phil d
Well-known member
The other week a friend said he was buying an electric car, apparently it will charge in about an hour, that's going to be pulling some current, I thought.
Anyway I started to think about how the DNO calculate their loading when planning supplies, for a normal house they work on around 4KW load, this is based on a massive chunk of diversity on the network, lets be honest, not everyone is going to shower at the same time, not everyone is going to use their electric cooker at the same time.
However the network has become strained with an increase in things like induction hobs and people having more than one electric shower in their homes, as many people are now having en suite bathrooms.
I could see this becoming a real issue, people coming home from work and putting their car on charge before they settle down for the evening. Sure enough a couple of days later there's an article on the news from the networks people saying that the increased use of electric vehicles is having an effect already, and that it cannot carry on as it is going, if the number of vehicles increase. Quite simply the network will not cope! they were saying that manufacturers will have to put a load sensing device in the chargers, to limit the number of chargers operating at one time.Personally I can't see this being a practical option, it will be far too complex, what I can see happening is something like the Economy 7 system, certain areas will have their charging points energised between certain hours, thereby limiting the load, naturally this will I predict incur a higher charge for the electricity, remember many years ago, electricity was charged at different tariffs, depending on what you used it for.
Another thing that may happen is the DNO could prohibit the connection of electric vehicle charging points when there are a large number in an area, this would also limit the load, however imagine the consequences of that happening.When you buy a property there are many things that affect it's price, local amenities, potential developments in the area, even the fact a home has a septic tank can put people off buying what is otherwise their perfect home,imagine then if you will, what would happen if it was written somewhere that you were not permitted to connect an EV charging point, what kind of effect would that have on a property price?
Anyway I started to think about how the DNO calculate their loading when planning supplies, for a normal house they work on around 4KW load, this is based on a massive chunk of diversity on the network, lets be honest, not everyone is going to shower at the same time, not everyone is going to use their electric cooker at the same time.
However the network has become strained with an increase in things like induction hobs and people having more than one electric shower in their homes, as many people are now having en suite bathrooms.
I could see this becoming a real issue, people coming home from work and putting their car on charge before they settle down for the evening. Sure enough a couple of days later there's an article on the news from the networks people saying that the increased use of electric vehicles is having an effect already, and that it cannot carry on as it is going, if the number of vehicles increase. Quite simply the network will not cope! they were saying that manufacturers will have to put a load sensing device in the chargers, to limit the number of chargers operating at one time.Personally I can't see this being a practical option, it will be far too complex, what I can see happening is something like the Economy 7 system, certain areas will have their charging points energised between certain hours, thereby limiting the load, naturally this will I predict incur a higher charge for the electricity, remember many years ago, electricity was charged at different tariffs, depending on what you used it for.
Another thing that may happen is the DNO could prohibit the connection of electric vehicle charging points when there are a large number in an area, this would also limit the load, however imagine the consequences of that happening.When you buy a property there are many things that affect it's price, local amenities, potential developments in the area, even the fact a home has a septic tank can put people off buying what is otherwise their perfect home,imagine then if you will, what would happen if it was written somewhere that you were not permitted to connect an EV charging point, what kind of effect would that have on a property price?
