Gregory's ServerLamppost EV chargers are the answer to how you charge your vehicle in cities.
This is possible because when energy intensive street lamps were replaced by LEDs, there’s excess power for charging EVs.
All cities should do this. ⚡️
h/t Robert Llewllyn
 209 comments
 @jan @davidho They are normally only slow charging 230V/16A connections (aka a normal home socket). And there is probably also a form of load balancing so when all sockets in the street are used they probably downthrottle to 6 or 10 amp for a while. Takes a while to fully charge the car but enough to add +150 km in a night of charging. @SpaceJellyfish @jan @davidho That's why these things are installed by certified electricians. I wouldn't let my father in law do it. I wouldn't let my father in law touch anything electric actually. @bartvdpoel @jan @davidho Off grid PV can be done DIY by anyone who has built a model railway for instance, at least the DC side, and with the help of some prior literature, technical and bureaucratical, sigh. The cables are thicker :-) AC side, as well as everything ground fault should definitely be checked by an electrician, and if it is just to have that stamp. If you find one these days ... “10A is enough to charge an average EV for 100km of range in 7 hours. “ Ouch. Therein lies the adoption problem. Until I can “gas up” in under 10 mins, EVs aren’t going to reach critical mass. Hybrids are ready now. EVs…I don’t know what the future looks like. The charge:drive ratio has to be much different than it is now.  You do have to switch away from the mindset of "full tank in 5 minutes" to "I'll charge when I can". I topped up friday evening while at a rehearsal, wednesday at work, etc.  @jan @jonw @evolvable @davidho there are other problems with Ev's but your reasoning doesn't work unless you only drive in dense populated areas.
I drove my diesel to the middle of nowhere in Luxembourg and back without issues. I can't do that with an EV. And I resist driving in something that has cloud connections for controls 🤷♂️ @jonw @evolvable @jan @davidho The median car doesn't move on any given day. The small subset of people who drive a lot think that their experience is representative, but it isn't. @jonw @evolvable @jan @davidho "Until I can “gas up” in under 10 mins, EVs aren’t going to reach critical mass. " If you say so 😉 Hybrids? Are top notch green-washing, and squeezing out the last penny of a long since deprecated technology. @jonw @evolvable @jan @davidho Rhe Idea here is to slowly charge during most longer parking occasions. The hassle is less than setting a parking meter. Effectively you no longer have to waste time on filling your tank. @jonw @jan @davidho Imagine if everyone was already driving cars they could fill up slowly at home cheaply or even for free, and someone tried to convince them to switch to expensive petrol only available at select locations that change the price every day based on events on the other side of the world, just because it’s really quick. They’d be a laughing stock. @evolvable @jonw @jan @davidho exactly. Having whatever version you want of a 100% charge always available at the start of your commuting day is a huge mindshift that people used to filling up with gas every few days don't appreciate. "Will I have enough gas before I need to refill" is the gas version of range anxiety. @jonw @evolvable @jan @davidho street lamp "level 2" charging is for your overnight I'm going to bed and my apartment / house has no driveway and I always park on the street use cases. Your scenario is the "level 3" fast charging that's already being installed along major highways in any jurisdictions that care. 5 to 20 minute charges depending on need are easy, and for the sake of your bladder, a nice thing to do since you can leave your car unattended unlike at a typical gas station.  @davidho Afraid it's too little. A high-pressure sodium lamp uses 1 kW, others less. Unless the cabling is upgraded. Needs to be 11 kW to be interesting. @martinvermeer @davidho Depends on the car. Small car can be reasonably charged with 8A (1.8kw).  @martinvermeer @davidho most street had several lamps attached to a single line. Most lamppost EV chargers I've encountered are capable of ~20kw AC charging, downgrading to 10-15 during periods of high load @gabrielesvelto @martinvermeer @davidho Most EV cars can only handle 11kW when using AC charging. Some Tesla's and a few high end cars can handle 22kW AC. @johnrohde @gabrielesvelto @davidho Too high is okay, the car will regulate it down.  @davidho @lostgen @davidho People in cities also have cars, and they agree with you that people from outside the city should come by public transport. I always do. This specific kind of infrastructure is for people living in that city, not for those outside it who probably have a driveway where they can charge their car and can't wait 12 hours for their car to charge. Even in cities with perfect bike and public transport infrastructure people still have cars. And yes it can be useful for shared cars too. @bartvdpoel @lostgen @davidho When I lived in Antwerp we didn't have a car either. If I lived there still I probably wouldn't have a car, it's more a problem than a sollution. Antwerp has quite good bike infrastructure and Park and Rides at the edges and a lot of car free streets. It has improved a lot for pedestrians, people taking public transport and cyclists. So I know exactly what you mean and I don't disagree that a liveable city should be the priority. @bartvdpoel I need to use my car to transport my very old father to, for example, his medical appointments in the city.  In a lot of UK streets, especially the millions of Victorian homes whose fronts doors step right onto a narrow path... The lamp posts is up against the houses, or the lights are actually on the house itself. It's a partial solution to the problem. They did that in my old town as a trial... Cables kept getting stolen and cars got unplugged all the time by kids walking past.  @davidho this is brilliant idea, makes me wonder why I never thought of this before. Once our elections are done, I’m going to propose this to our legislator.  in UK a supply for a lamp post is as little as 500W and doesn't contain a meter. Its not impossible to take a stronger supply from the feeder pillar but is going to require a lot of upgrading of service cables in the street.. that picture is from the UK (looking at the registration plate of the car), but there's evidence of recent extra work being done at the base of the lighting column suggesting there may have been a cable upgrade (its possible to do this without taking up the whole pavement with modern plant, Cadent were doing similar for gas pipes in my town). Using the space already occupied by the column does at least remove the requirement to get further planning permission.. @davidho Do NOT coil up the cable when charging AC, ok? Apart from that, yes, good idea where possible and when the old infrastructure is still there. Where I live things are either built to lates EU standards (low voltage/low power/solar panels) or non-existent. Fun fact: I run my place and charge car and motorbike with my DIY off-grid pv 😜 @SpaceJellyfish @davidho kind of impossible to coil it up in a well designed installation. The charging cord gets a retractable cord attached that holds it up high and keeps it relatively "straight." Added benefit is keeping it off the ground and less likely to be damaged by random impacts. @sellathechemist @davidho That's very good! Probably comparable to LEDs equipped with phosphor conversion. But of course, longevity. It's a big thing to not have to have a guy with an access platform on standby to replace lamps when they go. Bigger cost item than the kWhs!  @davidho but only if we can reduce all car parking to the level of one car to one lamp post @kim_harding @davidho Encouraging people to park along city and town streets is a bad idea. @davidho There are a total of 3 lampposts in my street with a total of 16 households with an average of 2 cars per household (32+ cars). Street runs at the back of our properties (30m from back door and nearest electrical outlet). @davidho What's stopping me waiting until your tucked up in bed and swapping out your charger for my charger. Morning your car isn't charged but mine is ready to go @fletch49er @davidho car alarm goes off when unplugged. And if you're really paranoid locks do exist for these plugs.  @davidho One of the advantages of LED streetlights was a reduction in energy consumption. This defeats that.  @bouriquet @davidho The same goes for ICE cars: How much fuel and electricity had to be burnt for your petrol to get to your local pump? To get cracked in the refinery? Oil to be transported to the refinery? And drilled out of the earth? And your car then throws away at least 60% of that energy away in a super-inefficient combustion engine ! Think! @bouriquet @davidho All your questions have answers long since. Pretty clear that @davidho thought more when posting. @davidho good idea, 🫣 but I hate all these pilos for lamps and signs for car traffic placed on the footpath ….. and maybe we need no cars in cities? (Not so many) @davidho In many cities, including Berlin, the street lights were mostly powered by gas. When they replaced the gas burners with LEDs, they used very flimsy single-phase cabling that's OK for a few LEDs, but not at all for charging vehicles. That's why Ubitricity comes from Berlin, but has installed their system mostly in London…  @davidho this should also be a good scheme for charging phones, if you’re willing to lean against a lamp-post for about half an hour, using Qi2 (when Qi2 finally emerges as a thing) @davidho Sorry to say that EV are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Cities should be focusing on active travel and public transport. @davidho Yup, doesn't even need to be a fast charger - most cars are parked more than they're driven, so even 240V@ 10A (2kW) is plenty. For most small electric cars (50kW battery), that's a 1/3rd of a charge during a regular 8 hour work day, or 50% of a charge for a 12 hours overnight. Nevermind the benefits of Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) if that were enabled... Pay car owners to use 20% of their car's capacity when there's a peak demand for power, and top it up by morning. :)  @davidho LED street lamps have efficacy of 130-160 lm/W @davidho from experience, the older light poles I've worked with are fed with 277 volts, 10 gauge wire, and several to a 20 ampere breaker. The distribution panel for each is powered by a 100 ampere breaker at a substation. Several cars might require a significant capital expense upgrade to prevent overloading.  @davidho A good idea. But #LEDs should be in warm colors, to help cut down on #LightPollution.  @davidho Er, I don't think any street lamps after carbon arcs are even nearly powerful enough to charge a car in at a reasonable power, and carbon arc lamps were abandoned for street lighting pretty much everywhere more than a century ago. @davidho I think the big problem with this idea is that cities that care about the nighttime safety of their pedestrians and cyclists tend to place lighting behind the foot and cycle way. To enable kerbside charging, you'd have to dig the cable under the foot and cycle way and somehow mount the charge point into the kerb or tarmac. Seems hard to see how that will work  @davidho I don't want an EV though. Where they're parked in this picture should be a protected bicycle lane and/or a bus stop with regular, actually usable service.  @davidho We do need 2 kinds of charging for EVs. Overnight charging (like here, which is AFAIK also battery friendly) and fast charging along the main roads. Every EV owner should also be told that the fast charging consumes the battery chemically a lot faster than slow - say 10 kW - charging. I’ve seen it in both of my EVs; previous owners didn’t know and the battery capacity had gone down. Yet when I charge >80 % home with 11 kW capacity has not changed almost at all. @davidho I feel like this could pose some accessibility chalanges and liability risks.  @davidho no! Instead we should have like #BikingInfrastructure and #PublicTransport instead of #CarCentricInfrastructure noone but #cars can use. - Or have you seen any #ElectricScooters or #ElectricBikes or #ElectricMotorcycles that can utilice #CCS2 or #NACS #ChargingInfrasturcture? #BEVs won't save the world - period!  @davidho Seattle currently has 24 locations. https://www.seattle.gov/city-light/in-the-community/current-projects/curbside-level-2-ev-charging @davidho Where was that photo taken?  @davidho you will need to replace all the cables, connect everything to Internet, add some levels od intermediate software to allow effective AC charging there, and taking into account that you'll need to do it below the actual street – no, it will not worth it. especially while most of the parking do not even have solar batteries on top @davidho well actually it's not. EV charging requires much more power than infrastructure can give  @davidho  @davidho Well, not necessarily. Here in L.A., when (over a period of many years) they converted to LED street lighting, they took the opportunity to pull out all the old power cables and replaced them with much lower capacity cables suitable for the LEDs. This is not uncommon, since those old cables become problematic over many years, and lower capacity cables are far less expensive. @davidho Merton council has installed 580, just not yet on my road, nearest is 3 minutes away https://www.merton.gov.uk/streets-parking-transport/ev/charging  @davidho In the 1980s people plugged in their boom boxes to the lampposts. Will that come back? (Hope not!)  @davidho Street lamps were maybe a 250W or 300W metal halide bulbs. Show me one EV that charges at only 300W... These lamps don't have a wiring to pull that kind of wattages EV's require to charge. People always have these wild ideas how to magically insert EV's everywhere without understanding basic electrical engineering stuff. @davidho Here's an enhancement: setting up bike corrals with ebike charging capabilities by streetlight poles. In urban environments with multistory apartments, storing a bike above the ground floor is a challenge for many; a 50+ lb/23+ kg ebike even more of a challenge. Curbside storage and charging would enable cycling for many. And the total demand is much less than EV charging... @davidho I think solar panels on EV roofs/hoods would be better. Then you don't have to worry about finding a charger. Just park somewhere sunny & forgot about fueling. (Also, when they replaced our energy intensive street lamps with LEDs, they replaced the whole pole & wiring system, not just the bulbs).   @davidho I love a clever solution that ties into existing resources like this. It might not be ideal but it can help things out a lot.  @davidho This post and replies within are a goldmine of EV information. Thank you.   @davidho the old lights were only around 100W, so you still need to upgrade the wiring significantly. Even Level 1 is pulling over 10X that. The good thing is that the underground conduit is already there. I’m very curious how companies like Gravity are hiding the transformer and batteries you’d need to make curbside fast charging work: https://insideevs.com/news/720636/gravity-curbside-dc-fast-charger-new-york/ They say they don’t require electrical upgrades to make it work. @davidho @pluralistic and EV manufacturers should design charging port on curb side of car. Looking at you Tesla |
@davidho I fear the cables which are run to light poles might not be able to cope with the amount of amperage that goes through when charging an #EV. Causing possible fires, etc.
For slow charging, sure.