Regular readers will be aware that here at V2G UK we are concerned about the effect of internal combustion engine emissions on human health, particularly in the town of Camelford just down the road from us here in (Silic)Inny Valley. For more background please read on below the fold, but here is our urgent message of the day.
The Cornwall County Council consultation on their so called Air Quality Action Plan for Camelford closes on April 2nd 2018. If you want to have your say please complete the online questionnaire at:
Nissan’s latest electric vehicle press release doesn’t include the exclamation mark in our title for today:
Nissan’s breakthrough e-NV200 100% electric van combines the features of the award-winning Nissan NV200 van with the market-leading New Nissan LEAF, offering businesses a zero-emission vehicle packed with innovative technology and functionality.
From spring 2018, Nissan will introduce in Europe its new zero-emissions van that goes further than ever on a single charge thanks to a new 40kWh battery. The Nissan e-NV200 now offers a 60% extended range with unchanged cargo capacity and single-shift transmission that makes driving easier and safer.
With more than 15,000 vehicles on the roads since its introduction in Europe in 2014, this new generation of 100% electric Nissan e-NV200, embodying the company’s Nissan Intelligent Mobility vision, now goes another step forward. The longer range provided by its bigger battery and a full new series of connectivity features makes the 100% electric e-NV200 a real game changer in the LCV market.
Regular readers will be aware that we wholeheartedly agree with that final sentence! Whilst it was a non-typical use case our mainly motorway road test of a 24 kWh equipped e-NV200 last summer would have been considerably swifter with an extra 60% range. Our local rural post lady assures us that her currently diesel powered round is about 50 miles. Absolutely no problem in the new e-NV200. Are you listening Royal Mail? According to Nissan once again:
As well as helping business customers enhance their green credentials, the van represents a key pillar in Nissan’s wider commitment to cutting the level of emissions in city centres caused by professional drivers making deliveries and/or collections, ranging from CO2 emissions to noise pollution. It can help make 100% electric last mile deliveries achievable for businesses and professional drivers everywhere, with customers now able to drive more than 100 km further on a single charge compared to the previous generation e-NV200 fitted with 24kWh battery.
No more range anxiety then, and Nissan Europe’s Director of Electric Vehicles, Gareth Dunsmore, makes a very important point:
Businesses have a huge impact on air quality and traffic congestion, especially in city centres, and the Nissan e-NV200 helps cut the level of CO2 emissions they create.
The photos accompanying the press release are of the white “Evalia” 7 seater people carrier version of the e-NV200 rather than a red parcel carrying van, and seem to have been shot in amongst some renewable generation on the isalnd of Tenerife:
Whatever the colour or configuration, we’d love to try one out on some Great British roads in the not so Great British winter. It seems that we’ll have to wait until “spring” though.
Nissan further inform us that:
Using the same battery technology as the new Nissan LEAF just introduced in Europe, and with no increase in the size of the battery itself, e-NV200 customers face no compromise in load space. Crucially, it can help make 100% electric last miles delivery achievable for businesses and professional drivers everywhere.
At long last Nissan get around to the V2G bit:
The Nissan e-NV200 is also much more than just a 100% electric vehicle. It is a mobile power unit complete with unique bi-directional charging. This means it can give back energy to power the world around it by connecting to offices or business facilities. It can even return any excess charge to top up and stabilise the local energy grid thanks to Nissan’s innovative Vehicle to Grid technology.
The UK’s new “Industrial Strategy” was published last week. The last time we had a good look at UK plc’s strategy was three years ago, when we concluded that “it rather sounds as though ‘Storage to Grid’ (or S2G for short) is a more likely prospect here in the United Kingdom than fully fledged V2G”. So how about this year?
The foreword by Greg Clark, Secretary of State for Business,Energy and Industrial Strategy (or BEIS for short), states that:
This Industrial Strategy deliberately strengthens the five foundations of productivity: innovation, people, infrastructure, places and the business environment.
At the very least “innovation” and “infrastructure” sound like the sort of things we get up to here at V2G UK. Here’s how Gov.UK visualises our future infrastructure:
Moving on, Greg continues:
As well as setting a path to improved productivity, our Industrial Strategy sets out four areas where Britain can lead the global technological revolution. These four Grand Challenges – in artificial intelligence and big data; clean growth; the future of mobility; and meeting the needs of an ageing society – have been identified on the advice of the our leading scientists and technologists. They will be supported by investment from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and matched by commercial investment.
There’s a video explaining the ISCF:
There’s even a video summarising each of the Grand Challenges. Electric vehicles get a mention in the one about mobility:
https://youtu.be/wlqQRp5vhOU
We’ve previously touched on the Government’s new “clean growth” strategy on the V2G blog, and obviously we’re inordinately interested in the “future of mobility”, so there really should be something of interest to us in the 131 page white paper. Let’s delve a little deeper shall we? Under the “infrastructure” heading we’re told that:
Our approach is to undertake a comprehensive package of measures to promote the uptake of zero emission vehicles. We have announced a further £100m for the plug-in car grant to incentivise the purchase of battery electric vehicles, and we are committing to 25 per cent of the cars in central government department fleets being electric by 2022. We are announcing an additional £200m of public investment, to be matched by private investment, to create a new £400m Charging Infrastructure Investment Fund, and we will regulate to support further expansion of the charging infrastructure network.
After the Grenfell Review, we will update building regulations to mandate that all new residential developments must contain the enabling cabling for charge-points in the homes. We will also provide £40m to support new technologies for on-street and wireless charging.
All of which sounds like very good news for our SaMDES project which envisages installing static battery storage and V2G charging stations in homes and small businesses across the South West of England. The news gets even better! A little further on we discover:
The zero emission road transport strategy, to be published in the coming months, and work on the options for the long-term decarbonisation of heating will build on this. They will support the growth of markets for technologies that create synergies between systems, such as energy storage, smart meters, vehicle-to-grid charging and heat networks.
Will the sweet music to our ears never stop? Not for the moment at least. Next we discover that:
We are determined to tackle air pollution and support affected areas, given the significant negative impact it has on public health, the economy and the environment. We will provide £220m for a new Clean Air Fund that will allow local authorities in England with the most challenging pollution problems to help individuals and businesses adapt as measures to improve air quality are implemented. This new fund is in addition to the £255m provided to implement the Air Quality plan earlier this year.
That sounds like more potential assistance for Camelford due to the town’s Air Quality Management Area status. Moving on once more, regular readers will be aware that we are proponents of energy efficiency. “Negawatts not Megawatts!” we cried when the predecessor to BEIS pulled the plug on zero carbon homes a couple of years ago. Will they make amends now? Unfortunately not really. There are a couple of sentences to the effect that:
In the more immediate term, energy efficiency and reforms to the retail energy market will provide the opportunity to lower bills. Up to £6bn could be saved in 2030 through investment in cost effective energy saving technologies in the industrial and commercial sector.
We will encourage greater investment in energy efficiency measures and technologies, including by developing a new scheme to support investment in industrial energy efficiency, to help large businesses install measures that will cut their energy use and bills, as we as improve their productivity.
Plus there’s:
We want to support greater collaboration between councils, a more strategic approach to planning housing and infrastructure, more innovation and high quality design in new homes and creating the right conditions for new private investment.
From where I’m sat I’m afraid that’s not a patch on “the proposed 2016 increase in on-site energy efficiency standards” that bit the dust in 2015. The white paper contains some great news if you’re into decarbonising transport, as we most certainly are. However unfortunately reducing the energy wasted by the UK’s poorly insulated housing stock, both old and new, still seems to be very much on UK plc’s back burner.
It seems as though we still have a long wait in store before homes like this will be constructed as a matter of urgency:
I’ve been out on the road this week, explaining the potential benefits of vehicle-to-grid technology to a variety of audiences. First up on Wednesday evening was the “Autumn Connect” event at Exeter City Futures, where I made a presentation entitled “V2G – How to simultaneously store energy and reduce congestion.”. I had the luxury of being allowed 5 minutes to present an “elevator pitch” on that subject to the assembled throng:
Here’s an expanded version of the PowerPoint slide deck I used. They all had Kasia’s “artist’s impression” of V2G in action at the top, so I’ll omit that part here. The first two slides are taken from a 2 minute pitch I presented at the Met Office on Thursday (see below) and have to conform to a template provided by the Knowledge Transfer Network. Hence:
V2G Limited
A small “smart grid” consultancy located amongst the wind and solar “farms” of North Cornwall
The “smart grid” is actually the “internet of big things”!
Producing embedded firmware for 35 years
Under a previous name provided multi-drop fleet routing interfaced to SAP for a FTSE 250 company
Long experience in electricity distribution. The Lucy Switchgear Gemini RTU firmware is our baby
Whilst we understand hardware our expertise is in designing software/firmware
Evangelising Vehicle-to-Grid technology for 5 years
I trust that is all self explanatory?! If not please see below or ask questions in the space made available for that purpose in the comments section at the bottom.
I always like to encourage some audience participation at these events, and Exeter City Futures delivered in spades! For the first time ever I didn’t need to blow my own bidirectional trumpet:
Timekeeper Lyndsey volunteered to blow the V2G trumpet for me, though ultimately it informed me that my time was up before I even managed to display the last slide, so make sure to read all about that below!
To make my “internet of big things” point I waved my trusty Raspberry Pi 3B at the audience. Here is what it looks like close up:
Dr. Sarah Ward from the University of Exeter correctly, if somewhat hesitantly, identified the mystery object. Now I’ve been programming the firmware (i.e. the software inside the hardware) in those sorts of devices for a very long time. 35 years ago single board computers were a lot slower and a lot bigger, but they still did the same sort of job. In those days they didn’t have USB ports like the Pi. Instead they had serial ports that conformed to the RS-232 standard. Getting two devices to talk to each other was always “interesting”!
I asked the audience to raise their hands if they’d previously heard of the “smart grid”. Quite a lot had:
Then I asked who had heard of the “internet of things”. Slightly more hands were raised. The point being that hardware a lot like the Raspberry Pi is at the heart of your smartphone, at the heart of the Smart Grid and (albeit in a smaller form factor) at the heart of the Internet of Things. The main difference being that the smart grid has been around quite a lot longer than the IoT! A point that some of my audience at the Met Office on Thursday seemed to agree with since they nodded their heads vigorously at that juncture!
Moving on to slide 2:
1. Our project idea
See the infographic above
North Cornwall is ideal!
Charge EVs on sunny lunchtimes
2. What’s innovative about it?
Nobody’s done it yet
On all sorts of levels!
Price signals / regulation?
3. The services we can offer?
Vast systems integration experience
Vast enthusiasm
AI for Energy Systems
4. The partners/services we seek?
Kite marked V2G hardware
An all electric car club
A suitable site
I asked the audience if it was obvious what the infographic represented. I was subsequently informed that a hand had gone up in the far corner of the room, but I didn’t notice at the time. To explain, imagine a conventional home with solar PV panels on the roof exporting excess electricity to the local distribution grid. Now add some static batteries in the utility room or the garage. Store any excess “free” energy generated when the sun is shining in that battery. When the household electric vehicle returns from the daily commute charge it up from the battery rather than from the mains, since by now the sun will be low in the sky or already below the horizon in winter.
If you have that basic hardware setup available then there’s lots of other things you can do with it! How about buying electricity from the grid when it’s cheap and storing it in your static and/or mobile batteries. Then just for starters you could sell it back to the grid when electricity’s more expensive? There are other possibilities too, which brings me on to slide 3:
That’s a portion of Western Power Distribution‘s network constraint map. Note that most of Devon & Cornwall is plastered in red due to all the intermittent renewable electricity generation we have down here. One day (hopefully!) soon you’ll be able to earn money by allowing WPD to charge and discharge your batteries when it suits them, in order to help them cope with the stresses that intermittent generation can subject their electricity distribution grid to. The current fly in that particular pot of ointment are the rules and regulations currently enforced by Ofgem, which make it nigh on impossible for neighbouring energy “prosumers” to trade electricity with each other. Highlighting bullet point 2(c) I idly enquired if anybody else in the room “has had problems with Ofgem’s red tape?”. Not a single hand was raised in protest.
As regular readers will be aware, the town of Camelford in North Cornwall is an Air Quality Management Area (AQMA for short). Much like the centre of Exeter, the air quality in the centre of Camelford is fairly foul due to the noxious emissions of all the diesel engines that travel slowly through it. Electric vehicles can help with that, since they have no exhaust pipes and by and large use regenerative braking rather than rubbing dust off brake pads when they want to slow down. Hence slide 4 consisted of pictures of V2G capable examples of such vehicles, plus an image of the xStorage static battery storage device being produced from ex Nissan LEAF batteries by Eaton. An electric car club in Camelford and/or Exeter would be a small step along the road to reducing congestion and air pollution in both town and city centres, whilst V2G enabled vehicles in the fleet would also provide a mobile energy storage facility!
That’s about as far as I got on Wednesday before Lyndsey blew the metaphorical whistle on me, so I hastily concluded by mentioning this apposite comment from blog reader Chris:
It seems that struck a chord with at least one member of the audience. In the first image above you can see the back of Mark Hodgson’s head, if you know where to look. Mark’s Co-Cars car club certainly isn’t 100% electric, but it has just installed a couple of EV charging points in the Exeter area. That would seem to fit the bill for my bullet point 4(b) quite nicely?
Here’s the final slide I never had a chance to mention on Wednesday evening:
Of course solar PV isn’t the only form of RE generation, and batteries aren’t the only way of storing energy, at home or in the office. There’s also heat, and cold, and eddi & zappi: http://myenergi.uk/products/
What do you suppose that’s all about? To help answer that question let’s move on to Thursday and my trip to the Met Office. At least the previous evening’s rain had stopped:
I was presenting at a briefing event for Innovate UK’s Emerging and Enabling Technologies competition. I got the feeling that since this was (one of?) the first KTN briefing(s) held in Exeter most delegates weren’t making the most of the KTN’s “Meeting Mojo” facility. Anybody who ventured in there would have discovered that I was hoping to meet:
Partners who appreciate that the “Smart grid” is a subset of “The internet of things”, and predates the IoT!
whilst offering a potential consortium:
Smart Grid Consultancy: 5 years vehicle-to-grid, 15 years electricity distribution, 35 years system integration. Now with added blockchain!
Shortly before the event proper got underway I explained to the KTN’s Simon Yarwood, MC for the pitch session, that although I only had 2 slides in my deck I was actually representing 2 companies from a nascent V2G consortium. He graciously allowed me to overrun my allotted 2 minutes, and here’s what I added to the top two slides above:
As you can see at the top of that page, a bidirectional charging station with associated static storage connected to a Nissan LEAF pool car is employed at EBRI as both an energy source and sink, in what is the UK’s first V2x pilot project. Strictly speaking it’s vehicle to building (V2B) rather than fully fledged V2G, but as far as the charging station itself is concerned that is of no consequence.
The BMS software at EBRI is now being further developed by Grid Edge Ltd. who assure me that it utilises various machine learning methods using a variety of inputs including weather forecasts, energy usage history, WiFi connections and football match schedules to optimise the overall energy use profile of the building and the assets within. As well as a modest amount of battery storage the EBRI building also includes energy storage in the form of large tanks of both hot and cold water in the basement, as indicated on the real time infographic shown above. That’s where the MyEnergi system depicted in slide 5 above comes in. It doesn’t use complex prediction or optimisation software, but it does attempt to sensibly direct the electricity generated by domestic solar PV panels to charge your EV, heat up your hot water, or if all else fails export some to the grid.
Nissan recently announced the new 2018 edition of their popular LEAF saloon, with increased range over the previous model thanks to a 40 kWh battery pack. Over the weekend a “leak” revealed that a 40 kWh version of Nissan’s e-NV200 van is on the way. That will provide a big increase in range over the e-NV200’s current 24 kWh battery pack, and make the “van” a much more realistic choice for a wide variety of small businesses. Note also that there is an MPV/taxi version of the e-NV200 known as the “Combi”, which I have taken a ride in over the North Sea in the Netherlands:
That means we’re really talking about an electric vehicle club, not a mere “car” club. That’s one way of implementing the concept known as “Mobility as a Service” (or MaaS for short).
Here’s another very good reason to try and put more electric vehicles on the streets of Camelford:
Earlier this year Camelford was declared an Air Quality Management Area (AQMA for short). According to the Town Council web site:
Cllr Claire Hewlett… said “I’m very pleased that Camelford has now been declared an air quality management area, as it means that Cornwall Council and Defra have offically acknowledged we have an air quality problem. The Clean Air Group have been working closely with Cornwall Council’s environmental protection team to get this far. Talking to people in town today, everyone is excited that something might actually happen.”
As part of the consultation, the council asked for residents and businesses to convey their ideas for improving air quality, and some of these will be investigated as part of a range of options before the final plan is published.
Now electric vehicles improve air quality in town and city centres by reducing nitrogen oxide emissions and particulates from exhaust pipes and brake dust, so here’s our idea.
Apart from improving air quality an electric vehicle club in Camelford would also reduce the number of cars sitting unused in garages and car parks for much of the time. One car club vehicle can result in 10-20 private cars being taken off the road. If you don’t possess a car you’re more likely to indulge in healthier alternatives such as walking or cycling for short journeys. In rural areas with poor public transport car clubs allow people who could never afford a car of their own to make occasional longer trips they would otherwise be unable to, except perhaps by taxi. For more on the benefits of car clubs see:
Obviously a few extra EVs in and around Camelford won’t initially result in a vast improvement in air quality if lots of diesel engines keep running whilst queueing along the A39, but you have to start somewhere! The same principle applies to charging infrastructure. Camelford has the advantage of already possessing a rapid charging point in the Churchfields car park, but additional lower power EV charging points would need to be installed. If that could be achieved then a 100% electric car club would allow people to experiment with driving an electric vehicle at very little cost, and thereby discover the many benefits of EVs for themselves. Assuming that hurdle can be overcome we’d like to perform a consultation of our own.
Please take our short survey and let us know your opinion about which sort of vehicle should be the first one to be made available to Camelford residents:
Earlier this year the OECD’s chief Economist recommended “fiscal stimulus and investment in infrastructure”. Perhaps Theresa May was listening? I ponder that point because earlier this week the Department for Transport unveiled their “Plans for more charging stations to encourage low emission vehicles”. According to the accompanying press release:
As part of our ongoing commitment to making transport greener and improving air quality, the Department for Transport is consulting on a series of measures that will make chargepoints more accessible, making it easier for drivers to recharge as demand for low emission vehicles increases. The measures are due to be included in the Modern Transport Bill.
The government has pledged more than £600 million over this parliament to further boost the ultra low emission vehicle market, which is going from strength to strength after the number of new ultra low emission vehicles registered rose by 250% in just 2 years.
According to Chris Grayling, the United Kingdom’s new Secretary of State for Transport:
We are committed to making transport cleaner and giving even more drivers the option of using a low emission vehicle as we strive to improve air quality across the country.
Our ambition is for nearly all new cars and vans to be zero emission by 2040, and we are taking real steps to achieve this in the Modern Transport Bill. We now want to hear the views of businesses and the wider public.
That final bullet point is addressed by an announcement from the Office for Low Emission Vehicles:
This consultation seeks views on measures to support the uptake of ultra low emission vehicles (ULEVs), proposed for inclusion in the Modern Transport Bill.
The proposed measures relate to refueling and recharging infrastructure for ULEVs and focus specifically on:
the consumer experience of infrastructure
smart charging – infrastructure and the electricity system
the provision of infrastructure
The consultation closes at 11:45 PM on November 23rd 2016, so if you have strong views on the UK’s EV charging infrastructure in general or “smart charging” in particular now is the time to start putting your thoughts on virtual paper before sending them to Chris Grayling.
Perhaps I’ll have to precis this blog for him, since the consultation document itself summarises the proposed measures in the Modern Transport Bill as follows:
Consumer experience of infrastructure
a) Power to require operators of publicly accessible chargepoints and hydrogen refuelling stations, and networks, to provide data in an open source format on the geographical location and live availability of charging and refuelling infrastructure
b) Power to require operators of publicly accessible chargepoints and hydrogen refuelling stations, and networks, to ensure consumers can use them without the need for multiple memberships
c) Power to require operators of publicly accessible chargepoints and hydrogen refuelling stations, and networks, to publish transparent and comparable pricing information
d) Power to specify minimum standards of design and functionality for new publicly accessible chargepoints and hydrogen refuelling stations and networks
Smart charging – Infrastructure and the electricity system
e) Power to require infrastructure installed for the purposes of charging EVs to have ‘smart’ functionality to receive, understand and respond to signals sent by energy system participants (e.g. Distribution Network Operators (DNOs), energy suppliers, National Grid or other third parties) for the purposes of balancing energy supply and demand, and to require any technological functionality in EVs necessary to ensure ‘smart’ functionality
f) Power to require that technical standards used by operators of chargepoints and networks comply with the requirements set out in these measures are available and implemented on an open access basis. This includes making publicly accessible the necessary protocols to allow the charging infrastructure to communicate, understand and respond to signals or grid balancing
Provision of infrastructure
g) Power to require that operators of motorway service areas (MSAs) ensure a minimum provision of electric and hydrogen fuels for ULEVs at MSAs
h) Power to require a minimum provision of electric and hydrogen fuels for ULEVs at large fuel retailers
i) Power to franchise hydrogen refuelling
I’m sure Chris will be interested to discover more about “technical standards used by operators of chargepoints and networks… implemented on an open access basis”. Perhaps he’d like to learn more about vehicle-to-grid technology too?
The United Kingdom’s Department for Transport has just announced that:
Nottingham, Bristol, Milton Keynes and London named as winners of multi-million fund to encourage drivers to go green.
Four cities have been awarded significant funds today (25 January 2016) to promote green vehicle technology after successfully bidding for a share of a multi-million pot created to support the take-up of plug-in electric cars across the United Kingdom”.
Here’s the video version of the announcement:
Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said:
These Go Ultra Low Cities have proposed exciting, innovative ideas that will encourage drivers to choose an electric car. I want to see thousands more greener vehicles on our roads and I am proud to back this ambition with £40 million to help the UK become international pioneers of emission cutting technology.
The UK is a world leader in the uptake of low emission vehicles and our long-term economic plan is investing £600 million by 2020 to improve air quality, create jobs and achieve our goal of every new car and van in theUK being ultra-low emission by 2040.
Third in the list of winners is Bristol, just up the M5 motorway from us here in Exeter, who were actually bidding under the banner of the “West of England”. According to this morning’s announcement:
Bristol get £7 million to offer residents free residential parking for ULEVs, access to 3 carpool lanes in the city, over 80 rapid and fast chargers across the city and a scheme encouraging people to lease a plug-in car for up to 4 weeks to help them better understand the range of benefits that electric vehicles bring.
There’s no mention anywhere in OLEV’s announcement about vehicle-to-grid or distributed storage however. Perhaps that sort of thing is still not on UK plc’s shopping list?
The Renault-Nissan Alliance announced today that they will provide a fleet of 200 all-electric vehicles as the official passenger-car provider for the United Nation’s COP21 climate conference in Paris later this year. The fleet of vehicles will include Renault’s ZOE and Kangoo Z.E. and Nissan’s LEAF and e-NV200. Here’s what a small part of it looks like:
The partnership agreement was signed today between the Renault-Nissan Alliance and the General Secretary in charge of the preparation and organization of the 21st annual Conference of Parties (better known as COP21). The fully electric car fleet will shuttle delegates during the event from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.
More than 20,000 U.N. participants from 195 countries are expected to attend the annual climate summit. It will be the first time the U.N. will use a zero-emission fleet for its entire passenger car shuttle at a COP event.
Laurent Fabius, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development and President of COP21, said that:
We are delighted to announce that the Renault-Nissan Alliance is an official partner of COP21 in Paris. Thanks to the Alliance’s fleet of 100% electric vehicles, it will contribute to our goal of achieving a carbon neutral event. The technology of electric vehicles helps reduce greenhouse gases in the transportation sector efficiently.
whilst Carlos Ghosn, Chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, said that:
Electric vehicle technology is an efficient solution for a practical and affordable mode of transportation. This solution has a positive impact on the climate and air quality in our cities. It’s time to accelerate the shift to zero-emission mobility by working together with all parties concerned.
At this point in time I cannot help but wonder what Amber Rudd and her new team at DECC will make of being ferried around Paris in 100% electric vehicles later this year? Maybe they’ll be so impressed that they will follow the lead of Paris and:
Set up network[s] of more than 50 quick and standard charging stations powered by 100% renewable energy in strategic locations. The quick charging stations will be able to charge the EVs from 0 to 80% capacity in about 30 minutes.
