Net Work
Alan Winstanley
Welcome to this month’s Net Work, bringing you a round-up of topical technological issues and
trends from the UK and around the world.
W
ith major spikes in the
price of wholesale energy
heading our way, British energy
consumers are already facing swingeing
increases as the six-monthly energy
‘price cap’ is due to rise very shortly.
(How the UK price cap review works is
explained by Ofgem here: https://tinyurl.
com/mry964ah) Analysts have predicted
a rise of over 50%, with a further 20%
possibly in October. However, with
world events unfolding before our very
eyes, energy supplies are being upended once again, and the focus on
energy diversification will doubtless be
accelerated as supplies of gas gradually
unravel. The major new Nordstream 2 gas
pipeline has been shelved by Germany
and, ironically, coal, oil and shale gas
are now being actively re-considered
to plug the gap and cushion us against
any price rises. Liquefied natural gas
(LNG), delivered by bulk tanker ships, is
another option and even nuclear power
stations may be revitalised in Germany.
The small modular (nuclear) reactor
rollout across eastern Europe, described
in earlier columns, seems less certain
now, although American SMR maker
NuScale recently signed a deal to build
one in Poland.
In Britain, the shockingly expensive
(£11bn) smart meter rollout continues,
with consumers being urged to ‘do their
bit’ and help ‘modernise’ the gas and
electricity networks and also streamline
the job of taking meter readings. The
latter feature is sold as a benign benefit
of smart meters, since they will be able to
‘phone home’ with meter readings every
day, or even every 30 minutes, starting
in 2025. As I wrote over two years ago,
smart meters will ultimately change the
way we manage and pay for our power
consumption. Eventually, discounts or
surcharges will be levied depending on
the time of day, weather conditions and
most of all, the availability of energy
supplies to begin with. It is to be hoped
that an increase in wind power (offshore,
and now onshore), LNG and maybe utilising more of Britain’s own abandoned
resources will help to keep the lights on,
if not the central heating.
The Giga economy
Although every major car manufacturer
has committed to building emissions-free
EVs, there is still plenty of life left in
petrol and diesel cars. Owners of EVs
fret about their car’s range and they top
up en route at service stations with, say,
‘100 miles worth’ of charge – assuming
they can find a compatible charging point
that works properly. The high price of
EVs and spartan charging network are
two major deterrents for car buyers, and
that’s before we consider whether power
generators or battery producers will even
be able to meet spiralling demand.
So-called ‘gigafactories’ are springing up that are dedicated to the mass
production of batteries and electric vehicles. Tesla’s planned gigafactory near
Berlin had been stalled due to environmental hurdles, but is finally heading
towards production, a year late. Tesla
already has an overseas gigafactory in
China. UK battery maker Britishvolt
(www.britishvolt.com) has announced
a battery gigafactory of its own in Northumberland, north-east England. The site
will use plentiful supplies of local renewable energy and has attracted over
£1.8bn ($2.3bn) of investment funding.
Britishvolt is also partnering with commodity trader Glencore to build a battery
recycling facility capable of handling
10 kilotonnes of waste a year. Outline
planning permission is also expected for
the new ‘West Midlands Gigafactory’, a
public-private venture between Coventry City Council and Coventry Airport
in the heart of England. They claim the
£2.5bn ($3.25bn) investment will be the
largest battery gigafactory in the UK, with
production expected to start in 2025.
The Anglo-Korean ‘next-generation’
battery company Eurocell aims to build
its first European-based gigafactory too,
turning out ‘production-ready’ batteries
in just 12 months from a standing start,
far quicker than other gigafactories will
be able to, they claim. An initial £600m
($0.78bn) investment is planned over
two phases, and the company intends
to supply products for European energy
storage, automotive, and e-mobility applications. Eurocell is considering sites
in the UK, the Netherlands or Spain, dependent on government support offered;
Britishvolt has announced a new battery
gigafactory in Northumberland, England, at a
cost of over £1.8bn of investment funding.
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Practical Electronics | May | 2022
Rolls-Royce is partnering with Scandinavian regional airline Widerøe and hopes to launch an all-electric commuter plane in 2026.
possibly Britain offers the added attraction of operating outside of EU strictures.
The new site would reach full production by 2025. More details at: https://
eurocell-emea.com
Meanwhile, StoreDot, the Israeli manufacturer exploring XFC (Extreme Fast
Charge) batteries mentioned in the March
column, has launched its ‘100inX’ road
map outlining the likely charge time
their batteries hope to achieve to yield
a range of 100 miles. StoreDot expect
to offer EV batteries with a charge rate
of [up to] 100 miles range for five minutes of charge time by 2024, with 100
miles in two minutes as their target in a
decade’s time. ‘100in5’ cells are already
being evaluated by several EV manufacturers, they tell me.
More EV projects that are breaking
cover include the all-new Fisker Ocean
electric SUV which debuted at Mobile
World Congress in Barcelona. The California-based start-up expects to start
production by the end of 2022, and they
see the European market as critical for
its success. Solar cells in the ‘SolarSky’
roof supplement the electric motor and
the vehicle will be built using a large
amount of recycled material to enhance
its ‘green’ credentials. Readers can take
an early look at: www.fiskerinc.com
In the March column I mentioned
that the Japanese consumer giant Sony
had surprised the EV sector by revealing a second prototype electric car at
this year’s Consumer Electronics Show.
Sony’s Vision S-02 EV was presumed to
be a pre-production testbed for mobile
sensors and electronics, but Sony has
now inked a deal with none other than
Honda. The aim is to ‘create a new era
of mobility and mobility services’, says
Honda, with production of their first car
expected in 2025.
Taking flight
Following my item last month on the
Autoflight eVTOL ‘Prosperity 1’ all-electric flying taxi, the makers report that
the craft has achieved its first ‘transition
flight’: shifting from vertical take-off to
forward motion and back again. The
three-passenger-plus-pilot aircraft has
eight vertical props and two horizontal
ones, and you can witness the test flight
at: https://youtu.be/QPqFCJC7ozs
Rolls-Royce hopes to launch an
all-electric passenger plane in 2026.
Partnering with Widerøe, Scandinavia’s
largest regional airline, the all-electric
passenger aircraft would be a perfect
solution for providing emissions-free
commuting between the area’s multitude of regional airports.
Back to earth, and the practicalities
of charging EVs themselves – the UK’s
National Grid reckons that 75% of EV
The new Fisker Ocean electric SUV claims to have the longest range in the segment, and
production is due to start in late 2022.
Practical Electronics | May | 2022
owners who can charge at home, will
continue doing so. To give our needy
electricity network a boost, one option
being considered is to use an electric
vehicle’s batteries to sell surplus energy
back to the National Grid, paying EV
owners for the privilege (domestic solar-panel style). This emerging technology
is called Vehicle-to-Grid or V2G. As predicted, Time of Use Tariffs (ToUT) could
be introduced to supposedly ‘incentivise’
owners to charge overnight at off-peak
times; put another way, owners could face
surcharges for using electricity at peak
times. An interesting summary of V2G
is online at: https://bit.ly/pe-may22-v2g
Also waiting in the wings is the idea
of using an EV’s battery to top up the
homeowner’s own domestic electricity
supply. Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) bidirectional chargers are being explored by
UK charger manufacturer Indra, which
admits that the technology is not yet commercially available. The smart chargers
would also receive remote OTA (over
the air) updates.
First outlined in January’s column, the
ZipCharge Go ‘powerbank on wheels’ for
EVs is now at an advanced validation
prototype and procurement stage, the
makers tell me. Some 40% of car-owning households have no designated or
off-street parking, ZipCharge says, so
the portable electric charger may be one
The ZipchargeGo powerbank for EVs is
due to launch in 2023
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A prototype Scania electric truck charging during motorway trials in Germany. A 20km trial
is being considered in the UK. (Image: Tom Scott/ Youtube)
answer to topping up an EV overnight.
The ZipCharge Go contains various anti-theft and security features and is slated
to launch early in 2023.
It’s starting to become clear how car
ownership and travel will take shape in
years to come as we gradually move away
from petrol and diesel fuels. Owners
of electric vehicles in Britain might be
able to mitigate some energy price rises
by switching to an EV-aware tariff that
offers cheaper overnight charging rates
(smart domestic electric appliances of
the future will do the same, automatically). The Rightcharge charge-point
and EV tariff comparison website reckons that savings can be made by EV
owners who switch this way. Charlie
Cook, founder of the Rightcharge website, said: ‘The cost of standard variable
tariffs is about to rocket by 54% from 1
April as Ofgem increases the price cap.
By switching from a variable tariff to an
EV-friendly tariff, drivers can schedule
for overnight charging and reduce their
bills by an average of around £300 per
year. By doing so they will also be charging on electricity that is roughly 25%
cleaner in comparison to electricity
consumed during the evening hours.’
More resources for EV users are online
at: https://rightcharge.co.uk
Big battery
Batteries aren’t just for electric vehicles,
though: Singapore-based Sembcorp, a
sustainable energy solutions provider, recently announced that Europe’s
largest battery energy storage system
will be built on Teesside in northern
England, to help the UK achieve its
‘Net Zero’ target. It will be home to a
360MW Li-Ion battery storage system
offering several hours of power, and
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the near-instantly available power
boost will help balance out the National Grid’s supply lines. (See: https://
bit.ly/pe-may22-sem) Nearby, a new
300MW natural gas power plant – the
Whitetail Clean Energy site (https://
whitetail.energy/) – could be built by
Sembcorp and the zero-emission site
will use gas and oxygen, rather than air,
for fuel; the turbines would be driven
by liquefied carbon dioxide rather than
steam. It would capture up to 800,000
tonnes of CO2 a year for storage under
the North Sea.
Keep on (electric) trucking
I mentioned in a previous column that
the US truck maker Kenworth recently
introduced its first electric lorry. (Ever
wondered why European truck cabs
are shorter than US or Australian ones?
Legal limits on the length of our trucks
mean that drivers of European trucks sit
‘above’ the engine rather than behind
it.) The move towards electrifying the
transport network is not exclusive to
cars or vans (or trains, buses or trams)
though: several weeks ago I met a representative of a consortium comprising the
civil engineers Costain, Siemens, European truck maker Scania, overhead line
equipment (OHLE) engineers SPL-Powerlines, technical architects Arup, and
Cambridge and Heriot Universities.
Therein lies a clue: the group hopes to
carry out a UK government feasibility
study with the objective of removing
diesel freight trucks from our roads by
2040. A stretch of motorway has been
pencilled in to hold the UK’s first trial
of electric trucks, which if successful
would also study freight logistics surrounding one of Britain’s largest ports.
Electric trucks are already catching on
in Sweden, with Volvo Trucks offering
a range of vehicles for urban and local
deliveries (see: https://bit.ly/pe-may22vol). The British motorway trials would
use 20km of overhead lines to power
electric trucks running beneath them.
Some proofs of concept trials are already
running on a 2km stretch in Sweden (for
example, see the report: https://youtu.
be/27100u7IcII) as well as in Germany:
https://youtu.be/_3P_S7pL7Yg
These prototype trucks would draw
overhead power and recharge their
batteries using pantographs (so-called
‘in-motion charging’), before the vehicle
completed the final stretch entirely electrically propelled. There are all sorts of
design and economic challenges to overcome, including the fact that motorway
bridges will interrupt the catenaries of
overhead lines; perhaps cables might go
underground in places and trucks will
automatically disconnect and reconnect
as they pass underneath. It’s not yet clear
whether such trucks would be 100% electric or a hybrid diesel/electric. The whole
business model has yet to be fleshed out
and it will be many years before Britain’s
electric truck infrastructure is built, but
it’s a sign of things to come.
A magnetic attraction
One component that everyday life depends on is the humble magnet. They are
everywhere, from motors to loudspeakers to transducers, and 4,000 tonnes of
permanent magnets from defunct gear
are produced every year, says minerals miners Pensana plc. The rare earths
market is dominated by China and is
critical to the production of permanent
magnets, and the company is planning
a new $190m facility to produce up to
12,500 tonnes annually of rare earth
oxides at Saltend, near Hull in England. By 2025 Saltend is expecting to
produce 4,500 tonnes of neodymium
and praseodymium (Nd/Pr) annually,
or over 5% of the world market and
will be one of only three such facilities
outside of China. The company already
owns a state-of-the-art rare earth mining
facility in Angola.
It’s no co-incidence that the area on
the north bank of the River Humber
in eastern England, is also becoming a
tariff-free Freeport with factories being
established nearby to manufacture
wind turbines – each of which is said
to contain several tonnes of permanent
magnets. The industry supplier Goudsmit has more background at: https://bit.
ly/pe-may22-mag
The UK Government is also investing
in the emerging idea of floating offshore
‘wind ports’ to generate electricity. Some
concepts were floated, as it were, by
Equinor at: https://bit.ly/pe-may22-osw
Practical Electronics | May | 2022
Workshop whoops...
My thanks to regular PE reader Glenn
Patterson who dropped me a line: ‘I continue to enjoy your monthly column in
Practical Electronics and I’ve just read
your February 2022 Net Work (also noting
that magazine subscription deliveries to
here in Australia appear to be back on
track!) and I was surprised to read that
Ryobi Europe has persisted with Ni-MH
battery technology in their 18V power
tool range.
‘While I don’t have any Ryobi products, I embraced the Makita 18V Li-ion
platform nearly 10 years ago, and have
been extremely happy with them – Li-ion
being the preferred and more durable
battery technology. I also note that Ryobi
18V OnePlus products available from
the local Ryobi retail outlet down under
(Bunnings here in Australia) is Li-ion
based. Again, I look forward to receiving the monthly PE magazine, and the
regular columns therein. Cheers, Glenn.’
When writing about Ryobi’s popular
18V OnePlus battery-powered tools, I
inadvertently implied that their NiMH
batteries were still on the market. I must
clarify that Ryobi of course majors entirely on 18V Li-ion batteries and I even
found some of them on the 6-port charger above my own workbench! Thank
you for pointing that out, Glenn, and
for your regular subscription too! Ryobi
18V OnePlus tools are available from the
usual sources and their range of accessories (200+) is expanding all the time.
Remember that ‘bare tools’ don’t include
batteries or chargers, which must be
bought separately.
Also in February’s column, I described
how my perfectly good first-generation
Google Home Hub (now called ‘Nest
Hub’) smart speaker with LCD screen
had suddenly locked up last year for
no reason at all. Many disgruntled users
were found online, complaining about
the same problem. Google has been totally tight-lipped about addressing the
issue and no one’s reported a software
fix, but fingers point to firmware problems or some bloody-minded changes
in Google’s network. Of course, hardware warranties only last typically for
one year anyway, and mine was barely
two years old before its software was
suddenly hobbled. It would appear that
unhappy users are expected to toss the
things away.
The small print on the defunct Home
Hub box (found in the attic) states that
Google features and functionality are
subject to change ‘without notice or obligation’, which presumably includes
pulling the plug on the device altogether
without warning. Google did not answer
requests for an explanation.
In comparison, Amazon guarantees
their Alexa-powered Echo devices will
receive software security updates until
at least four years after the devices are
last made available for purchase. A
clear timetable is published at: https://
amzn.to/3Mu5KyE, which offers users
some reassurance about the likely operating lifespan of these smart displays
and speakers.
Space news
Finally, nearly 50 years after the Soviet
Soyuz and American Apollo capsules
docked in space to symbolise friendship and cooperation (see: https://bit.ly/
pe-may22-apsoy), the space programme
has become another tragic casualty of
the turmoil in Europe, starting with
the UK’s OneWeb LEO satellite project.
These use Russian-built Soyuz rockets
and the next tranche of 36 OneWeb satellites, due to blast off in early March,
was duly grounded when the UK Government refused to meet some demands.
OneWeb then cancelled launches from
the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and SpaceX has reportedly offered
to launch them instead. Soyuz launches
from French Guiana have also been cancelled by Roscosmos – the site where the
1552 hand-held plastic enclosures
James Webb telescope was launched last
December using an Ariane rocket (see:
https://go.nasa.gov/3MnQqDD)
Meantime, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has
launched another 47 Starlink satellites
into orbit, where about 1,500 or so are
said to be in active operation, with hundreds more manoeuvring into position.
SpaceX also delivered a lorry full of
Starlink terminals to Ukraine to offer
satellite-based communications to the
war-torn nation. Recent Net Work columns also highlighted Virgin Orbit’s latest
successes to launch satellites into space
quickly and cheaply using a 747 (see last
month), which could form a timely shortcut into space. The UK government is
also accelerating its promise to enter the
space launch sector: the northern-most
island of Unst is home to the new SaxaVord Space Port, where it is planning to
offer launch services for Europe starting
from 2024. A Memorandum of Understanding was reached with the French
small launch rocket developer Venture
Orbital Systems (VOS). A new ground
station array to support satellite operations is also planned there. You can learn
more at: https://saxavord.com
I’d like to sign off this month by saying
that writing a monthly column that
won’t be published for several weeks
can present me with a lot of challenges,
especially when trying to remain topical
and timely. Not wanting to tempt fate,
I am presently left wondering what the
world will look like when the printed
version finally reaches the newsstands.
For what little comfort it will offer, I
can say that, today, all our thoughts
are with those whose lives have been
so terribly affected by the appalling
war that is engulfing Ukraine. You can
find ways to help through UNICEF, the
Red Cross and respected others here:
https://bit.ly/pe-may22-slaukr
The author can be reached at:
alan<at>epemag.net
!
w
ne
Learn more: hammfg.com/1552
Contact us to request a free evaluation sample.
uksales<at>hammfg.com • 01256 812812
Practical Electronics | May | 2022
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