if we have so much excess supply that we can create expensive eletrolysis, compression and storage plants to turn large amounts of expensively produced energy into small ammounts of hydrogen, we could ……… just heat out houses with it directly.
Yes. I wonder what the round trip efficiency would be for generating hydrogen, shipping it around and burning it? 70-80% maybe? Consider that a heat pump using the same electricity is 250-400% efficient, you have a long way to go. And factor in that nearly all houses already have an electricity supply that's ready to go right now - more than have gas in fact - and also that you can generate your own power at home.
I have read about ammonia and other alternative fuels
Yes, there are a lot of options for alternative fuels. Here is some public information from the company I work for. Note that the same company is working on battery and alternative fuel technologies including electrolysers and fuel cells for H2 plus fuels that can still be combusted but are possible to generate from electricity, i.e. as a renewable form of energy storage.
Worth reading up on for anyone actually interested in facts and realistic future options rather than just bashing EVs etc.
https://www.cummins.com/news/2022/10/20/state-adoption-among-alternative-fuels
Battery tech still looks like the dominant option for passenger cars (in my personal opinion - not a company position). Charging just isn't an issue like some people seem to think (probably mostly people who have not actually lived with an EV for any period of time).
Example - I did 260 ish miles yesterday taking my son mountain biking for the day - did it all on one charge but the car was left with 20% battery and I didn't bother plugging in last night as wasn't planning on driving anywhere today. I realised though that I need to make another (unplanned) journey today of about 150 miles, so I need to add 28kw.Hr (35%) of charge.
My choices are - stopping at any one of four rapid chargers I know and trust en route. That would take 11 minutes plugged in. Or just switch the 7kW home charger on which I did at 8AM - it'll be ready to go by midday and I'm not planning on leaving until after 1PM. Simply not a problem. And still miles cheaper than petrol or diesel.
For anything related to net=zero and transitioning to cleaner energy, look at who is saying what, and what their interest is. Nuclear companies say nuclear is the answer, renewable companies push renewables, gas networks push hydrogen.
I'm sure there are plans for transitioning the gas networks to hydrogen... done by the gas networks. It's part of their job to plan. However, there aren't any national or regional plans yet that look across different energy types. OFGEM have given this role to ESO (soon to be NESO - National Energy System Operator) but the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan and Regional Energy Spatial Plans don't exist yet. These plans = once agreed - will influence what the gas and electric distribution networks are allowed to build. As regulated bodies they have to have their plans agreed and the amount of money they can spend is controlled by OFGEM.
A gas network can't just decide to transition to hydrogen. It's all controlled by OFGEM.
For a semi-independent view (as is any QANGO really independent?) take a look at the October 2023 report from the National Infrastructure Commission - summary here: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/18/uk-infrastructure-needs-much-more-investment-say-government-advisers
One thing to add to the above re Hydrogen or any of the "alternative" fuels for that matter.
Simple economics means that they will be premium options - because they take 3-4 times the amount of "input" power to generate vs direct electric / battery use and assuming that we don't have so much renewable power available that it's so cheap we can waste it.
It will therefore only be used for applications where there is a tangible benefit vs battery electric or where there is no other option. Passenger cars are highly unlikely to fall into that category.
And factor in that nearly all houses already have an electricity supply that’s ready to go right now
Yes they have a supply. But in the real world many barely have an adequate infrstructure to supply for the current situation.
Add in mass adoption of heat pumps and car chargers and your going to have significant upgrades required across the country .
Likewise anyone listening to the people that are paid by the government to tell us that we have enough generation facility's and the infrastructures fine needs to give their head a wobble.
None of the independent sources agree with the nat grids assessment of the situation.
But in the real world many barely have an adequate infrastructure to supply for the current situation.
Infrastructure will be, and is being improved. It's also generally only PEAK demand that causes issues. EV's don't generally charge at peak times.
Factor in the smart grid approach - decentralised generation, local storage (including home and car batteries) which can help smooth demand peaks and troughs and we're in a much better position than might at first appear.
None of the independent sources agree with the nat grids assessment of the situation.
I’ve seen dodgy reports on such claims.
No case for hydrogen heating… It was confirmed
Currently only 1 hydrogen heating trial (in Fife iirc), the Tyneside one I think has been cancelled…
From memory, the ‘allowance’ per house by the DNO (currently 4kW) rises by 3kW (EV charging) and 4kW (HP’s) to 11kW. And you need’s a proper 3 phase distribution network to balance that (projected time to convert: ~90 years at present…).
Gas currently provides the lions share of heating (again from memory ~2x electric grid capacity).
Also, I was advised that a LA, which had transitioned to EV’s, have quietly returned to diesel vans as the recent storm induced electrical outages (and snow) left them stuck and unable to provide proper emergency cover…
It’s fun times we live in.
i have seen there is street by street detailed plans for it to be done. I am sure it’ll happen
Given they haven't released anything beyond pre-FEED for project Union which in itself is only the spine to link the key generation hubs I'm going to say that's bobbins, and even if you have it's not anything beyond concept gazing.
Infrastructure will be, and is being improved. It’s also generally only PEAK demand that causes issues. EV’s don’t generally charge at peak times.
Yes currently seems to consist of getting a 400kva decentralized node system in place at the expense of the landscape. .the towers needed are monstrous but I was more talking about final feeds to houses. Transformers and the ilk. I know we have a limited feed on an 80amp fuse and they won't let us have batteries / EV fast charger together and that's without trying to fit a heat pump.
Namely as all three wNt the off-peak power together.
Yes. I wonder what the round trip efficiency would be for generating hydrogen, shipping it around and burning it? 70-80% maybe?
Closer to 30-40%.
In California where there was a big push for H2 in cars (remember Schwarzenegger had a hydrogen Humvee) they've had issues that the cars sold came with fuel cards to subsidize the fuel down to a level that would encourage people (i.e. cheaper than petrol).
When the cards run out it's more expensive than UK petrol (in the US remember) even with zero tax.
So they've got a glut of these cars that are now worthless.
For the avoidance of doubt I think all cars are bad and we'd be in a much better situation if we stopped individually spending thousands on a 2nd hand depreciating asset every few years and thousands again annually on running it and instead spent it on railways and busses that actually solve the problem
Consider that a heat pump using the same electricity is 250-400% efficient,
I don't think I understand what you are saying there.
I don’t think I understand what you are saying there.
If you take 1kW of electricity, turn it into hydrogen, then burn it in your boiler you'd probably see about 500W of actual heat.
If you put 1kW of electricity into a heat pump you'll get about 3kW of heat in your house.
Honestly I have no idea what you're getting up to
'Yes currently seems to consist of getting a 400kva decentralized node system in place at the expense of the landscape. .the towers needed are monstrous but I was more talking about final feeds to houses. Transformers and the ilk. I know we have a limited feed on an 80amp fuse and they won’t let us have batteries / EV fast charger together and that’s without trying to fit a heat pump.'
A normal Norwegia house can run all that - and a washing machine!
Yes currently seems to consist of getting a 400kva decentralized node system in place at the expense of the landscape. .the towers needed are monstrous but I was more talking about final feeds to houses. Transformers and the ilk. I know we have a limited feed on an 80amp fuse and they won’t let us have batteries / EV fast charger together and that’s without trying to fit a heat pump.
Namely as all three wNt the off-peak power together.
No idea what monstrous towers you’re talking about unless it’s interconnect from Kent to Norfolk and that is to enable power from the offshore wind farms, plus only being considered as it’s cheaper than other options such as pylons etc - either way it’s a specific case and nothing to do with decentralised power supplies in general. The wider plan is generally adapting / updating the existing infrastructure.
Re the final feed to houses you seem to have missed the point around peak / off peak and demand balancing. You don’t run all forms of demand at the same time. You charge the car at night when overall demand is low. Energy for the heating would be in the daytime. Battery charging would generally be “whenever it’s cheapest” - I.e these power demands are all deliberately and specifically evened out. Demand based pricing enables that - hence the rollout of smart meters. At peak times (e.g. the 5pm slot when everyone is getting home, putting the heating on and cooking) you use house batteries / car batteries to offset demand or even sell back. This model already exists.
I wonder what the round trip efficiency would be for generating hydrogen, shipping it around and burning it? 70-80% maybe?
30% ish. That’s before the transport costs etc (tankers / pipelines etc).
That’s the whole issue with Hydrogen. All of the other issues can be developed, but the fundamental inefficiency is the problem.
No idea what monstrous towers you’re talking about unless it’s interconnect from Kent to Norfolk
Well no slightly further afield. I still have the paint marks on the road either side of my house where the 400kva lines were going to be passing over my garden (for the record I have 1 * 138kva and 1*230kva lines in close proximity and they are relatively unobtrusive compared to 400kva infrastructure
They had to reroute due to substation issues.
I.e these power demands are all deliberately and specifically evened out.
Yes you counter my argument by pointing out that the three highest use items would all be vying for the off-peak pricing slot....
If you put 1kW of electricity into a heat pump you’ll get about 3kW of heat in your house.
I had no idea.
Someone is always going to be put out by infrastructure development I'm afraid - regardless of what it is. Sounds like you are unlucky re that and I'm sorry to hear it's affecting you.
the three highest use items would all be vying for the off-peak pricing slot….
Exactly, that is the goal.
What is ideal is to have the highest use items be flexible in terms of when they draw power. This means that simple pricing models can adapt the demand to available supply. In simplistic terms this could totally flatten the demand profile, but it gets better - they can shape the demand profile to match the supply profile. With the increase in renewables content this can mean that for example there is a surplus in the middle of the day (a sunny, windy day) - tariffs like the smarter Octopus ones can make it very cheap to charge at these times. Chargers can be (and often are) dynamic enough to react to this and even predict it.
Note that heating demand isn't generally flexible - so the others (i.e. storage in cars or house batteries) would be the ones that "work around" this by changing their timing.
Sounds like you are unlucky re that and I’m sorry to hear it’s affecting you.
It's not affecting me anymore I still have sympathy for the environment as it'll be going somewhere on vastly wider taller and more obtrusive pylons.
But your response does sound similar to sse's response to the chap who was losing his entire farm.
They were told It's for improving our supply . ... Yet we have the generation locally and the 400kva infrastructure is not supplying local houses in anyway. It's taking the offshore generation south.
But your response does sound similar to sse’s
If I can across as impersonal or uncaring then I apologise - I did not mean to.
EVs are the ones that makes sense to invest into for the future, but i dare say it's not the nightmare environmental issues on sourcing the rare earths and materials required for EVs and batteries, but i'd guess that hydrogen is rearing it's head again due to the security of these materials, as China and Russia have the majority of them, and China especially have been investing massively in buying up even more via Africa and elsewhere.
I see BMW are doing a bit of press on hydrogen cars, with others following suit soon, is it just an option being provided for vehicle types, or a push for less reliance on materials that might not be easy to get hold off in another generation?!
If I can across as impersonal or uncaring then I apologise
You do not come across like that, but you do make some very interesting comments about how electric power is supplied and used.
No one is really considering burning hydrogen except for power generation, marine and aerospace as it doesn’t get you to zero, you make a load of NOx. Ammonia is FAR worse for NOx than fossil fuels are now.
Ammonia has poor energy density and poor volumetric density, is corrosive, still needs to be cooled/insulated and has the same generation issues as H2.
That it’s easier to store and move about are it’s only benefits.
If Hydrogen leaks, it disperses very quickly, that’s not true for ammonia,
As chemical energy storage for power stations, H2 and Ammonia are both viable, but H2 would be better for power and burning products.
I don’t know why H2 as a car fuel is being discussed so much here. It is simply not available as a green fuel in any meaningful amount and until we have almost unlimited amounts of green electricity it won’t be viable to produce industrial quantities of green hydrogen - so not for decades yet.
Other than possibly specialised applications like heavy transport it will remain the wrong answer to the question of green power compared to electricity for a long time to come.
Interesting thread.
OK - vested interests on the table - but also some relevant knowledge and understanding.
Having served as Head of Innovation and now Head of Connections Design for a DNO, and been slightly involved in some of the hydrogen domestic heat trials, there’s some sense here, and some nonsense.
I can definitely help with.
From memory, the ‘allowance’ per house by the DNO (currently 4kW) rises by 3kW (EV charging) and 4kW (HP’s) to 11kW. And you need’s a proper 3 phase distribution network to balance that (projected time to convert: ~90 years at present…).
The “allowance” for a vanilla domestic premises has been falling for the last 20-30 years. About 2.5kW per house when I started and around 1.5kW per house today. That’s the diversified peak, not the peak in any one house.
A 7kW domestic EV charger adds about 1.5kW to that diversified peak.
Heat pumps the jury is out.
But in basic terms, home charging overnight can be accommodated - provided not everyone in an area is on the Octopus 00:30-04:30 tariff - that destroys diversity. But that hasn’t been a problem yet, and supply and demand economics suggest it probably won’t become one overnight.
More of an issue is summer day time energy production - electricity might simply be so cheap at midday on a sunny windy June day that everyone wants to charge.
Leave it with us - we’re working on it.
Oh and someone mentioned 80A fuses. Just for clarity, an 80A fuse gives you a 100A supply assuming any reasonable sort of cyclic loading (you don’t run flat out at 100A for 4 hours or you’re at 8-10 times the typical domestic energy use, or 4-5 times the domestic use including car charging).
My own house, including car charging and home battery charging rarely gets to half that load at peak.
Heat pumps though are more interesting - the installation including radiator or underfloor, running temperature, house temperature running regime and insulation will make a huge difference and any pronouncement is probably speculation.
A bit more this week on Harry's Garage about EVs - range, battery degradation, depreciation, etc. Also this rather interesting remark from head of Toyota.
A bit more this week on Harry’s Garage about EVs – range, battery degradation, depreciation, etc. Also this rather interesting remark from head of Toyota.
I agree with Toyota. Definitely a good approach.
Oh and someone mentioned 80A fuses. Just for clarity, an 80A fuse gives you a 100A supply
Electric car charging installers don't see it like that.
I can only have a fast charger if I give up my electric shower on the incoming set up I have so they say.
Shower kettle toaster- a perfectly reasonable trio to be on at the same time.
If the car were also to be charging for some reason . Uno wahalla and a heat pump only compounds that.
Is there a push for hydrogen cars? I’ve not heard much about them for ages.
There was one came into the Cazoo site I was working on for repair/refurbishment, and my first thought was where the chuff is the plater who comes to pick it up when finished going to find somewhere to fill the bloody thing up?
EV’s weren’t a problem, we had a bunch of charging stations around the outside of the workshops, but one LH2 vehicle out of thousands that went through the workshops meant no justification for any kind of facility for the fuel, as of this time last year there seems to be only six LH2 filling stations open in the U.K. down from ten in March ‘22, three within the M25, one in the Peak District and two in Scotland!
I can’t say that that’s a ringing endorsement for the industry…
Well Mr Toyota is right about customer choice as chinese customers are choosing his products so much anymore.
Must be about the time of month to announce a new miracle engine/battery/solid state battery/hydrogen cell/hydrogen burning technology
I'd agree with Harry garage that good information on degradation on used cars would be useful
So Toyota, who seem to have rather missed the boat with the current wave of BEVs and who make one of the few hydrogen cars that you could actually buy right now, say that hydrogen cars have a big part in the future of transport.
Well that's a surprise.
So, the company I worked for manufactured H2 and also ran an H2 refilling station in southern Germany.
The H2 was mainly made from methane and the carbon is removed at the start of the process: so you are just moving the CO2 emissions upstream. (Green H2 can be made but has lots of barriers to making it in the industrial quantities needed to power vehicles in the short term).
In all the visits I did to the office where the H2 filling station was located I never saw it being used. I guess it was there to demonstrate the technology is possible and to supply the handful of H2 demonstration vehicles the car manufacturers run.
only six LH2 filling stations open in the U.K. down from ten in March ‘22
doesn’t surprise me at all.
PS I think the H2 filling stations will be for high pressure compressed H2 not LH2: liquid hydrogen is quite problematic to handle.
Hydrogen is more energy dense than petroleum? Really?
… yes? By… lots.
I see this has been debunked above - no it's not. Per kg, yes it's energy dense. You are not going to get many kilograms of hydrogen in a car though.
For comparison, 50L of liquid hydrogen contains about 500MJ whereas 50L of petrol (well octane) about 1800MJ. And that assumes you can get 50L of Hydrogen into a tank in a car - that would be quite a feat compared to 50L of petrol.
I believe the hydrogen filling stations store liquid H2, and turn it to highly pressurised gas form as required. The high pressure H2 is then used to fill the car BUT there is a problem around the deliquification can't be done super often as the kit gets too cold to work.
None of the independent sources agree with the nat grids assessment of the situation.
As far as I'm aware national grids assessment of the situation (Graeme Cooper - head of futures or new technologies or something) is that the network can handle EV adoption with some local DNO infrastructure updating in areas. Mass domestic electric heating adoption is the big problem.
The reasons behind this are obvious and made sense to me, they can control encourage and incentivise ToD car charging, they can't control when everyone wants to turn their heating up to max at the same time. Igm on the previous page (who appears to be in the industry) is saying the same thing.
Have you got any examples of reputable, credible and qualified independent sources agreeing otherwise (ie not the daily mail and Sun)
I can't decide if Zoolander 3 will be better or worse with hydrogen cars?
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I believe the hydrogen filling stations store liquid H2
Three different strategies are used: external supply by liquid H2 and storage in a vacuum insulated tank, external supply of gaseous H2 and storage in tube trailers, or on site production by electrolysis and storage as high pressure gas.
Each method has its own pros and cons and as it’s is such a young technology there is not yet a single industry standard method.
If a hydrogen car takes 3x as much electricity as an equivalent EV car to cover the same distance does that mean all these anti-EV folk I see on social-media will have to drop their "the grid can't cope" theories?
This popped up today (good explainer?) https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/13/will-hydrogen-overtake-batteries-in-the-race-for-zero-emission-cars
Will most hydrogen be grey, with some token blue and green? Green doesn’t even seem to make sense given you could use the electricity directly for other things. It does store the energy but its quite "lossy"
By chance today the Guardian (how very STW) have a good analysis of H2 vs EV:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/13/will-hydrogen-overtake-batteries-in-the-race-for-zero-emission-cars
Their answer is EV has already won the race for cars, but H2 is a good contender for large vehicles.
does that mean all these anti-EV folk I see on social-media will have to drop their “the grid can’t cope” theories?
No - because it’s the internet: It’ll be a conspiracy by the big evil EV manufacturers.
Graeme Cooper – head of futures or new technologies or something
I know Graeme, was on a panel with him then a few follow up meetings. He's at Jacobs now.
National Grid Transmission, and all the DNOs, are fully aware of the challenges and model different scenarios well into the future (alongside the Electricity System Operator/soon to be National Energy System Operator). Yes, there's a huge amount of work to be done (look up "The Great Grid Upgrade") at both transmission and distribution levels but I'd trust the views of people who do this for a living.
Anyway, article on hydrogen cars in Guardian today. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/13/will-hydrogen-overtake-batteries-in-the-race-for-zero-emission-cars
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Michael Liebreich is well worth following on LinkedIn, he's quite direct with his views so there's often some interesting debate on his posts and with his comments on other posts.
apparently there's an article in the guardian today. The race for green fuels for cars is only eclipsed it seems by the race to post the link to the article 😉
As it happens I was at a lecture yesterday; every year there is an internal competition for the best paper published by a staff member and this year it was won by a new measurement technique for measuring the (voltage) potential profiles in electrolyser technologies which in combination with new materials had the (actual) potential to substantially reduce the capital cost of the kit and the reliance on scarce metals, etc.
Doesn't answer the electricity need but there is a lot of research in the area and it's definitely not being given up on.
It will be presented at an IOP public lecture in April as well - tickets FoC in link below, along with the runner up and the Early Career award. The runner up in particular is a great speaker and with some 'wow!' science as well (nothing wrong with the others but Giuseppe is fab)
https://www.npl.co.uk/news/npl-celebrates-excellent-scientific-research
https://www.iop.org/events/national-physical-laboratory-rayleigh-award-celebration#gref
I asked a question about energy costs (electricity) needed to create green hydrogen, even if the kit gets cheaper and more efficient. A knowledgeable speaker in the room reckons that will eventually be overcome not least because renewable electricity will eventually become efficient and abundant enough that at times it will be free. So there won't necessarily be a problem that it's up to 3x less efficient than using it directly, if it's going spare.
Doesn't overcome issues of infrastructure to build and store the gas somewhere, so that's not necessarily the fix but was an interesting intervention.
So there won’t necessarily be a problem that it’s up to 3x less efficient than using it directly, if it’s going spare.
But 3x the windfarms and solar panels won't be free either in monetary cost or land usage etc.
You can store electricity in battery cars better than you can store it in hydrogen to then put in cars. I'm sure there's a big role for hydrogen but I don't think cars is it.
You won't necessarily need 3x the windfarms, because in order to meet peak demand you will need have to work on average case generation, etc. When off peak, or when above average generation is being achieved then that excess needs to be used and while you could put it into battery storage you could also be then using that 'free' electricity for hydrogen.
I think short term (short as in NZ terms, not next year) then you're right, cars won't be the big users but technology has a long development and gestation period and hence hydrogen isn't off the table is what I took away from it. Info from people far cleverer and closer to the action that I am, so I tend to listen to them.
