Hydrogen powered cars: Your news and views please

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Hydrogen powered cars: Your news and views please

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2123 posts

Uber Geek

#2257516 13-Jun-2019 16:39

WyleECoyoteNZ:

Yes, but a public charger is going to be, a) busy and have queues and b) take a decent amount of time.

I'm going to use Wellington here as an example, but if I lived in Mt Victoria, Mt Cook or Newtown, chances are my car will be parked curbside. Due to these suburbs close proximity to the CBD I could either walk or cycle to work. If the car is only being used weekends, the last thing I want to be doing is spending 30-40 minutes charging the car before I can go anywhere.

They're not going to be that busy because the majority of people charge at home.

Right now, the edge cases where someone has no means of charging at home and only uses their car on the weekend aren't catered for with an EV. That's not to say that it will always be this way. There's no reason street lights can't be equipped with a public charger to cater to those who park on the street, as an example. I guess the other question is, what would you be using the car for in the weekend that public transport doesn't cater for?

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WyleECoyoteNZ

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Uber Geek

#2257517 13-Jun-2019 16:40

I don't have any information on this, but is\would this be a future scenario in NZ?

https://www.autocar.co.nz/autocar-news-app/sweden-s-electric-cars-causing-power-shortages

But having said that.....

https://www.autocar.co.nz/autocar-news-app/hydrogen-fuel-station-explodes

Interesting that Autocar runs the story of the explosion and right beside it is the story of Fieldays and the Nexo debut

https://www.autocar.co.nz/

https://www.autocar.co.nz/autocar-news-app/fieldays-2019-hydrogen-haulers-and-rough-trucks

tdgeek

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#2257548 13-Jun-2019 17:52

Batteries explode too. https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/113463552/passenger-carryon-bag-ignites-at-us-airport-checkpoint

In todays news, not searched for

Delphinus

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Ultimate Geek

#2257573 13-Jun-2019 18:55

WyleECoyoteNZ:

Yes, but a public charger is going to be, a) busy and have queues and b) take a decent amount of time.

I'm going to use Wellington here as an example, but if I lived in Mt Victoria, Mt Cook or Newtown, chances are my car will be parked curbside. Due to these suburbs close proximity to the CBD I could either walk or cycle to work. If the car is only being used weekends, the last thing I want to be doing is spending 30-40 minutes charging the car before I can go anywhere.

If you're only using a car the odd weekend, then just use something like https://www.yoogoshare.co.nz/ or https://mevo.co.nz/ - probably cheaper and easier for you.

London is also trialling charge points installed in lamp posts next to parking bays.

Scott3

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#2257634 13-Jun-2019 21:37

Delphinus:

...

London is also trialling charge points installed in lamp posts next to parking bays.

Wellington has (or is getting) on street public charging too: http://evtalk.co.nz/fifteen-wellington-street-ev-charging-stations-confirmed/

I think they are freestanding rather than integrated with street lights.

frankv

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#2257875 14-Jun-2019 07:21

Obraik:

There's no reason street lights can't be equipped with a public charger to cater to those who park on the street, as an example.

Actually, I think there is.

Wiring for street lights will be sized for the amount of current drawn by the lights. While the lights are on, there won't be much spare capacity for charging cars. Yes, you would be able to charge during the daytime, but the most common scenario would be to charge overnight. Even during the day, you wouldn't be getting 10A.

Secondly, there are 7 or 8 car parks per street light. So potentially you'll only get 1A. And you then also need retractable leads long enough to reach to the gap between the lights.

tdgeek

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#2257881 14-Jun-2019 07:50

With all of these charger points on street lights, shopping malls, car parks, work places and so on, as well as at home, how much capacity will this be using? Right now its insignificant, but if our 3.8 million light vehicles in the future rises to 10% market share, that's 380,000 x say 40kWh per week of charging. If a house uses say 40kWh per day in winter, thats roughly the equivalent of 380,000 house days of power per week. Right now we have high spot prices and FF generation in summer when lakes are low and winter when heating is high. Last week in ChCh every morning Orion had HW heating turned off for 4 hours +.

Where will this capacity come from? And if one day in the very distant future 66% of light vehicles are electric as well as most public transport?

Obraik

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Uber Geek

#2258015 14-Jun-2019 10:23

frankv:

Actually, I think there is.

Wiring for street lights will be sized for the amount of current drawn by the lights. While the lights are on, there won't be much spare capacity for charging cars. Yes, you would be able to charge during the daytime, but the most common scenario would be to charge overnight. Even during the day, you wouldn't be getting 10A.

Secondly, there are 7 or 8 car parks per street light. So potentially you'll only get 1A. And you then also need retractable leads long enough to reach to the gap between the lights.

You're right, their current design isn't suitable but their location is at least useful. If the wiring is changed to handle a 32a (or greater) circuit then that would be enough for overnight charging and this is indeed what has started to be installed in a number of European locations.

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tdgeek

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#2258035 14-Jun-2019 10:48

Obraik:

frankv:

Actually, I think there is.

Wiring for street lights will be sized for the amount of current drawn by the lights. While the lights are on, there won't be much spare capacity for charging cars. Yes, you would be able to charge during the daytime, but the most common scenario would be to charge overnight. Even during the day, you wouldn't be getting 10A.

Secondly, there are 7 or 8 car parks per street light. So potentially you'll only get 1A. And you then also need retractable leads long enough to reach to the gap between the lights.

You're right, their current design isn't suitable but their location is at least useful. If the wiring is changed to handle a 32a (or greater) circuit then that would be enough for overnight charging and this is indeed what has started to be installed in a number of European locations.

That's not workable. Its a big big cost, when for the vast majority the home has power. If a house has no garage, then surely its not hard to run a cable from the house to the street?

Obraik

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#2258039 14-Jun-2019 10:53

tdgeek:

That's not workable. Its a big big cost, when for the vast majority the home has power. If a house has no garage, then surely its not hard to run a cable from the house to the street?

I wouldn't imagine it's that big of a cost. As I mentioned, there are a number of European cities starting to roll this out. Running a cable from the house to the street isn't very practical due to a) you might not always be able to park right outside your house b) the longer the cable the thicker it needs to be to get the same charge rate. Anyway, I'm not sure EV charging solutions are suitable for a thread about Hydrogen cars, we should probably continue this in the EV thread.

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tdgeek

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#2258044 14-Jun-2019 11:03

Obraik:

tdgeek:

That's not workable. Its a big big cost, when for the vast majority the home has power. If a house has no garage, then surely its not hard to run a cable from the house to the street?

I wouldn't imagine it's that big of a cost. As I mentioned, there are a number of European cities starting to roll this out. Running a cable from the house to the street isn't very practical due to a) you might not always be able to park right outside your house b) the longer the cable the thicker it needs to be to get the same charge rate. Anyway, I'm not sure EV charging solutions are suitable for a thread about Hydrogen cars, we should probably continue this in the EV thread.

Well the H discussion is all over the place and non H discussion there too

This is not Europe. We have garages for most homes, why redo all of our street light wiring just to cater for the odd car? Yet you would rather do that (who would pay??) than run one cable from a house to a street for that houses owner as he has no garage. Most can charge at home. Those that cant, extend it. The car is either on the street or near the house. If you wanted to provide areas where you want charging on the street, easier to tap into the grid as each street has the grid. You can put 5, 10, 50, points there, add a metering method and away you go

afe66

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#2258059 14-Jun-2019 11:20

As demand for electricity rises more capacity will be built is the way things have been going for 100 years surely.

Wind farms.
Domestic generation payback schemes

tdgeek

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#2258063 14-Jun-2019 11:25

afe66: As demand for electricity rises more capacity will be built is the way things have been going for 100 years surely.

Wind farms.
Domestic generation payback schemes

Not sure if wind can pick all this up. We are already in the red. We need to convert 15% to renewables, just to get to 100% let alone EV's. Domestic generation is not worth it. Too costly for too little return, as well as winter and night and cloudy day issues

Obraik

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Uber Geek

#2258071 14-Jun-2019 11:43

tdgeek:

Not sure if wind can pick all this up. We are already in the red. We need to convert 15% to renewables, just to get to 100% let alone EV's. Domestic generation is not worth it. Too costly for too little return, as well as winter and night and cloudy day issues

If we can't supply enough power to charge EVs then we certainly don't have enough power for hydrogen electrolysis to fuel the same amount of cars.

Domestic generation becomes much more viable when combined with a storage system. If you simply install solar panels on the roof then yeah, most of its generation is wasted during the day since most houses are empty during the peak generation period when the power is being generated. If you add battery storage to your solar panel install then the solar can charge those batteries during the day and it can then be used in the evening when everyone is home and power usage is at its highest. Depending on the size of your solar system install and the battery storage used, most houses could get most of their peak power usage from their battery rather than the grid. We can also charge the battery storage directly from the grid during off peak periods during times when solar generation is low to assist the grid later during high peak periods.

The same principal can be applied at large scale with our wind farms and any large solar farms we might install. Store the power generated during peak operating times so that it can then be fed into the grid when it's needed. The storage could be in the form of the large battery banks like what Australia is using or we could use pumped water storage

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tdgeek

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#2258075 14-Jun-2019 11:54

Obraik:

tdgeek:

Not sure if wind can pick all this up. We are already in the red. We need to convert 15% to renewables, just to get to 100% let alone EV's. Domestic generation is not worth it. Too costly for too little return, as well as winter and night and cloudy day issues

If we can't supply enough power to charge EVs then we certainly don't have enough power for hydrogen electrolysis to fuel the same amount of cars.

Domestic generation becomes much more viable when combined with a storage system. If you simply install solar panels on the roof then yeah, most of its generation is wasted during the day since most houses are empty during the peak generation period when the power is being generated. If you add battery storage to your solar panel install then the solar can charge those batteries during the day and it can then be used in the evening when everyone is home and power usage is at its highest. Depending on the size of your solar system install and the battery storage used, most houses could get most of their peak power usage from their battery rather than the grid. We can also charge the battery storage directly from the grid during off peak periods during times when solar generation is low to assist the grid later during high peak periods.

The same principal can be applied at large scale with our wind farms and any large solar farms we might install. Store the power generated during peak operating times so that it can then be fed into the grid when it's needed. The storage could be in the form of the large battery banks like what Australia is using or we could use pumped water storage

You make it sound so easy. Home solar is not worth it. It wont cover your home usage all year or even close. Powerwall is $18k and a measly 13kWh. You could get 20kWh and 3 Powerwalls I guess, unsure who will pay for that. Most houses cannot fit 20kWh anyway

We need more hydro, solar farms and wind wont cut it. We are already 14% in the red where are these farms?

Its about time we asked the hard questions, rather than drinking koolaid and justifying everything that we need to, when some of it is not reality. Aside from the cost benefit analysis not being there, the money isnt there, neither is the time. We need to plan hydro now, and for the future, noting that that is not an unlimited option either

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