Alasdair wrote: "The only problem with that is it would mean charging the car by day and using it at night. As the grid can't at present cope with large in-feeds from local generation, what would also be needed would be a large (Battery?) energy storage system in each home. Then what about the homes with more than one car? Or those in flats without a 'house roof'?  There is still a lot of work to be done on infrastructure to support the goals"


Yes that is all true Alasdair, but if we accept that 'the goal' is NOT to mandate that every one in the UK has to eventually 'part exchange' their old (socially unacceptable and rapidly worth barely its own value for scrap and recycling) motor car/van/motorhome etc for an electric replacement, and that all the current batch of BEVs are going to remain far too expensive for the majority of uk citizens to buy, then only those who can afford a house with a front garden/garage/adjacent 'off road' parking, and enough roof area to support a 4Kw solar array will be able to be the proud owner of a vehicle with zero tail pipe emissions. This relegates the BEV into the realm of just being a Rich Man's Toy, because it can typically accelerate very briskly from a standstill with seamless high torque from zero mph to the national speed limit of 70 mph with no gear changes and then that's it game over until the 'low battery' alarm comes on! .


However your comment about the growing carbon footprint of the many power hungry heat islands created by Internet Server Farms, is a little known consequence of the exponential growth and demand for mobile bandwidth and mobile applications development not to mention 5G and the IoT - there is a whole area for critical discussion.!


Mike (mapj1) - your comments re the management of the national grid, frequency variation, load management etc and the IoT are also very interesting. Surely, with all this technical expertise available to the IET we should be able to 'propose solid fixes for everything that is broken and malfunctioning in the the whole world' in under, say, 5 years? - come on chaps let's form an industrial collective.! P.S. I must say that the Hornsea Disconnection Report makes fascinating reading - thank you.

Alasdair wrote: "The only problem with that is it would mean charging the car by day and using it at night. As the grid can't at present cope with large in-feeds from local generation, what would also be needed would be a large (Battery?) energy storage system in each home. Then what about the homes with more than one car? Or those in flats without a 'house roof'?  There is still a lot of work to be done on infrastructure to support the goals"


Yes that is all true Alasdair, but if we accept that 'the goal' is NOT to mandate that every one in the UK has to eventually 'part exchange' their old (socially unacceptable and rapidly worth barely its own value for scrap and recycling) motor car/van/motorhome etc for an electric replacement, and that all the current batch of BEVs are going to remain far too expensive for the majority of uk citizens to buy, then only those who can afford a house with a front garden/garage/adjacent 'off road' parking, and enough roof area to support a 4Kw solar array will be able to be the proud owner of a vehicle with zero tail pipe emissions. This relegates the BEV into the realm of just being a Rich Man's Toy, because it can typically accelerate very briskly from a standstill with seamless high torque from zero mph to the national speed limit of 70 mph with no gear changes and then that's it game over until the 'low battery' alarm comes on! .


However your comment about the growing carbon footprint of the many power hungry heat islands created by Internet Server Farms, is a little known consequence of the exponential growth and demand for mobile bandwidth and mobile applications development not to mention 5G and the IoT - there is a whole area for critical discussion.!


Mike (mapj1) - your comments re the management of the national grid, frequency variation, load management etc and the IoT are also very interesting. Surely, with all this technical expertise available to the IET we should be able to 'propose solid fixes for everything that is broken and malfunctioning in the the whole world' in under, say, 5 years? - come on chaps let's form an industrial collective.! P.S. I must say that the Hornsea Disconnection Report makes fascinating reading - thank you.