"Gas" Station of the future....

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Dec 12, 2002
Messages
43,887
Location
'Stralia
Touched upon in another thread, thought that it might be interesting to look at the "gas" station of the future.

I'll use the one that I worked my Gap year at, was pretty typical of a highish volume servo in the Nation's Capital.

Take surface area for a start...was about 2,000 square feet of driveway area and 1,500 of shop....sold about 4,500 gallons per day, about 400 customers.

Based on a Tesla Supercharge "dispenser", and using only a 50% "fill" of 20 minutes plus about 5 minutes of fapping around connecting and paying, and assuming that the guy in front of you isn't using the dispenser ahead for 75 minutes for a full charge and thus blocking your way...

400 customers, 25 minutes, and evenly distributed through the day...7 "dispensers" running 24/7...we served that 500 customers in 17 open hours, and had 8 pumps, so it's doable, and a match on the same size block of land...of course assuming that the customers arrive evenly throughout the 24 hour period, and there's no peak hour rush or anythinge like that.

120KW transfer rate per car 80% duty cycle (20 minues out of every 25), 7 chargers...Peak load for the chargers is 0.84MW, average 672KW...Daily power 16.1MWH discounting losses...about a quarter of the Blaney wind farm that a co-worker puts out on the "average" day.

That's assuming that the service station is hard wired to the grid with zero storage.

But that's no use in a blackout, or leading up to a natural disaster, so lets assume some storage.

My old station had about 7-10 days of storage, underground, on the same footprint.

What's reasonable for the refueling station of the future ?

2 days maybe ?

Lets for giggles make it 1 day...clearly not enough for a decent storm ridethrough, but enough for peak shifting on the power bill....

1 day, 16MWh...that's 13.5% of the South Australian Tesla Battery that's been the much lauded project to save the state (8% of the state demand, available for 5% of the day)...

Make it 20% of the Ca Mira Loma (80MWh) facility, which takes up 1.5 acres...assume it's simply scalable, and they would need to find 13,000 square feet for the day's storage...
 
Just for giggles...

Assume that you do want the 8-10 days storage for the queues of cars escaping say a storm front...there's 3 acres of batteries.

The underground tanks in a storm zone can be refilled with a handfull of tankers, pumps run off a small gen-set if the lines are out.

No electricity tankers (would need about the same trailer acreage as the storages quoted)...so maybe have a back up generator...1MW diesel would suck about 40 gallons per hour...

Round trip lifecycle costs of your batteries (per Lazard Levelised cost of storage) is $200+ per MWH, so you want to charge each customer $8 per 50% fill...plus what the electricity costs, plus wages, profit and overhead.
 
Interesting thoughts. A major storm that causes power disruptions will have different effects for gasoline versus electric cars. What kind of generator would be needed to run a electric refueling station? The generator would have to be fueled as well, likely with diesel.

I can see more Govt vehicles going the electric route. If first responder vehicles are electric that poses a readiness issue during power outages when they are needed even more.

I am not against electric cars but in the end the power to produce the electricity to run them has to come from somewhere. In So California for example, it is widely known that they barely have enough electrical production capacity to meet the needs. A good hot summer with millions of air conditioners running puts enough strains on their system to force the utilities to rotate blackouts. If a few million plug in their cars in the early evening hours when they arrive home, that would certainly stress the system or shut it down.

California brings this onto themselves by not allowing any construction of power generation and even shutting down plants. What happens is that these plants are built in neighboring states with promises to send power over.
 
Originally Posted By: PimTac
Interesting thoughts. A major storm that causes power disruptions will have different effects for gasoline versus electric cars. What kind of generator would be needed to run a electric refueling station? The generator would have to be fueled as well, likely with diesel.


Something like


as a backup...if you planned to use it regularly, one of the big Diahatsus like power stations have for blackouts would be better.

40 gal per hour at 1MW.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: PimTac
Interesting thoughts. A major storm that causes power disruptions will have different effects for gasoline versus electric cars. What kind of generator would be needed to run a electric refueling station? The generator would have to be fueled as well, likely with diesel.


Something like


as a backup...if you planned to use it regularly, one of the big Diahatsus like power stations have for blackouts would be better.

40 gal per hour at 1MW.


Bruce Nuclear has two Rolls Royce 20MW jet turbine backups, LOL.
 
I'm not convinced that the internal combustion engine is dead. Toyota has achieved 41% thermal efficiency with the new Prius engine. I think that competes well with hydrocarbon produced grid power. Sure the new natural gas combined cycle powerplants are very efficient and peak at over 60% efficient. However, distribution losses and charging losses are always a factor.
 
Shannow, I'm impressed with the number crunching you did to put this upcoming technology in perspective. It deserves to be developed into an article for a professional magazine, like for Automotive Engineering or Wards Auto World.
 
I agree as well that the internal combustion engine is not dead. Toyota’s investment in Mazda is one example that there is a lot of life left in these engines.

I cannot imagine owning a electric car in Australia and trying to drive it cross continent. Maybe if one sticks to the southern highways they might be successful. Even in the US, there are lots of vast areas where plugins are far and few in between.
 
Originally Posted By: Kestas
Shannow, I'm impressed with the number crunching you did to put this upcoming technology in perspective.


Thanks

Scenario modelling has been a big part of the last 10 years of my career...then trying to translate the findings into beancounter.
 
But they'll also start out with a full charge in the morning from charging at home. So use at a charger in public will be less often.
 
I imagine use of public charging facilities would rise on the weekends when vehicles are taken for long drives. Commuting will be chiefly handled by home charging.
 
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
But they'll also start out with a full charge in the morning from charging at home. So use at a charger in public will be less often.


Not in California and Hawaii they won't...the peak/off peak when renewables push in reverses, and the prices crash during the day and are the highest at night.

Everyone charging their electric cars while they sleep will not be the (near) future. The time that you are using your car will be the cheapest electricity.

But yes, counting a 24/7 even distribution of customers is clearly wrong...bunch them and you need MORE dispensers and land, don't you ?
 
I always thought off peak was nighttime. Is this thinking outdated with renewable resources coming on stream? Or is this just regional? Michigan has a mandate of 10% renewables, with 30% suggested in the future.
 
Originally Posted By: Kestas
I always thought off peak was nighttime. Is this thinking outdated with renewable resources coming on stream? Or is this just regional? Michigan has a mandate of 10% renewables, with 30% suggested in the future.


Yes, this was discussed in the past, about the whole "duck curve" phenomena. The reason for cheap rates at night is to prevent dramatic drops in usage and allow facilities to continue to generate; to encourage reasonable consumption so that you aren't shutting down plants you don't want to shut down.

When you increase demand after hours significantly, that energy is no longer cheap, because there is demand. The price then goes up.
 
The gas station of the future will be home produced electricity. People will be able to generate their own power at home very cheaply and charge up their cars.
 
Originally Posted By: Kestas
I always thought off peak was nighttime. Is this thinking outdated with renewable resources coming on stream? Or is this just regional? Michigan has a mandate of 10% renewables, with 30% suggested in the future.


Yep,
I made a prediction to one of our marketters 3 years ago that they would struggle with customers when the traditional "off peak" for water heaters and heat banks (10c/KWh versus 25c) would cease to be at 11PM to 4AM...the Solar penetration collapses the mid-day market, more and more as there's more of it...then thermals close down as they aren't viable, which pushes night time prices up.

When it comes to a fully renewable economy, batteries are around 20-25c/KWh round trip to pay for the battery and losses, so energy will be free (or they'll pay you to take it) during the mid-day, and minimum of battery cycle cost overnight.

Here's Hawaiis take on electric vehicles and charging...
tou_ri_oahu.jpg
 
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
The gas station of the future will be home produced electricity. People will be able to generate their own power at home very cheaply and charge up their cars.


Mr. Nuke? Looks like a coffee maker?
 
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
The gas station of the future will be home produced electricity. People will be able to generate their own power at home very cheaply and charge up their cars.


Really ?

Oz are about to press play on laws to limit rooftop production to 4KW to preserve the integrity of the distribution system, and limit exports. (*)

a 4KW system would produce 32KWh in a day...not enough to charge your Tesla.

(*) for those interested, there's some issues with rooftop solar.
- Protection devices are set up to limit fault current, when they detect it on a radial feed...throwing 4KWxN houses after the measuring point means that the fault current is design plus 4N when /if it occurs.
- For voltage control, the measurements are made at the transformers, and they are tapped up/down to ensure that the most remote house gets correct voltage...throw a bunch of rooftop generators in between the measuring point and the last house, and the last house experiences overvoltage...poor saps are blowing up fridges due to the actions of their neighbours.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
But they'll also start out with a full charge in the morning from charging at home. So use at a charger in public will be less often.


Not in California and Hawaii they won't...the peak/off peak when renewables push in reverses, and the prices crash during the day and are the highest at night.

Everyone charging their electric cars while they sleep will not be the (near) future. The time that you are using your car will be the cheapest electricity.

But yes, counting a 24/7 even distribution of customers is clearly wrong...bunch them and you need MORE dispensers and land, don't you ?
I'd take that in a heartbeat. Cheaper electricity rates would easily offset the higher cost to charge at night, since here in Phoenix A/C is cranked most of the year. Then there's solar on the roof to offset the daytime cost too.

I see it as a win-win.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top