What happens next?
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We have already talked in this white paper about the critical role renewables will play in underpinning the growth of EV take up and the associated charging infrastructure that will be needed to support its expansion.
The European Environment Agency, exploring the additional electricity generation that will be required in the EU to meet the extra energy demand arising from an 80% share of electric vehicles in 2050 (see figure 9), says the share of Europe's total electricity consumption from electric vehicles will increase from approximately 0.03% in 2014 to around 4-5% by 2030 and 9.5% by 2050.³⁵
It says this additional electricity demand driven by increasing EV ownership assumed for the future will need to be met by additional power generation, noting that this additional energy needs to be integrated into the grid infrastructure across Europe. Critical questions are therefore how much electricity is needed, what type of generation is used to cover this additional electricity demand and how are charging peaks managed?
It forecasts that until 2030, the additional energy demand by electric vehicles will be limited and will not significantly influence the electricity system. But, in the longer term, with high market shares of electric vehicles assumed in 2050, the required electricity demand will have more significant impact on power systems in Europe.
Source: European Environment Agency
An increase in electric vehicle use will result in:
- lower CO and air pollutant emissions from the road transport sector
- higher emissions from associated electricity production
- an overall net benefit in terms of lower emissions of carbon dioxide (CO) and the air pollutants nitrogen oxides (NO) and particulate matter
- an overall increase in sulphur dioxide (SO due to emissions from the electricity-generating sector)
Renewables present the perfect solution for providing the clean, green electricity that will be required to power the growth of EVs, while enabling Europe to decarbonise the transport sector and contribute towards the EU goal of reducing GHG emissions by 80-95% by 2050.
Technology
We have also addressed the importance of technology in helping to develop and grow the whole EV market – from vehicle development and batteries, through to smart charging installations, roadside charge points, the deployment of solar solutions, and the potential of vehicle-to-grid (V2G).
Battery charge times are increasingly being reduced. Batteries capable of fully charging in five minutes have been produced in a factory in China for the first time, reports The Guardian, marking a significant step towards electric cars becoming as fast to charge as filling up petrol or diesel vehicles. The new lithium-ion batteries were developed by the Israeli company StoreDot and manufactured by Eve Energy in China on standard production lines.³⁶
StoreDot has already demonstrated its ‘extreme fast-charging’ battery in phones, drones and scooters. The batteries can be fully charged in five minutes, but this would require much higher-powered chargers than used today. Using available charging infrastructure, StoreDot is aiming to deliver 100 miles of charge to a car battery in five minutes in 2025.
Dozens of other companies around the world are also developing fast-charging batteries, and such developments will do much to address so-called ‘range anxiety’, often cited as a main reason why people are reluctant to purchase an EV.
There is also potential for improving on-street charging, with pop-up charging bollards, apps to identify available charging locations, and new ways of purchasing electricity ‘on the go’ all being explored and trialled. These will contribute towards making EVs a more viable option for more drivers.
While individual smart charging is seen as the most prevalent area for growth in the near term, experts suggest that it’s V2G technology that will really provide a longer-term answer to the challenge of grid load and demand management allowing EVs to become part of the solution to the very challenges they are posing.
V2G allows cars to feed power back into the grid via a bi-directional charger. One EV can provide three to four days electricity for a family home, according to Tepco, the Japanese electricity utility credited with the invention of bi-directional charging technology.
Chris Wright, chief technology officer at smart battery software company Moixa, says that 10 Nissan Leafs ‘have enough energy in them to power 1,000 homes for an hour’. That makes V2G a powerful weapon in the battle to balance grids and provide frequency-regulation services.
A Reuters report³⁷ notes that V2G remains some way off, in part because the chargers are still too expensive – around £5,000. This is down from £10,000 in the past couple of years, but much more than the £1,500 cost of a smart charger. There is still room, too, for technological advances that will reduce the size and weight of V2G equipment.