Electricity charge needed for the Plug In

Range is always given as a total distance, not half of a trip, so 20km is the total range.

Not sure about battery capacity, but the info is available.

The impact of emissions from the plant that produces the power to charge the car depends on the source of the power. It can be coal (worst) natural gas, fuel oil, nuclear, hydroelectric, solar or wind. If I were to recharge a Prius PEHV at my house, the inpact of the power would be virtually zero, as my power comes from a local hydroelectric plant that is using a dam that has been in place for over 100 years. So someone please give me a Prius PEHV. ;-)

 

There have been some articles published on how clean a plug in actually is. In the US a lot of their power comes from coal (with some local exceptions), in Canada it is hydro and in the UK it is probably a mix of coal and gas.

The benefit of a plug in is not just the CO2 emissions but the lack of local pollution in cities as well as being less reliant on certain oil producing countries that don't have our best interests at heart.

In the UK you can specify where your power comes from by choosing a 'green' energy supplier. That way you know that the electricity used to power your plug in comes from a completely renewable supply. Certain power companies don't charge much, if any extra for 100% renewable.

And depending on your budget, you could always fit PV panels to your house roof. There are some very generous grants for this work - if you don't mind the £15,000 outlay!

 

Cost wise, I find it easiest to consider kwh/km:

Easy driving: 0.125 kwh/km
Moderate driving: 0.156 kwh/km
Hard driving: 0.187 kwh/km

Plug in your local electricity cost/kwh.
Using 20 km is convenient, since it is ballpark one litre liquid fuel consumption in moderate driving. This works out to paying for one litre at the pump, or 3 kwh to the power plant.

As for emissions: Not much different as far as CO2 goes, perhaps (likely?) considerably higher SOx and NOx at the central plant compared to the Prius.

When you think about battery charge, remember that only a portion of total capacity is used and replenished to preserve battery life. Total Prius PHV battery capacity is 5.1 kwh, but max usable is somewhere in the 3 - 3.5 kwh range. A couple of people in this forum have driven the Prius PHV for a week or so, and no doubt can be more specific.

Charging depends on local power structure. In the US we are limited to 110 V, 15 Amps for about 1.5 kw. UK would be about double -- I think.

Cheers,

 

UK standard is 230V 13 amp, but almost all homes will have higher rated circuits (25 amp) for the cooker, and some more will have 3 phase 410V for storage heaters.

Friar, as Cabbie says there are green suppliers available, i use ecotricity.co.uk and i'm also trying to get a free solar panel system from isis-solar.com

SageBrush, that's a nice easy way to figure it out, so for me it's £1.19 for a litre at the pump or 33p for 3 units of electricity...

 

^^ arithmetic looks right, although you really should just do away with the miles units ;-)

Keep in mind that I did not include charging losses from the mains to the battery. I gather they are in the range of 5-10%.

 

Yes, and it's environmentally best if you use night-time electricity since it uses spare capacity (avoiding need for extra power plants) and helps the utilities operate a bit more efficiently.

If you automatically get cheaper night-time electricity it's good financially, but if you have to move onto a separate tariff, as often happens here (USA), it could make the rest of your electricity more expensive since the car will probably only be charging 4kWh off-peak per day. And if you're like Grumpy and would want to do some peak charging a higher day-time tariff could be even worse. (Of course Grumpy might get an advantage by working more weekends if weekends are considered off-peak).

It should be good in the UK and elsewhere where there are high gas taxes. Remember, however, that you won't really get all of your gain back. Each litre of petrol avoided decreases duty revenue which the government will have to replace by raising taxes. Of course the government also saves through reduced exports.

Remember also that your annual EV miles are limited by the range so you can only save a certain amount of money per year.

I've worked out savings based on my trips and they're negligible, but I travel longer distances and have cheaper gas. I suggest working out what you'll save and seeing whether you can afford it.

I would encourage anybody replacing their car PHEV or EV to anybody who can afford it but only if they can't efficiently use public transport, cycling or walking instead. After all, with benefit of reduced urban air and noise pollution it's not (all) about the money.

 

Even if that means burning coal rather than NG ?

 

I *really* like the idea of future micro commuter EVs. I'm hoping for 50 mile (90 km) range, US$ 15k.

 

Hi All,

The best way to recharge a P/I Prius is to use renewable electricity. In my town, I can opt to maximise this. So, in effect if I had a P/I Prius I could recharge it with Wind-Turbine energy for a small additional cost, certainly well below the approximately $.37 / kwh FT is paying for electricity, and have it be renewable as well....

 

Yes, because the coal plants will be running at the same output day and night. I think that's why they have cheaper night time rates because the power is there even if it's not used.

 

My understanding of coal plants is that they cannot change power output quickly -- that job is left to expensive NG. This is not the same thing as saying the coal plant runs at the same output regardless. Nighttime rates are cheaper than day because the plant folds your use into coal use rather than NG. MORE coal use.

 

"to travel 20kM (12.2 miles) with moderate driving I would use 3.12 kWHrs of electricity"

What about in winter ? Which distance ?
Asking that to evaluate how many panels could be needed (more on the roof) : 8 working now.

 

Experience in winter is hard to come by at the moment. The little I have read suggests 30-50% more energy/distance, so to be on the safe side you might use 5km/kwh.