I too have a small 2.5kw DIY solar setup. And know a lot about batteries. And physics. I watched the movie in the link. That guys predictions at way too optimistic. For eg, he claims nuclear power is already dead. Well in the UK we are just about to build 2 large and 2 smaller nuclear installations as you likely know. As coal, and gas is shut down for ridiculous and financially destructive reasons, we will require even more nuclear. These will not even be finished for 20 years. And they are essential for two reasons. Renewables cant hope to make enough. And they are intermittent.
Solar in a country like the UK isn't remotely adequate. You would need for eg 85kwh just to charge a lithium battery in the tesla saloon car. And the reality is that its battery isn't big enough by far. True its got EITHER 200 mile range, OR decent performance, but a few hard standing starts to top speed kills its battery in 5 miles... So not there yet. Its one or the other. So how many of my huge 250 watt solar panels would it take to charge that one car daily? (we will ignore that most families have 2 or more cars)
Lets see. A typical 1 kW system on a perfect angled south facing non shaded roof can produce roughly 850kWh per year. That's right, your your full sized house solar system, typically 3kw in the UK will charge your car 30 times, for 30 days of travel per year. And of course that's not the household electrical need but an ADDITIONAL electrical load that we currently don't even have today. So then a 5 fold increased power requirement!!!
If everyone had a tesla car, in place of their current car, their household electrical usage will increase from a typical daily 15 to 20kwh, by an additional 85kwh! If they only have 1 shared car (and no sons or daughters driving). As I look down my street, most houses have 2 or 3 cars, and maybe a works van. So the reality is actually much worse.
The increase in electrical power from the grid doesn't even bear thinking about! The generating system, and the infrastructure will need to be about 3 to 6 times bigger than today. Affectively the power stations will need to replace the millions of gallons of road fuel used daily. How are you going to charge a ONE HGV truck with say 850kwh batteries daily? (Not that this will give adequate range. Maybe 4 or 5 times this).
Certainly there's no way you could charge even 1 car at home via solar, without acres of panels costing land (we don't have) and hundreds of thousands of £ worth of solar panels/inverters. Remember you need 1kwh solar to charge just 10 days per year. So you would require a 36kw solar system to charge one tesla car daily. Do you know what that looks like? And it will need to be on charge 24 hours per day!
Remember this is for the car alone:
http://www.todaesolar.com.au/portfolio/ ... tallation/And that's Australia. So add 25% AREA for UK yield. And remember that for at least 6 months of the year it wouldn't get close to doing it. From October to end of March you will need the grid. Because solar is down to 10 to 30% of summer yield. Lets hope your wife and daughter don't need a car.
I live near the huge areas of wind farms in the north sea. Often they are stopped or feathered. Usually in winter theres less wind. And sun... So renewables are no good, and they amount to only 5% of our power at vast cost in repairs and maintenance at sea. we need almost full capacity back from the nuclear, gas, oil, etc if its a windless or dull day. And that's before we try charging the uks
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... e-2016.pdf 37 MILLION electric cars! Each requiring 5x as much as the house its parked next to. And of course this will be as we sleep. Solar doesn't work at night.
Next there's the reason most people would want an EV. Cost per mile. At the moment, there's no significant tax on electricity. Making the cost of USE cheap. And cost of purchase is subsidised. Once the massive 85% tax on fuel is lost to the government they will want that money back. So in order to pay for the huge grid capacity increase, they will tax electricity the same way. Its sole advantage now gone.
Efficiency. Its MORE efficient to burn fuel in a car where its needed than to burn it in a 30% efficient power station. Then lose 15% in the step/up/down process and transmission, another 10% in the charger, another few percent in the battery charge efficiency, and another 10% in the brushless motor. While wasting another 20% extra pushing heavy batteries around that you wouldn't have needed!
Colour me unconvinced! But always open to logic!
