environment – Fooyah

April 22 2018

Metric Units Used Herein

A friend mentioned recently that he was thinking of buying a Nissan Leaf 2.0 and it got me to thinking what the running costs are. For this communication I’m not worried about purchase or servicing costs so this comparison isn’t a very good one but it is somewhere to start!

My car, Bora Horza Gobuchul, is a petrol/electric hybrid. Just your standard hybrid NOT a plug in hybrid. So it’s battery is charge either through regenerative braking or excess energy being produced by the engine, when at a standstill for example. My average fuel consumption rate is 55 mpg. Current petrol costs are about £1.20 per litre. This means my current driving costs are:

£6.20 per 100km

This is a variable though. The price of petrol is subject to many factors and changes constantly. The mileage achieved driving Bora Horza Gobuchul depends on how well it is driven!

The Nissan Leaf 2.0 is currently the latest ALL Electric vehicle developed by Nissan. It is a plug in car and so runs using electricity only. The manufacturer claims a range of 168 miles and a battery capacity of 40kWh. My current electricity tariff charges me 15.3 pence per kWh and the driving costs for the Leaf are:

£2.26 per 100km

The Tesla Model S claims a range of 220 miles with a battery capacity of 60kWh. This produces a driving cost of:

£2.59 per 100km

This comparison is VERY basic. It covers just the cost of charging the vehicle. I have not taken ANYTHING else into consideration but I am quite surprised at how much cheaper the electric cars are in terms of cost per 100km for driving. This alone would tempt me greatly if I had a garage where I could park my car. However, somewhere, a space, to park my car every day next to my house is my current dream. That is what happens when you live in a crowded Victorian street.

Just another minor comparison: energy consumed per 100km:

50kWh – Bora Horza Gobuchul
14.8kWh – Nissan Leaf
17.0kHw – Telsa Model S

This just shows the inefficiency of petrol based engines for transport. So, my current plan is: get house with garage, buy Tesla, save the planet.

February 18 2012February 18 2012

Winter Solar Farm

Here’s the local solar farm in the winter. It’d be interesting to know the power output of the whole farm. Also, the panels don’t face south, more south-east. Perhaps that’s when the sun is most useful? Or perhaps clouds tend to cover the sky in the afternoon? Not sure. Perhaps an email to the company is needed. Watch this space.

Just found this information:

The 4.9 megawatt solar farm covers 26 acres of the former SCA paper mill site, which closed in 2009 with the loss of 130 jobs.

So that’s 0.19 MW/acre. For comparison the Magnox nuclear reactor Sizewell A in Suffolk created 420MW for a land area of 245 acres. This gives 1.7 MW/acre, nearly ten times the power. It’d be interesting to compare running costs!

July 16 2011August 22 2011

Start of a solar farm

Here are the foundations of a solar farm. I guess it has received planning permission as the last I knew it was just a proposal. Clever work though as the panels are bolted to the concrete sections that were part of a packing site.
If I remember I’ll link to the company doing this. Just imagine that Eccles and Aylesford might be leading the way in green tech.