What have you done today

[2112]

It was a gruelling 5 hours in the garden for me. Cutting the grass, pruning, trimming, strimming & tidying. I am absolutely shattered as it's been a bit warm in Northumberland today. I'm in the good books with the Mrs mind 

Also due to the sunny weather I've taken full advantage of my massive solar array and I've taken my car from 17% to 100% for free, my kind of motoring.

[nigel s]

2112,
I am curious, my gasgas ebike costs about 20p to recharge from 20% to full (though as recommended I only go to 100% if I am going to use it that day),it has a 630wh/36v battery.
When you are just using the mains and not the solar panels (which is the way forward  ) how much would a recharge on the car cost, and do you happen to know how big the battery/s are?

[2112]

OK, so my car an MG 5 EV has a 54kWh battery with a useable capacity of 52kWh (2kWh is kept in reserve to ensure the battery stays 'live' and holds a serviceable charge level). My main Zappi charger can operate at a maximum of 7.4kW meaning a charge rate of around 7.4kW per hour (I say 'around' as the battery sometimes has to ease up on charge to regulate it's tempreture). So from 10% capacity to 90% capacity would take around 41.6kWh or approximately 6 hours. The last 15% of my battery takes a while to charge due to the chemistry (it's the older Lithium Ion type, newer Lithium Iron Phosphate or LiFePo4 cells charge a lot faster in the last few percent). It's not the size of the charger that makes it faster, the battery has to draw the electrical energy into the cells which is a chemical reaction.

Over the winter we charge overnight in the garage on a 'granny charger' rated at 2.2kW. This works well when you keep the battery above 35% empty as you end up with about 85%/90% charge in the morning after plugging it in overnight. Cost wise it's whatever this weeks electricity price is with a reduction between 00:30 and 04:30 (Octopus agile), currently 26.2p per kWh or 11.2p off peak. Based on 15 hours typical charge (providing around 33kWh) it would cost 4 x 11.2p (off peak) = 44.8p + 11 x 26.2p (peak rate) = £2.88.2 or a total of £3,33.00. This would get me around 120 miles (excluding what was already in the battery). Cheap motoring.

For added difficuly & complexity we also have 2 x Tesla Powerwalls (a total of 27kWh) to run the house on surplus solar power and a 14kW air source heat pump to drain them very quickly !

[nigel s]

Ta for that, very comprehensive.
That last 10/15 % of the charge, my little battery does similar to that.Something to do with equalizing the cells in the battery. All new to me.
Apparently it should be done every now and again on those multicell types (apologies if I have the terminology wrong ).At least on ebikes failure to do it is the number one reason for battery failure. One cell goes down and the battery needs repairs ( which surprisingly can be done) ...I hope not to go there.
I tend to think of it as maybe changing the oil on a normal engine.It is a different sort of maintenance that's all, something I am having to learn about.
We are at the planning stage of building a fully electric boat for next year, so very interesting, thanks again.

[2112]

Most welcome & good luck with the boat project which sounds very interesting.

The larger the battery the more complex the BMS (battery management system) tends to be. Inevitably & to keep costs down, smaller batteries are often left to their own devices and are capable of bieng overcharged and consequently exploding. Some of the BMS on grid scale batteries can isolate individual cells, monitoring them 50 times a second for tempreture, state of charge & dialectric stability. Impressive stuff and one of the many reasons why they cost so much! For reference a 50MW/100MWh (a 2 hour operating sytem) BESS (Battery Energy Storage System) is about £22,000,000.00 to build.... There is a 400MW/2,400MWh BESS getting built at Chickerell in Dorset by Statera which will cost around £300,000,000.00 !!!

[nigel s]

Damn 2112 , that is serious money.
We will NOT be spending that
We have built electric before, but only lead acid, not ideal and bloody hard to package in a boat due to the weight/size.

[2112]

It might be worth considering buying a complete EV. They are dropping in price and that way you get the motor, drivetrain, battery & BMS and all the wiring. It all works together and just needs to be 'boatified'. An accident damaged one could be an option too. Just a thought and you'd have what was left to sell off to reduce costs further.

[nigel s]

That is not a bad call actually.And what with even a small marine deisel (not counting drives/props/custom fuel tanks) being £15,000 in a river boat, going up to the £30,000 PLUS each for the twin engines in the offshore models starts to make sense (our offshore with twin Volvo/pentas is quite fuel efficient ONLY..... using a gallon a mile at 30 knots )
 A lot of smaller boat engines are " marineised "  car/lorry engines.I remember our chief engineer proudly showing us the engine in his BMW 2.0l diesel car was basicaly the same as the new one we fitted in a river boat a few years ago.  Certification/ insurance is a problem though with a prototype approach.Plus our customers are ,shall we say, mostly... " of an age " and may not go for something unproven.

[2112]

I guess the installation is unproven but the technology is. Charging may be an issue depending on the type of connectors available at moorings ?

[nigel s]

The devil is indeed in the details.
Losing power and drifting into the regular shipping lane while crossing the North Sea is NO fun....Been there
Thankfully we were sailing then ,when I worked for a Yacht builder and so we were able to manage till we got power back.
Those ferries are huge and very fast when seen from even an 80 foot boat, let alone our little 40 footers.

Ho Hum

[2112]

Today was a bit full-on at work interviewing in-person 5 x yoofs for our Electrical Engineering apprentice positions. We had 4 really good candidates (one exceptional) and one who really didn't come across very well (despite doing really well in a video interview). It was a difficult descision but the interviewers (myself, our Electrical Engineer & Principle Electrical Engineer) all unanimously agreed on two candidates and one standby candidate, in case one of them backs out. Very impressed with the quality, presentation & reasearch they had all put into the industry and our company. You see a lot of negative press out there regarding the youth of today and how they are spoiled, lazy & unambitious. Trust me, there is some cracking young talent out there hungry to work in the renewable energy industry.

P.S. I just realised it was 43 years ago on Monday that I started my apprenticeship with the N.E.E.B. (now Northern Powergrid). It seems like a lifetime ago and just like yesterday simultaneously.

[Brockett]

nothing travels faster than the speed of time

[Addzz]

Been to work this morning changing a load of radiator valves only to be disturbed by the gardener. She’d strimmed though the oil supply line right by the tank with one of the metal brush cutting blades.

[Phild]

Been to London….. on the train.😁

[Sir Trev]

Today I: waved cheerio to The Mokey (our daughter) who stayed with us over the weekend. Took Bullseye out for a post-service spin and had a very enjoyable two hours around Hertfordshire/Bucks/Oxon. Brought my onions into the shed to dry out a bit more before storing in nets - good crop this year. Dug up half my main crop spuds - not as good as I'd hoped, size wise, considering how much rain we had during the growing season.  Picked another large batch of runner beans, which Lady Poppy has blanched ready for the freezer once they have cooled. I also raised the dozen pumpkins that are growing like mad off the ground with handfuls of straw to help the ripen evenly.

Now relaxing with a whisky on the patio.  Been a nice day.

[Barbel Mick]

Trev, our potato crop has been bloody awful this year.
We lost our 1st lot of runner beans to slugs (so many this year with it so wet) the second lot are coming on OK but nowhere near ready. (if they're young & smallish we don't blanch our runner beans, just cut 'em up & chuck 'em in the freezer. 
We had a decent crop of broad beans. we don't blanch those either. 
Onions, the same as you, not too bad.
The pumpkins haven't got fruit on them yet, we were quite late deciding to put some in. We live in hope the grandkids will have something to carve in a couple of months? 

[Asmith61]

Spent 7 hours cutting up fire wood for the wood burner for the winter.
We had 2 saws going myself on the table saw and the wife using the chop saw.

And Yesterday we went to the harbour arm in Folkestone to play adventure golf. While we were parking. there were these cars they were taking part in what seemed to be the called Pothole Rodeo.

[Sir Trev]

Don't start talking about slugs Mick... Wretched things took out my entire crop of carrots, beetroot, lettuce and parsnips this year. Damn things!

What on earth is The Pothole Rodeo?

[Asmith61]

Sir Trev
I had to Google it  to find out have a look my friend 👍

[2112]

Yesterday, it was a bit full on hence why it's taken until today to typre this bit. It started at work following up from a site visit in the Sheffield area on Wednesday to survey a possible 50MW/200MWh battery site. A veritable frenzy of paperwork, contracts, NDA's to sort out, legals to chase up etc. That brought lunchtime, crikey where did that morning go? Then for the two lucky Electrical Apprentices we had chosen I sent out their individual offer packs, again after legals, HR etc have had a pick through them for irrors and speeling mistaks. Thankfully, both replied and said 'yes', so I reckon both will be having a pretty good bank holiday weekend. After that I had an hour of badminton with my work colleagues and then headed straight over to Morpeth leisure centre for another two hours of competitive badminton there. I could hardly get out of bed today...