The 361 Energy Fair is back in Barnstaple on September 29th. The 2024 event starts at 10 AM in the Pannier Market with an introduction by Ian Roome, the newly elected Liberal Democrat MP for North Devon.
To give you a better idea of what to expect, here’s a video with extracts from previous 361 energy fairs:
For the first time this year’s fair includes a series of talks on a variety of topics. Our very own Jim Hunt will be giving a presentation on the topic of “An introduction to V2x, making greater use of EV batteries”, and the emphasis will be on vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-building rather than fully fledged vehicle-to-grid.
The event includes exhibitions from a variety of local electric car dealers, and several of the EVs are V2x enabled. I suspect the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N will attract a lot of interest. Here’s Jack Scarlett’s review of “the most engaging electric driver’s car yet?” for the Fully Charged Show:
Also on display in the Pannier Market will be the Volkswagen ID. Buzz electric “surf bus”…
I had high hopes for what I dubbed the “South West Powerhouse” back in 2015, when I attended the launch of Molly Scott Cato’s “The Power to Transform the South West” report in Glastonbury. Here’s Molly, the then Green Party MEP for South West England, describing that vision from the podium:
After the presentations were over I bumped into a researcher from the University of Exeter, who didn’t look very well. I enquired after his health, and he explained that it wasn’t a physical problem. It had just been announced that the then Conservative / Lib Dem coalition Government had published its so called “Productivity Plan“, which claimed to be:
Creating a more prosperous nation.
The plan included the following weasel words:
The government does not intend to proceed with the zero carbon Allowable Solutions carbon offsetting scheme, or the proposed 2016 increase in on-site energy efficiency standards.
An unfortunate side effect of the cunning Conservative plan was that the vehicle-to-grid pilot project at Cranbrook that I’d just been discussing with Molly was instantly consigned to the recycle bin of history. Hence I wrote the first of several subsequent “open letters” to Mel Stride, recent candidate for leadership of the Conservative Party and my then Member of Parliament:
Much more recently I found myself on stage at the Everything Electric North event in Harrogate, where I exhorted to audience to “get out and vote!”, a message echoed by presenter Robert Llewellyn:
Lots of people did just that, and there is now a new administration in Westminster. What’s more much of the south west peninsula has turned from blue to orange and red on the electoral map:
There’s even a small patch of green just out of picture; Carla Denyer’s seat in Bristol Central.
Business leaders and politicians have put their cases for a South West powerhouse to the government.
The Great South West Partnership has brought together leaders from industry, politics and academia to work on promoting Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset as one unit on the national stage.
The partnership believes the region could be a leading force in issues of defence, energy and food production and is holding a conference with 500 guests expected.
Sarah Jones MP, Minister of State for Industry, was the keynote speaker at the conference, which was held at Sandy Park, home to the Exeter Chiefs rugby team…
Ms Jones told the conference the potential of the power industry was “huge” if people worked together.
“The innovation, the ideas and potential is huge,” she said. “I think the best way to realise that potential is for people to work together so they can make the case for growth, innovation, and reform. I think that is really important.
“What is really clear is there is a lot of potential we could be unlocking here.”
I have some innovative ideas that I’d love to discuss with Sarah and/or her team. I left a message on her voicemail on Friday, but she hasn’t got back to me yet.
I was fortunate enough to find myself on stage for two different panel sessions at the Everything Electric NORTH show in Harrogate last weekend. We recorded those two sessions in full for posterity, but there were plenty of other interesting topics apart from V2x. Some extracts from those can also be found below.
My first panel on Saturday was on the topic of “Vehicle to Everything? What’s the true potential?”, held in the EEN “Giga Theatre”. The tagline for the session was “We believe that V2X could be the biggest benefit of all in a world with battery electric vehicles, but how do we go ‘bidirectional’?”:
As you can see from the video below, I found myself sat next to Robert Llewellyn of Fully Charged fame as a last minute replacement for host Dan Caesar:
Mark Potter from 3ti explained the full suite of V2x three letter acronyms (TLAs for short).
V2L = vehicle-to-load
V2H = vehicle-to-home
V2B = vehicle-to-building
V2G = vehicle-to-grid
V2I = vehicle-to-infrastructure
V2V = vehicle-to-vehicle
I added a couple of less familiar four letter acronyms (FLAs for short) to Mark’s list:
V2µG = vehicle-to-micro-grid
V2nG = vehicle-to-nano-grid (AKA V2H)
Robert helpfully provided an explanation of “V2µG”:
Vehicle to a “local area grid”, like a few houses or a few buildings or a few offices.
Sunday’s panel was also in the Giga Theatre, this time on the related topic of “How can Grid x Home x Car come together for 2035?”, with the tagline “If there is to be a silver bullet in energy and transport it will be the bringing together of grid, home and car – when and how will they intersect? “.
Robert asked me “Can you do, for me, the very basic differentiation between the two commonly used ways of getting electricity out of cars, AC and DC?“
I replied “I can try!“. Skip to 5:30 in the video below to see for yourself whether I succeeded or not.
At ~ 27:30 in the video above, in response to a pertinent question from the audience, I uttered a carefully calibrated four letter word when attempting to get my message across to the assembled throng. Followed by:
The grid, it’s still too much ‘top down’, and it needs to be more ‘bottom up’!
Robert clarified my remark by adding that:
One would hope it will be a blend of the two. That consumers are buying the cars and going ‘hang on a minute, I’ve got a massive battery sat outside my house and I can’t use it to run my cooker’. And from the top down you can see the obvious benefits of having a million electric vehicles on the road. Even that is a million kilowatt-hours, if you take one from each.
In a press release this morning the United Kingdom Government’s Department for Transport announced that:
Charging electric vehicles is set to get even easier thanks to hundreds of millions of funding made available for local authorities, homeowners and renters today.
The government continues to deliver its £381 million Local Electric Vehicle (LEVI) fund to councils, which can choose where is best to install chargepoints in their local area. Following the approval of the first five local authority applications in February, payments to 44 additional councils from Torbay to Tees Valley, worth over £185 million, have now been approved to help residents charge their vehicles.
The funding will support the delivery of thousands of chargepoints across England, helping more drivers get from A to B easily and supporting families in making the switch. Additionally, the local authorities that have already been allocated to the second round of LEVI funding will be able to apply to the fund from 2 April 2024, following those who have received funding in the first round and in a further boost to the chargepoint rollout.
In the Strategy, we highlight that a key barrier to the uptake of EVs in Devon is the availability of suitable charging infrastructure, particularly in remote and rural areas.
To address this, the our Strategy recommends that we support the delivery of 2,000 more charging points by 2030.
It adds that there should be a particular focus on charging points on residential streets in rural and remote areas with electric grid constraints, where higher uptakes of EVs are forecast and communities without or with limited access to off-street parking.
The delivery of Devon’s LEVI scheme is set to begin in 2025 and will significantly expand on an already growing network of on and off-street EV charging points.
The DfT press release also announced additional financial support for EV owners who cannot charge their car in their own garage on on their driveway:
To further support electric vehicle (EV) drivers and families looking to switch to electric, the government is ensuring households without driveways or dedicated parking spaces can access the electric vehicle chargepoint grant. Delivering on our Plan for Drivers commitment to make EVs a more practical option, the £350 grant will be widened to those who own or rent and have access to adequate street parking.
The funding will drive down the cost of EV ownership by providing up to 75% off the cost of purchasing and installing a chargepoint, and applicants must also have permission from their council to install a cross-pavement charging solution. Applications can be made online.
This morning a new section was visible on the “Smart Tariffs” section of Octopus Energy’s web site. The new tariff is introduced by Constantine the friendly octopus as follows:
Octopus Power Pack: the UK’s first Vehicle-to-Grid tariff
Get free EV charging with our groundbreaking vehicle-to-grid (V2G) tariff
Add Octopus Power Pack to your regular tariff. We’ll set up your V2G charger to automatically manage your charging and discharging in the greenest way possible, so you can fill up for free.
A typical V2G driver could save £880 per year compared to Flexible Octopus, and £180 compared to Intelligent Octopus Go.
Power Pack represents the latest stage in our V2G rollout, following our wildly successful Powerloop V2G trial. It’s currently a beta tariff.
I cannot help but wonder if Constantine the intelligent octopus has been peeking at our decade old “artistic impression” of V2G technology in the domestic environment? See the banner above.
Arrival today announced that Simon Edel, Alan Hudson and Sam Woodward of EY-Parthenon’s Turnaround and Restructuring Strategy team were appointed as joint administrators (the “Administrators”) of Arrival UK Ltd and Arrival Automotive UK Limited (the “Companies”), both subsidiaries of Arrival. All of Arrival’s other subsidiaries will continue their activities as usual outside of the administration process. The Administrators are now exploring options for the sale of the business and assets of the Companies, including the electric vehicle platform, software, intellectual property and R&D assets, for the benefit of creditors.
Arrival’s mission is to master a radically more efficient New Method to design, produce, sell and service purpose-built electric vehicles, to support a world where cities are free from fossil fuel vehicles. Arrival’s in-house technologies enable a unique approach to producing vehicles using rapidly-scalable, local Microfactories. Arrival is a joint stock company governed by Luxembourg law.
So much for the long promised, allegedly revolutionary, vehicle-to-grid capable Arrival electric van:
In a press release this morning the Department for Transport of His Majesty’s Government announced that:
New measures to support electric vehicle drivers from the government’s Plan for Drivers have launched today, including grants for schools, cash for councils and new proposals to boost chargepoint numbers.
Technology and Decarbonisation Minister, Anthony Browne, will launch support for greener schools in Nottinghamshire today, with a new grant providing up to 75% of the cost to buy and install chargepoints, up to £2,500 per socket, up from the previous £350.
Paid for by the Department for Transport, the grant forms part of the Workplace Charging Scheme and is available for state-funded schools, colleges, nurseries and academies to boost the chargepoint facilities for staff and visitors. This could also help schools to generate revenue by making their chargepoints available to the public.
Sainsbury’s has today launched Smart Charge, a brand-new, dedicated EV charging business that will give drivers access to ultra-rapid EV charging points across its stores. This bold move illustrates the retailer’s commitment to the EV industry while providing an exciting new service for drivers.
In new research commissioned by Sainsbury’s, 80% of EV users admitted to avoiding long journeys because of not wanting to charge at public EV charging stations, describing the main frustrations as chargers being broken (40%), not enough charging bays (36%) and speed of service (33%). Designed to mitigate these frustrations, Smart Charge will initially feature over 750 cutting-edge ultra-rapid charging bays rolled out across more than 100 stores by the end of 2024, putting Sainsbury’s in the top five providers of ultra-rapid charging in the UK.
It seems as though Sainsbury’s have been doing a lot of market research. The release continues:
After maintaining an anti V2x stance for many years Tesla have finally accepted the inevitable! On the new Powershare page on the Tesla web site they say that:
Tesla vehicles* equipped with Powershare technology have onboard electronics that unlock your battery’s ability to provide power whenever you need it, wherever you are. Whether you need to power a construction site, pre-game tailgate, another electric vehicle or even your home during an outage, your Tesla vehicle with Powershare has you covered.
That sounds awfully exciting, but following the asterisk to the small print at the bottom of the page reveals that:
Tesla Powershare is currently available for Cybertruck only.
Without actually mentioning vehicle-to-load or vehicle-to-home Tesla suggest some use cases for the newly unlocked power:
