5.5kW. This means that to recharge a 54kWh Tesla Model 3 standard range battery would take almost 10 hours with the higher grade 7.4kW/32 Amp charging cable."

 

I think that's pretty clear; it's difficult to see how they could typically operate at 5.5kW unless the cabling supplying them could support this.

 

Yes the cabling may have been uprated as part of the installation, but this is obviously being done if it's needed -- nothing says you have to use the same piece of wet string that a 300W light used... 😉

Edited November 24, 2021 by IanD

[cuthound]

1 minute ago, IanD said:

The link says that the cables are rated at either 4.6kW or 7.4kW and that:

 

"The lamppost chargers typically operate at 5.5kW. This means that to recharge a 54kWh Tesla Model 3 standard range battery would take almost 10 hours with the higher grade 7.4kW/32 Amp charging cable."

 

I think that's pretty clear; it's difficult to see how they could typically operate at 5.5kW unless the cabling supplying them could support this.

 

Yes the cabling may have been uprated as part of the installation, but this is obviously being done if it's needed -- nothing says you have to use the same piece of wet string that a 300W light used... 😉

 

But they have excluded the time and cost of upgrading the cable and infrastructure, so the article isn't completely factual, which was the point of my earlier post.

 

[IanD]

5 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

But they have excluded the time and cost of upgrading the cable and infrastructure, so the article isn't completely factual, which was the point of my earlier post.

 

The article says nothing about the cost of upgrading the infrastructure, it covers the cost of the cables and the cost per unit because that's what matters to the end user.

 

The cost of installing the chargers themselves probably swamps the cost of any new cabling anyway, but like any other infrastructure upgrade is all paid for out of the profits made by selling the power. Otherwise the National Grid wouldn't build new power lines, or interconnectors to the continent, or lay any new cables. This is no different.

Edited November 24, 2021 by IanD

[cuthound]

1 minute ago, IanD said:

The article says nothing about the cost of upgrading the infrastructure, it covers the cost of the cables and the cost per unit because that's what matters to the end user.

 

The cost of installing the chargers themselves probably swamps the cost of any new cabling anyway, but like any other infrastructure upgrade is all paid for out of the profits made by selling the power. Otherwise the National Grid wouldn't build new power lines, or interconnectors to the continent, or lay any new cables. This is no different.

 

Your fist paragraph sums up my point exactly.

 

If the transformer supplying the chargers needed replacement and the road needed digging up to allow the cables to be installed, then depending on the distance the infrastructure upgrade could easily match or exceed the cost of the mass produced chargers.

 

When I managed a project in Camden to capture the waste heat from a hospitals CHP plant and redistribute it via a mile long circuit of buried water pipes to 6 blocks of council flats, the cost of the trench work and reinstatement exceeded the cost of the heat exchangers, valves and pipework.

[IanD]

5 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Your fist paragraph sums up my point exactly.

 

If the transformer supplying the chargers needed replacement and the road needed digging up to allow the cables to be installed, then depending on the distance the infrastructure upgrade could easily match or exceed the cost of the mass produced chargers.

 

When I managed a project in Camden to capture the waste heat from a hospitals CHP plant and redistribute it via a mile long circuit of buried water pipes to 6 blocks of council flats, the cost of the trench work and reinstatement exceeded the cost of the heat exchangers, valves and pipework.

"Siemens says it takes less than one hour to convert a street lamp, cutting both the cost of deployment and the disruption to residents compared to installing a separate charging station."

“Lamppost charging gives people without driveways a very convenient, low cost, renewable, energy-friendly way to charge their EVs. Cars spend 95 per cent of their lives idle, so it makes sense to charge them while the driver is doing something else, like sleeping or working. Our technology is designed to keep installation and maintenance costs low, which translates to long-term low costs for EV drivers and councils.”

 

If the infrastructure costs were as big as you seem to be making out, they'd either have to charge much more for the power or conclude that the whole project was commercially unviable.

 

Since neither of these seems to be the case, this suggests that you're exaggerating the problem (a mile-long circuit of buried water pipes is hardly needed here...) and that the infrastructure costs are quite affordable.

Edited November 24, 2021 by IanD

[cuthound]

Just now, IanD said:

“Lamppost charging gives people without driveways a very convenient, low cost, renewable, energy-friendly way to charge their EVs. Cars spend 95 per cent of their lives idle, so it makes sense to charge them while the driver is doing something else, like sleeping or working. Our technology is designed to keep installation and maintenance costs low, which translates to long-term low costs for EV drivers and councils.”

 

If the infrastructure costs were as big as you seem to be making out, they'd either have to charge much more for the power or conclude that the whole project was commercially unviable.

 

Since neither of these seems to be the case, this suggests that you're exaggerating the problem and that the infrastructure costs are quite affordable.

 

Perhaps they have found a way of getting more power down existing cables without problems, a bit like BT managed to increase the data speed of copper cables over the years 🤣😅.

 

More likely the council paid to upgrade the infrastructure to allow the chargers to be connected to the lamposts to enable the project to happen.

[IanD]

5 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Perhaps they have found a way of getting more power down existing cables without problems, a bit like BT managed to increase the data speed of copper cables over the years 🤣😅.

 

More likely the council paid to upgrade the infrastructure to allow the chargers to be connected to the lamposts to enable the project to happen.

Whatever infrastructure changes were needed (if any) and whatever the funding mechanism was -- and I doubt it was the council, none of them have any spare money floating around, and "Siemens and ubitricity have converted..." supports this -- it obviously makes economic sense or they wouldn't be doing it, and planning on rolling it out country-wide.

 

My guess is either that the cables already there are OK or that upgrading them is quick/easy/cheap -- either way, it doesn't seem to be a problem, your objections don't seem to hold water... 😉

Edited November 24, 2021 by IanD

[Alan de Enfield]

6 minutes ago, IanD said:

"Siemens says it takes less than one hour to convert a street lamp, cutting both the cost of deployment and the disruption to residents compared to installing a separate charging station."

“Lamppost charging gives people without driveways a very convenient, low cost, renewable, energy-friendly way to charge their EVs. Cars spend 95 per cent of their lives idle, so it makes sense to charge them while the driver is doing something else, like sleeping or working. Our technology is designed to keep installation and maintenance costs low, which translates to long-term low costs for EV drivers and councils.”

 

If the infrastructure costs were as big as you seem to be making out, they'd either have to charge much more for the power or conclude that the whole project was commercially unviable.

 

Since neither of these seems to be the case, this suggests that you're exaggerating the problem (a mile-long circuit of buried water pipes is hardly needed here...) and that the infrastructure costs are quite affordable.

 

Urban lamp posts are spaced between 30m and 50m apart, if each lamp-post can only support one 5-7Kw charger how will the 6 - 8 - 10 cars parked between the lamp-posts get their supply ?

Are folks expected to come down in the middle of the night so they can move the charged car, and the rest shuffle forward one-car length ?

Has that been answered anywhere ?

[IanD]

4 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Urban lamp posts are spaced between 30m and 50m apart, if each lamp-post can only support one 5-7Kw charger how will the 6 - 8 - 10 cars parked between the lamp-posts get their supply ?

Are folks expected to come down in the middle of the night so they can move the charged car, and the rest shuffle forward one-car length ?

Has that been answered anywhere ?

Alan, you're always rejecting the good in favour of the perfect.

 

Nobody says that home chargers, or lamppost chargers, or carpark chargers, or work chargers, or shopping centre chargers, or restaurant chargers, or fast-chargers on motorways are a complete solution -- of even thay EVs are the perfect solution for everybody, especially today.

 

They all have a part to play, and all will get more numerous in future.

[Alan de Enfield]

17 minutes ago, IanD said:

Alan, you're always rejecting the good in favour of the perfect.

 

Not at all, all I ask is that the solution be practical and realistic, you promote all this good-stuff but whenever asked any questions about the actual implementation of the theory you come up short and simply criticise the questioner.

 

A terraced street of 50 houses on each side, front-door opening directly onto the pavement - who decides which of the 5 / 10 residents get to use the lamp-post charger ?

 

A small example of a typical city (this happens to be Lincoln alongside the canal)

 

 

Edited November 24, 2021 by Alan de Enfield

[IanD]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Not at all, all I ask is that the solution be practical and realistic, you promote all this good-stuff but whenever asked any questions about the actual implementation of the theory you come up short and simply criticise the questioner.

 

A terraced street of 50 houses on each side, front-door opening directly onto the pavement - who decides which of the 5 / 10 residents get to use the lamp-post charger ?

 

A small example of a typical city (this happens to be Lincoln alongside the canal)

 

 

 

Nope, I'm not by any means saying this is the perfect solution that can solve the problem on its own, I'm saying it's one solution.

 

In a terraced street, not everybody can charge their EV via a lamp-post charger at the same time. But then not everybody has to fill their car up every day today, do they?

 

Average UK mileage is about 200 per week, which means maybe 1 full charge is needed per car per week, in which case (on average) one charger per 7 houses is enough -- assuming they can co-ordinate perfectly, which won't be the case.

 

There are also proposals to put pillar/post chargers in streets like this. And some drivers will charge at work, or while shopping, or in car parks.

 

Don't forget that if we assume that new EVs are 100% of the market by 2030 (UK target) it'll be 2035 before half the cars on the road are EVs, and 2040 before all of them are.

 

People with off-street charging who can top-up a little every night will do so. Those who haven't will charge up in bigger chunks but less often.

 

I'm not saying everything is rosy with EVs and charging, I'm well aware of the issues -- but your assumption that everyone has to plug into a lamppost charger all night every night is just plain wrong.

Edited November 24, 2021 by IanD

[ditchcrawler]

3 hours ago, IanD said:

I wasn't being facetious, I just get fed up of people raising objections to things -- especially anything to do with EV or e-boats -- which a minute or two of investigation would show were unfounded...

 

Your one to talk, you soon shot my post down with ammonia made from wind power electricity