Mats Larsson - Boris Johnson’s “10 Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution” - TSEP

[@jg-zz2se]

Hi, thanks for this, very interesting and I’m looking forward to the book. There are various articles stating that national grid have said only a 10% increase in capacity is needed as opposed to doubling capacity mentioned by Mats Larsson. An article on Autucar states ‘Demand for electricity will increase as EV adoption grows, but those in charge of power delivery are prepared’. What are your thoughts on that? I’m doing some research for a course, and trying to gather a few facts!

[@JoshuaSutherlandSystemsEng]

Interesting question Joanne, I will ask Mats to post a reply. I know he is also doing a live Q&A next week so might be a good opportunity to get into more detail: www.eventbrite.com/e/the-blind-guardians-of-ignorance-release-night-tickets-131181311835

[@jg-zz2se]

@@JoshuaSutherlandSystemsEng great thank you, I will register!

[@matslarsson9131]

It sounds unlikely that there would only be a need for 10% more capacity in the power grids overall in order to transmit and distribute the amounts of power necessary. It may well be that the national grid only needs 10%, but there will most certainly be a need to increase the capacity of regional and local grids significantly more than that. I extrapolated figures from Denmark where experts have calculated that there is a need to expand the capacity of power grids by almost 40% in order to charge 1 million electric cars if smart grid technologies are used. 1 million cars in Denmark amount to 40% of the Danish fleet. In several parts of Sweden, mainly the big city regions like Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, and Uppsala we are already experiencing restrictions in terms of the power supply due to bottlenecks in the grid. It will not necessarily be the case that all parts of grids need to be doubled, but in any country grids are likely to be dimensioned for the present load. In Denmark the industry organization Danish Energy has calculated that the investment needed to expand the grid to accomodate for the charging of 1 million electric cars will require some 3.5 billion euro in investment if smart grid technologies are applied and more than 5 billion euro in investment if no smart grid technologies are applied. The exact amounts are likely to differ between countries, but it sounds very little if grids overall would only need an expansion of 10%. However, it needs to be kept in mind that my main area of expertise is change management and that I have approached these matters from the perspective of the changes that will be necessary in order to build a sustainable society. In order to do this there will be a need for very large investment in all countries, but the exact amount that will be needed in each area will differ. It would still be very surprising if the companies that built British power grids had built them with the need in mind to charge 40 million electric cars.

[@jg-zz2se]

@@matslarsson9131 thanks so much for your response, agree it seems very unlikely and I don’t believe it, but I’m sure the facts will unfold in time! Really useful to see the Scandinavian context. I’m looking forward to your book and Webinar!