Dwindling battery!

[Smitten]

Hi

The carbon “payback” time of an ev depends on the mix of electricity generation in the countries of manufacture and of use. Hence payback would be relatively quick for an ev used in France - and even quicker for one both used as made there. Payback times will fall towards zero as electricity supplies are decarbonised - reducing carbon in both manufacture and use. This note is informative, though a few years old now.

https://theicct.org/sites/default/files ... 018_vF.pdf

Best wishes

Jonathan

Yes Volvo used a sort of global average electricity mix in the calculations and clearly some countries have a lot cleaner electricity than others so the payback time is less. There is still a payback time though. Given that Germany has a massive automotive industry and still relies heavily on lignite (brown coal) for electricity production I don't think we can claim that VW's are manufactured in an especially green fashion. Germany does have some impressive targets for green energy production by 2030 but the percentage of renewables actually fell in 2021 to 42% and in 2022 all three remaining nuclear plants will also close so I am not sure how they will make up the shortfall. I know the ID3 is certified net carbon neutral but this is achieved by a combination of both emission reduction and off-setting unavoidable emissions.

https://renewablesnow.com/news/renewabl ... 21-765848/

[Smitten]

Here is the up-to-date global comparison of the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of combustion engine and electric passenger cars which is encouraging! The previous link was from 2018:

https://theicct.org/publications/global ... rs-jul2021

[shire-dweller]

[...] Volvo research suggests it is 70,000 miles at current electricity mix before an EV offsets its production pollution overhead.

Beyond national or global electricity mix averages, consider that in the UK we are able to switch our individual household supply to a tariff offering 100% renewable electricity (wind, solar, tidal, etc) or 100% nuclear (EDF). For people who can charge their EV at home, this means that the electricity used to charge the EV's battery can be matched* to 100% renewable or nuclear energy, which should bring that 70,000 mile figure seriously down on an individual basis, perhaps even close to zero if we can count on VW's claim that the ID.3 manufacture (including the battery) is made carbon neutral by means of recycling and CO2 offsetting (see article How Volkswagen makes the ID.3 carbon neutral).

* "Matched" typically means that the supplier relies on Ofgem's Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO) certificates to ensure that the same amount of energy billed to a household (on a 100% renewable tariff) was supplied to the national grid from renewable sources. It is not too different from having a solar panel on your roof and using the solar panel's electricity to charge the EV's battery, but instead of having the panel on your roof, you outsource it to someone else's solar farm (or wind farm or tidal generator etc) connected to the grid.

I certainly didn't buy mine to be an eco warrior [...]

I don't consider myself a warrior (there is a lot of people a lot braver than me out there!), but the ONLY reason for me to buy an EV is to reduce my CO2 footprint. Therefore, the ability of having a 100% renewable energy tariff to my house and charging the EV at home, plus VW's claim of carbon neutral manufacture, are all important elements to my plan. Should those assumptions be known to be false, please let me know sooner than later as there is still time for me to cancel my ID.3 order and buy a cheap 7-year-old petrol car instead, as I have always done before.

[sidehaas]

I don't share your faith in "100% renewable" tariffs at all. It's definitely not the same as putting a solar panel on the roof. Your choice of tariff does not have any impact on energy generation mix at a point in time in the UK - I think it's just a badge, which results in a non badge holder effectively using more non-renewable electricity without realising. (Don't want to derail the thread with this discussion tho!)
Having said that, I share your logic for buying an EV. The ID3 will be my first ever new car (after buying ~10 at 2-4 years old) and I'll almost certainly never buy another. Financially I've shelled out an extra £15-20k up front over a used ICE, which I don't really expect to make much of back (mileage is only 10-12k), because I'm reasonably well-off and wanted to try to reduce my impact on the environment a bit. Lot's more to do though! I plan to keep the ID3 at least 6-7 years if it doesn't break.
It's great though that people like Monkeyhangar(and many others on here) can make it work financially to save cash - I hadn't really expected that was possible before joining these forums, and it can only help EV take up.

[Smitten]

[...] Volvo research suggests it is 70,000 miles at current electricity mix before an EV offsets its production pollution overhead.

Beyond national or global electricity mix averages, consider that in the UK we are able to switch our individual household supply to a tariff offering 100% renewable electricity (wind, solar, tidal, etc) or 100% nuclear (EDF). For people who can charge their EV at home, this means that the electricity used to charge the EV's battery can be matched* to 100% renewable or nuclear energy, which should bring that 70,000 mile figure seriously down on an individual basis, perhaps even close to zero if we can count on VW's claim that the ID.3 manufacture (including the battery) is made carbon neutral by means of recycling and CO2 offsetting (see article How Volkswagen makes the ID.3 carbon neutral).

* "Matched" typically means that the supplier relies on Ofgem's Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO) certificates to ensure that the same amount of energy billed to a household (on a 100% renewable tariff) was supplied to the national grid from renewable sources. It is not too different from having a solar panel on your roof and using the solar panel's electricity to charge the EV's battery, but instead of having the panel on your roof, you outsource it to someone else's solar farm (or wind farm or tidal generator etc) connected to the grid.

I certainly didn't buy mine to be an eco warrior [...]

I don't consider myself a warrior (there is a lot of people a lot braver than me out there!), but the ONLY reason for me to buy an EV is to reduce my CO2 footprint. Therefore, the ability of having a 100% renewable energy tariff to my house and charging the EV at home, plus VW's claim of carbon neutral manufacture, are all important elements to my plan. Should those assumptions be known to be false, please let me know sooner than later as there is still time for me to cancel my ID.3 order and buy a cheap 7-year-old petrol car instead, as I have always done before.

Renewable energy tariffs are really just brain washing/green washing. The electricity in your sockets at home is from the National Grid and if right now 45% of that today is produced by wind, x% by nuclear, x% by coal and gas then that is what you have. You can improve this by generating your own electricity with solar but that doesn't really meet demand of most people in winter when you need it the most.

An electric vehicle is of course far less CO2 intensive over its lifetime than any ICE (about 69% ish at the moment) and that improves as the energy mix you put into it gets greener. So being Norwegian helps. However take a look at what is happening at Drax in the UK as that energy produced by burning imported wood pellets counts as green energy/biomass and local councils are also incinerating vast amounts of plastic waste to produce energy as well and that counts as "re use". We have a way to go yet before we clean up our act but Hornsea 2 is coming on stream soon so more wind power to the national grid is a good thing.

[Smitten]

www.drax.com sorry, forgot the link! How to turn green washing into an art form. Basically vast amounts of Latvian forest are chopped down, chipped, sent to the UK, then burnt to produce 5% of UK electricity and it is completely green!!!! Go figure....

[Scratch]

www.drax.com sorry, forgot the link! How to turn green washing into an art form. Basically vast amounts of Latvian forest are chopped down, chipped, sent to the UK, then burnt to produce 5% of UK electricity and it is completely green!!!! Go figure....

Sounds like Boris has been involved in this somewhere!

[monkeyhanger]

www.drax.com sorry, forgot the link! How to turn green washing into an art form. Basically vast amounts of Latvian forest are chopped down, chipped, sent to the UK, then burnt to produce 5% of UK electricity and it is completely green!!!! Go figure....

If there's no net deforestation then it's carbon neutral e.g if these trees take 40 years to attain maturity as fast growing conifers and you only cut down 1/40 a year and replant then it's sustainable.

Trees are basically taking in carbon dioxide and water then turning it into wood and oxygen. When you burn that wood, you're releasing that carbon dioxide back to where it came from.

Burning trees at a sustainable rate isn't an issue for CO2 generation, burning coal and oil from the long buried carbon is.

[shire-dweller]

Renewable energy tariffs are really just brain washing/green washing. The electricity in your sockets at home is from the National Grid and if right now 45% of that today is produced by wind, x% by nuclear, x% by coal and gas then that is what you have. You can improve this by generating your own electricity with solar but that doesn't really meet demand of most people in winter when you need it the most.

So you think that renewable energy tariffs are brain washing / green washing just because the electricity in my sockets is from the National Grid, which connects a mix of energy sources including some fossil generators. How about the following way of thinking about it? Suppose that I bought 10 solar panels and a small wind turbine that happened to match (for the sake of argument) 100% of my house's energy needs, including EV battery charging. Then, consider 2 scenarios:
 

1. I fit the 10 solar panels to my house's roof and I put up the small wind turbine on my rear garden, and connect the cables to my consumer unit.
2. Alternatively, instead of attaching them to my house, I buy a small piece of farmland 100 miles away and I fit the panels and turbine to the ground over there, and I connect them to the national grid over there. I also fit an electricity meter at the farmland site that measures how much energy my panels and my small turbine supplied to the grid and, every year, Ofgem issues some REGO certificates to me, matching the amount I produced on my small piece of farmland. Then I sell those REGO certificates to some supplier willing to buy them, let's call it Bulb (coincidentally my current home energy supplier).

In the first case (panels on my roof, turbine on my garden), the electrons that went into my EV came directly from the panel/turbine and everyone would agree that the EV charging was using 100% renewable electricity (assuming for the sake of argument that enough energy was produced, e.g. the wind was always strong at night). And in the second case, what is the difference? Some of the electrons that went into my EV may have come from some gas power station (yuck!), but also the electrons that came out of my solar panels and my turbine (100 miles away) went into someone else's kettle / TV / EV... I would argue that, in the second case, I could still claim that my EV was charged by 100% renewable electricity because the energy used was matched by my solar panels and my turbine connected to the grid 100 miles away on my piece of farmland, and I think it would be unfair to label this arrangement as brain washing / green washing.

Now, replace my hypothetical solar panels and wind turbine on a piece of farmland 100 miles away by anyone else's wind farm / solar farm / tidal generators who are issued REGO certificates that they happened to sell to Bulb. How's that any different? Just because I am not the owner of the solar panels and turbine and they are not attached directly to my roof and garden, doesn't really change my ability to claim that my EV is charged with 100% renewable energy as long as the money I paid to my supplier (electricity bill, 100% renewable energy tariff) was used by the supplier to buy the REGO certificates from some else's wind farm / solar farm / tidal generators, in a quantity matching the energy consumption on my electricity bill.

[Utumno]

At the risk of derailing the OP’s original question some more, the only real problem with REGO’s is that activists don’t like them because they can be used in greenwashing. There are many cases of them not being used as greenwashing, but the general activist mindset doesn’t generally let facts get in the way of a good moan in my experience.

I take the view that I should select an energy supplier actively engaged in generating and not just supplying renewable electricity because I believe that is the best use of the REGO system. This is one of the reasons I remain with Octopus, whose group companies are heavily investing in the experimentation and production of all sorts of renewables and therefore accelerating the renewable mix more quickly than might otherwise be the case.

[Smitten]

www.drax.com sorry, forgot the link! How to turn green washing into an art form. Basically vast amounts of Latvian forest are chopped down, chipped, sent to the UK, then burnt to produce 5% of UK electricity and it is completely green!!!! Go figure....

If there's no net deforestation then it's carbon neutral e.g if these trees take 40 years to attain maturity as fast growing conifers and you only cut down 1/40 a year and replant then it's sustainable.

Trees are basically taking in carbon dioxide and water then turning it into wood and oxygen. When you burn that wood, you're releasing that carbon dioxide back to where it came from.

Burning trees at a sustainable rate isn't an issue for CO2 generation, burning coal and oil from the long buried carbon is.

That's all well and good with a small population and a planet that isn't already on the verge of a catastrophe. I appreciate it is net neutral but net neutral isn't good enough. We simply have to stop fooling ourselves that destroying ancient forest and burning it is a great idea because it is carbon neutral. Far better to leave it where it is and encourage the forest to spread naturally to consume more CO2. Instead we offset flying by planting monoculture trees. We offset fuel purchases at Shell by planting trees and we cut down ancient trees, replace them with fast growing spruce, transport them by road and ship to the UK and set fire to them to produce 5% of our electricity and this is carbon neutral so its OK. I think it is wrong thinking. Bit like having our cake and eating it. That didn't work either.

[Utumno]

#stopburningstuff

[monkeyhanger]

Chopping down ancient forests and replacing them with fast growing trees is more of an ecological/wildlife concern. Ancient trees grow slowly - fast growing trees have a higher rate of CO2 extraction and conversion. I wouldn't want to see fast growing conifers replace all the deciduous trees out there, but if we do have to rely on tree growing for decarbonisation, we want to plant ones with a higher rate of growth.

It's not enough to just stop burning oil and coal, you need to recapture all that carbon already released and put it somewhere again.

[Smitten]

Renewable energy tariffs are really just brain washing/green washing. The electricity in your sockets at home is from the National Grid and if right now 45% of that today is produced by wind, x% by nuclear, x% by coal and gas then that is what you have. You can improve this by generating your own electricity with solar but that doesn't really meet demand of most people in winter when you need it the most.

So you think that renewable energy tariffs are brain washing / green washing just because the electricity in my sockets is from the National Grid, which connects a mix of energy sources including some fossil generators. How about the following way of thinking about it? Suppose that I bought 10 solar panels and a small wind turbine that happened to match (for the sake of argument) 100% of my house's energy needs, including EV battery charging. Then, consider 2 scenarios:
 

1. I fit the 10 solar panels to my house's roof and I put up the small wind turbine on my rear garden, and connect the cables to my consumer unit.
2. Alternatively, instead of attaching them to my house, I buy a small piece of farmland 100 miles away and I fit the panels and turbine to the ground over there, and I connect them to the national grid over there. I also fit an electricity meter at the farmland site that measures how much energy my panels and my small turbine supplied to the grid and, every year, Ofgem issues some REGO certificates to me, matching the amount I produced on my small piece of farmland. Then I sell those REGO certificates to some supplier willing to buy them, let's call it Bulb (coincidentally my current home energy supplier).

In the first case (panels on my roof, turbine on my garden), the electrons that went into my EV came directly from the panel/turbine and everyone would agree that the EV charging was using 100% renewable electricity (assuming for the sake of argument that enough energy was produced, e.g. the wind was always strong at night). And in the second case, what is the difference? Some of the electrons that went into my EV may have come from some gas power station (yuck!), but also the electrons that came out of my solar panels and my turbine (100 miles away) went into someone else's kettle / TV / EV... I would argue that, in the second case, I could still claim that my EV was charged by 100% renewable electricity because the energy used was matched by my solar panels and my turbine connected to the grid 100 miles away on my piece of farmland, and I think it would be unfair to label this arrangement as brain washing / green washing.

Now, replace my hypothetical solar panels and wind turbine on a piece of farmland 100 miles away by anyone else's wind farm / solar farm / tidal generators who are issued REGO certificates that they happened to sell to Bulb. How's that any different? Just because I am not the owner of the solar panels and turbine and they are not attached directly to my roof and garden, doesn't really change my ability to claim that my EV is charged with 100% renewable energy as long as the money I paid to my supplier (electricity bill, 100% renewable energy tariff) was used by the supplier to buy the REGO certificates from some else's wind farm / solar farm / tidal generators, in a quantity matching the energy consumption on my electricity bill.

So if the whole population in the UK moved to a green energy tariff everything would be fine and dandy and we would have 100% green energy because all that green energy would be produced somewhere, by someone, in an imaginary wind farm or solar farm? The reality is that REGO certificates can be used as a kind of green washing. At the end of the day, someone, somewhere has to actually generate the electricity we use and I think we would be better off focusing on how that is achieved than moving certificates around and playing make believe. Some of our electricity in the UK is clean and that proportion is improving all the time. A great deal of it isn't and right now 5% of your electricity is coming from burning forest from Eastern Europe. I am with Octopus as I think they are a reputable supplier that is being innovative and forward thinking and I have moved our home over to being all electric as it is cleaner than gas but I don't buy into any kind of off-setting because it fools us into thinking we have solved the CO2 when we haven't.

[Smitten]

Chopping down ancient forests and replacing them with fast growing trees is more of an ecological/wildlife concern. Ancient trees grow slowly - fast growing trees have a higher rate of CO2 extraction and conversion. I wouldn't want to see fast growing conifers replace all the deciduous trees out there, but if we do have to rely on tree growing for decarbonisation, we want to plant ones with a higher rate of growth.

It's not enough to just stop burning oil and coal, you need to recapture all that carbon already released and put it somewhere again.

Again flawed thinking I believe to suggest that getting rid of what we already have to plant something better is a good idea. Should we remove the Amazon and Congo then and allow it all to be shipped to Oak Furniture Land? Then plant it with something better? Agree it isn't enough to stop burning oil, coal, gas and forest but it is a start. Costa Rica has made huge improvements in reducing deforestation so it can be done. However I think we have completely derailed the original thread here...so apologies.

[shire-dweller]

So if the whole population in the UK moved to a green energy tariff everything would be fine and dandy and we would have 100% green energy because all that green energy would be produced somewhere, by someone, in an imaginary wind farm or solar farm?

Supply and demand, like Barbie dolls? If everybody in the UK wanted to buy Barbie dolls but there wasn't enough of them, then first of all, the price of Barbie dolls would go up, perhaps massively up, just to control demand. After that, production of Barbie dolls would increase quickly because the manufacturers would rather enjoy the large profit margins. If all UK households moved to a green energy tariff at once, then obviously there would not be enough renewable supply to match the demand straight away. I imagine that the price of renewable energy tariffs (fixed price contracts, not subject to Ofgem's price cap) would go up a lot relative to non-renewable tariffs, just to control demand, and suppliers would have to stop accepting tariff switches towards renewable tariffs, as they could not get hold of enough REGO certificates. The price of REGO certificates would go up a lot, and the profit margin of generating renewable energy would go up a lot. Then, investment follows demand and profit margins. It might take a few years for brand new solar / wind / tidal generation projects to go live (with all planning permissions and such), but if that's what all UK households really wanted and if they were willing to pay a premium for it, then those projects would happen at a faster pace and without any need for government subsidies.

[ItshardtobuyId3]

All the electricity comes down the same pipes but if people choose to use an energy supplier that only buys electricity from renewable or low carbon then it helps promote investment in that type of generation. It doesn’t mean your energy is green but it’s a step in right directions

[Smitten]

So if the whole population in the UK moved to a green energy tariff everything would be fine and dandy and we would have 100% green energy because all that green energy would be produced somewhere, by someone, in an imaginary wind farm or solar farm?

Supply and demand, like Barbie dolls? If everybody in the UK wanted to buy Barbie dolls but there wasn't enough of them, then first of all, the price of Barbie dolls would go up, perhaps massively up, just to control demand. After that, production of Barbie dolls would increase quickly because the manufacturers would rather enjoy the large profit margins. If all UK households moved to a green energy tariff at once, then obviously there would not be enough renewable supply to match the demand straight away. I imagine that the price of renewable energy tariffs (fixed price contracts, not subject to Ofgem's price cap) would go up a lot relative to non-renewable tariffs, just to control demand, and suppliers would have to stop accepting tariff switches towards renewable tariffs, as they could not get hold of enough REGO certificates. The price of REGO certificates would go up a lot, and the profit margin of generating renewable energy would go up a lot. Then, investment follows demand and profit margins. It might take a few years for brand new solar / wind / tidal generation projects to go live (with all planning permissions and such), but if that's what all UK households really wanted and if they were willing to pay a premium for it, then those projects would happen at a faster pace and without any need for government subsidies.

I understand the principle of REGO certificates as well as supply and demand. My problem is with the system. It is opaque, open to greenwashing and has a largely unregulated market in REGO certificates. This means companies that do not produce green energy or enough green energy can buy certificates to compensate and then market energy bought elsewhere on the open market as 100% green when the origin is not always certain or declared. When large corporations are loosely regulated they have a tendency to bend rules or break rules to suit profit. With a vast number of consumers looking to reduce their carbon footprint there is a lot of temptation. Scottish Power and Good Energy produced a report entitled “Come Clean on Green” in April 2021 which highlighted independent research that found one third of electricity marketed as green or renewable in the UK is greenwashed. The study also exposed providers selling certificate only energy which does not meaningfully benefit the environment:

https://www.scottishpower.com/news/page ... shing.aspx

As far back as 2019, a Which survey called into question the REGO Certificate system pointing out that Ofgem only requires companies to have the REGOs to match their customers use in order to legally claim that their electricity is 100% renewable. However, there is also a separate market where REGOs can be bought by anyone. Ofgem does not track or regulate the trading of these certificates. In my opinion this needs strict regulation if we are to trust REGOs and green tariffs.

It seems the government is also looking into this. In August of 2021 the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy announced a review into greenwashing in the retail energy sector amid concerns of overstatement of green credentials by many providers:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/gove ... ty-tariffs

Quoting from the announcement “Energy companies are currently able to market tariffs as ‘green’ even if some of the energy they supply to customers comes from fossil fuels, as long as this is offset by purchasing enough certificates called Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin to cover their customer base. These determine the proportion of electricity that they source from renewable electricity generation. Options being explored include looking at whether the system around these certificates needs to be smarter, as well as whether suppliers need to provide clearer information to households about their green tariffs, including type of renewable energy used (such as wind or solar), where the renewable power was generated and when.
The government is also publishing a separate call for evidence on third-party intermediaries in the retail energy market, such as price comparison sites, auto-switching services, and non-domestic brokers, with around half of households using them when engaging with the energy market. They currently operate outside of the retail market rules, and ministers will seek views on whether a general regulatory framework is needed.”

Once the system has been cleaned up I think we will all be able to buy green tariffs and believe 100% green energy claims with a lot more conviction.

And finally, I would just like to make it clear no Barbie dolls were harmed in the production of this response

[sidehaas]

Basically, if you are bothered about the environment:
- make changes in your life to reduce your carbon footprint
- if you see a company you think are doing good stuff then by all means invest, or buy stuff from them
- but definitely *do not* buy a "100% renewable" energy tariff and then imagine that this absolves you of any responsibility for your energy use without you having to do anything, life ain't that easy

This thread is going to really confuse the next person to come looking for advice about poor battery range in winter

[Smitten]

Basically, if you are bothered about the environment:
- make changes in your life to reduce your carbon footprint
- if you see a company you think are doing good stuff then by all means invest, or buy stuff from them
- but definitely *do not* buy a "100% renewable" energy tariff and then imagine that this absolves you of any responsibility for your energy use without you having to do anything, life ain't that easy

This thread is going to really confuse the next person to come looking for advice about poor battery range in winter

I think we will need to consult Ken on battery range! Many thanks for your pithy assessment. Couldn't agree more