Western governments are struggling to meet their targets for zero-emission vehicles, says ManMohan Sodhi at City University of London. There’s been a slowdown of sales that has a lot to do with the high cost of new EVs and the lack of charging infrastructure. Meanwhile, in China and India battery swapping – instead of charging your own battery – is on the rise. Swapping can take minutes. Knowing you can swap means you don’t need a big battery for … [Read more...]
Europe’s EV charging infrastructure roll-out is ahead of targets. It’s EV sales that are lagging behind
A T&E analysis reveals the speed of EV charging infrastructure deployment across the EU is a success story. This contrasts with stories of people being hesitant to switch to EVs because they fear there aren’t enough charge points. It also exposes the failures to meet EV sales goals: whatever the cause, it can’t be because the charging rollout is too slow. Across the EU, the number of chargers increased threefold in the last three years (and … [Read more...]
V2G: modelling how EV batteries can provide storage to the grid
V2G (vehicle-to-grid) technology allows parked EVs to store and/or inject electricity into the grid when needed. The main benefit is to avoid the expense and disruption of building dedicated large-scale grid batteries when EVs and charging infrastructure are already ramping up. Though most EVs and charge points are not V2G-ready, now is the time to plan ahead, measure the true potential and identify the challenges. Ibtihal Abdelmotteleb, Matteo … [Read more...]
Make EV batteries bidirectional, get GWs of storage for the Grid
How to cope with the hourly, daily and seasonal variation in demand as regions electrify more, depend more on variable renewables like wind and solar, and cut baseload fossil generation? Storage shifts load nicely. But why build grid-scale batteries when millions of little batteries in our EVs are sitting idle in our driveways for most of the time? As Mark Specht at the Union of Concerned Scientists explains, it’s why in California a bill is … [Read more...]
Concrete supercapacitor: works like a battery, much cheaper, easy to make
Capacitors work like batteries. They store and discharge electricity. David Chandler at MIT explains how researchers there have designed a supercapacitor from concrete and carbon black, two cheap and common materials. The beauty of the idea is that they can be incorporated into building foundations, thus installing a battery virtually for free. A concrete capacitor cube 3.5m wide can store 10kwh, enough for a household. Similarly, concrete … [Read more...]
4 CEOs explain their innovations: EV charging, aviation fuel, hydrogen fuel cells, nuclear waste-to-energy
To meet our global climate targets, new solutions, technologies and pathways will be needed. Existing technologies, on their own, can’t be scaled up fast enough to do it. Robin Pomeroy and Kate Whiting at the World Economic Forum pick out highlights from their podcast that hears from four CEOs of innovative companies, covering EV charging, aviation, hydrogen fuel cells, and new nuclear. Today’s millions of EV charging points needs to rise to 450m … [Read more...]
Strategic home + workplace EV charging: there’s no need for extra power plants, storage, advanced demand management
High EV usage introduces new power consumption problems. At first look, extra storage and plants will be needed to cope with charging peaks. Either that, or sophisticated advanced demand management connected to every charging point, to smooth out demand. David Chandler at MIT describes research there that shows how, done right, none of that may be necessary. The study, tested on real life data in New York and Dallas, reveals that two things can … [Read more...]
EVs are on track for net-zero emissions
The IEA says “Electric Vehicles” is one category that is on track to meet their Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario. Road transport accounts for 16% of global emissions. Recent years have seen exponential growth in the sale of EVs, together with improved range, wider model availability and increased performance. The IEA estimates that 13% of new cars sold in 2022 will be electric. Most of the progress is taking place in established markets – i.e. … [Read more...]
Aluminium, sulphur and salt batteries. Cheaper than lithium-ion, for homes and EV charging stations
The high and escalating demand for the lithium-ion batteries that dominate the market is driving the search for alternatives. Ideally, they will be made from inexpensive, abundant materials. David Chandler at MIT describes research there into a design that uses aluminium and sulphur as its two electrode materials, with a molten salt electrolyte in-between. The results point at batteries that have a projected cost per cell of about one-sixth that … [Read more...]
Grid Distribution Systems: access to usage data is uncovering the optimal design for future electrification
The more efficient a distribution grid is, the less likely other potential supply bottlenecks (from lithium for batteries to trained electricians) will slow the transition to greater and greater electrification. State-of-the-art modelling of future grids is already happening, but the robust modelling of the distribution system is conspicuously missing because good data are notoriously hard to find, says Meredith Fowlie at UC Berkeley’s Energy … [Read more...]
If most truck journeys are less than 300 miles the E-Truck revolution can happen now
What proportion of trucks today could go electric? That’s the question Emily Porter at RMI has asked for California and New York. The answer is 65% of medium-duty trucks and 49% of heavy-duty trucks. Those are very encouragingly high numbers. RMI’s definition of “electrifiable” is if they travel fewer than 300 miles between trips to their home bases. The study gathered real data on how freight trucks are driven today. Clearly, a large number of … [Read more...]
Intelligent, flexible Sector Coupling in cities can double the potential for Wind and Solar
This week the European Commission tabled the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) which should accelerate the decarbonisation of buildings. Buildings and cities play a key role in the energy transition. And the target high shares of variable renewable power supply will be much more easily achieved if the sectors using them display demand flexibility. In essence, that means using or storing the excess wind and solar generation … [Read more...]
The 10 big problems with simply replacing fossil cars with electric
The planned rapid transition to electric vehicles has major challenges. Schalk Cloete compiles them into a list of ten, including: preserving our car-centric cities preserves its inefficiencies and societal costs; it works against much of the personal “behaviour change” we need; though BEVs (battery electric vehicles) are better in cities, when infrastructure costs are included they are less efficient than hybrids and modern ICEs for many driving … [Read more...]
Clean transport in Europe: key trends to watch out for
T&E’s quarterly trends series gives a snapshot of the key developments that will define the future of clean transport in Europe. And what Europe does – given it wants to lead this field – should influence what happens worldwide. T&E’s Thomas Earl brings attention to four issues. First, proven progress in this major sector makes it a contender for a significant role in Europe’s new industrial strategy. It ranges from battery and … [Read more...]
Nanochemistry breakthrough could lift energy density of batteries by factor six
Finding new ways for batteries to increase the charge they can store will lift their energy density. Researchers at Stanford University have developed an alkali metal-chlorine battery that stores six times the charge of today’s commercially available lithium-ion batteries. Until this breakthrough, a high-performance rechargeable sodium-chlorine or lithium-chlorine battery has been impractical because chlorine is too reactive to convert back to an … [Read more...]
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