CNG situation in south

[PariaMan]

CNG is being subsidised that much? With so few CNG vehicles on the road I hope that's not correct..

I thing Visham Babwah meant not only tru direct subsidizing but to support the overall initiative

[PariaMan]

https://youtu.be/QC4Rs_xQtvI

[adnj]

We expect a big shift in EV adoption will start in the early 2020s, when vehicle manufacturers bring on new models, battery range improves, charging times reduce and when the cost of an electric vehicle meets the cost of a combustion engine vehicle


.Roy Williamson,vice president, advanced mobility, BP

I believe that you are conjoining the consumer market and the commercial heavy market in error.

For personal use passenger electric vehicles, battery pack cost, vehicle cost and TCO are expected to drop to be more affordable than any ICE before 2025. High turnover rates and consumer interest is driving adoption.

For commercial use heavy electric vehicles, although vehicle TCO will drop to become more affordable within the foreseeable future, fleet charging stations will need to replace fleet filling stations. Mechanics will need to be retrained and recertified. Existing vehicles will require replacement. The total cost of fleet operation currently looks like a hit to profitability for trucks that stay in operation 15 to 20 years.

In an effort to lower maintenance and operation costs, some ferries and ocean vessels are switching to LNG generator powered electric thrusters.

If I were looking at this from the perspective of a 5 passenger taxi driver, I may tend to agree with you. But by stepping back and viewing transportation holistically, you would likely have a slightly enhanced perspective.

Small electrically powered cars that go home with their drivers; then charged overnight or charged as necessary at a public location works well. Large trucks and ocean ferries that spend a day or two at work and are later refueled at a depot or dock works well, too. Current large trucks could be retrofitted to use L/CNG, further extending their service life and enhancing the owner's profits while lowering emissions.

Taken together, a combined approach reduces the cost, burden and complexity of infrastructure improvements. At least for the next few years.

[PariaMan]

Seems like there is excess capacity in terms of electricity

From the guardian

Energy Minister Franklin Khan has warned that the country will be paying for electricity it cannot use when it gets power from a world-scale renewable plant by 2021.

Speaking in the Parliament during the recently concluded budget debate, the minister said it is not economically viable to implement renewable energy in T&T at this time because we currently produce surplus power that we have to pay millions of dollars a month for.

He said the country is in this current predicament because the a proposed aluminium smelter was scrapped in 2010 when the Kamla Persad-Bissessar-led People’s Partnership Government was voted into office.

Khan said this was a perfect example of why continuation of policy is so important when it comes to governance.

“We were going to build an aluminium smelter, a new source of revenue for this country in foreign exchange the Chinese got the contract,” Khan said.

With the smelter expected to come on board, Khan said the government put certain things in place to prepare for its construction.

“We built the most modern electricity generation plant at La Brea the TGU (Trinidad Generation Unlimited) plant with a capacity of 730 megawatts,” Khan said.

When the People’s Partnership came into office and scrapped the smelter this caused the country to remain burdened with the surplus power, he said.

“When the UNC came into office in 2010 they scrapped it but we were saddled with 730 megawatts of power that we could not use and to make matters worse it was way down in La Brea and there was no sub station to transmit that power to the North which is the big user,” he said.

T&T still had to pay for the surplus energy though because of a take or pay contract.

“But when you have independent power producers there is something called a ‘take or pay contract’ because they would not put down a power plant without a contract to sell the power,” he said.

This bill amounted to millions of dollars, Khan said.

“When we took office in 2015 T&TEC was paying TGU $45 million a month for unused power,”

Khan said.

Khan said this bill was reduced be almost $20 million, he said.

“Thank God we hustled and finished the Gandhi Village substation so a lot of that power could now come to the North the bill has been reduced to approximately $25 million per month,” he said.

“What that means is the country has a generating capacity of 1,750 megawatts but it is only using 1,350 megawatts there is a 400 megawatt surplus that we have to pay for,” Khan said.

[sMASH]

what does ev need? electricity.
what do we have excess of? electricity.

[Redman]

Is he saying that if the smelter was built-we would have a 330MW shortfall??

[pete]

I believe some of the production contracts from less efficient producers would have come to an end and not renewed. e.g. Powergen POS.

It's not only the smelter that has left us with an excess, Mittal and Powergen were the two biggest consumers of electricity and they have not been operational for some time as well.