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Offshore Wind Farm to Power More Than One Million U.K. Homes

wsj.com

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Re: Offshore Wind Farm to Power More Than One Million U.K. Homes

#21

Post by ascorbic »

barney54 wrote: post #13

The title of the WSJ article is misleading. An offshore wind farm does not power more than 1 million homes, unless you only want electricity when the wind is blowing. Offshore wind is one of the most expensive sources of electricity generation--more expensive than every except solar thermal. https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm Offshore wind is more than twice as expensive as onshore wind. The…

There are only two reasons to have offshore wind power. One is because NIMBYs make it hard to erect onshore turbines. The other reason is that it really pisses off Donald Trump. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shet...

Re: Offshore Wind Farm to Power More Than One Million U.K. Homes

#22

Post by ascorbic »

smcl wrote: post #18

Just sharing for anyone interested - the UK National Grid has a nice (if a little antiquated looking) site which breaks down power generation by source http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

That's actually a third party site, that uses the National Grid's SOAP(!) API for the data.

Re: Offshore Wind Farm to Power More Than One Million U.K. Homes

#23

Post by armenarmen »

barney54 wrote: post #13

The title of the WSJ article is misleading. An offshore wind farm does not power more than 1 million homes, unless you only want electricity when the wind is blowing. Offshore wind is one of the most expensive sources of electricity generation--more expensive than every except solar thermal. https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm Offshore wind is more than twice as expensive as onshore wind. The…

The reason that the US has cheap electricity is that our natural gas is incredibly inexpensive. That being said, yeah offshore wind power is very expensive, and probably not the best choice.

Re: Offshore Wind Farm to Power More Than One Million U.K. Homes

#24

Post by pjc50 »

scorpioxy wrote: post #8

Nice! Always good news when there's more investment in renewable energy sources. I only read the one in the guardian so it might be answered there but isn't higher transmission loss another con for offshore wind farms? How do they deal with that?

It's only a few percent. Of more concern is transmission line capacity, especially between Scotland and England. At the moment the biggest concentration of coal fired power stations is roughly central in Yorkshire (Drax, Ferrybridge etc: there is a point on the railway from which you can see five of them). If we move to more offshore wind we'll need to reroute the power lines.

Re: Offshore Wind Farm to Power More Than One Million U.K. Homes

#26

Post by smcl »

ascorbic wrote: post #22
smcl wrote: post #18

Just sharing for anyone interested - the UK National Grid has a nice (if a little antiquated looking) site which breaks down power generation by source http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

That's actually a third party site, that uses the National Grid's SOAP(!) API for the data.

Ohhh nice, I had no idea I never looked too closely at the domain before

Re: Offshore Wind Farm to Power More Than One Million U.K. Homes

#27

Post by pjc50 »

snowwindwaves wrote: post #17
toomuchtodo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make an excellent point. Wind and solar can capture more $fiat per MWh if they purchase Tesla stationary storage and can deliver firm dispatchability (that premium for reliable generation you mention). Natural gas will make a fine stopgap until we have enough battery storage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation

I am not aware of any market where generators are getting a premium for being dispatchable. I would be very interested in knowing what the value is. Certainly some markets have prices that vary through the day to give generators the incentive to generate when power is needed most if they have that flexibility.

The UK system has a "capacity auction", separate from the spot price, which covers dispatchable generation.

"Through the auction, government has procured 49.26GW of capacity at a clearing price of £19.40kW" (second link). Note units are kW not MWh.

http://www.nationalgridconnecting.com/keeping-the-lights-on/

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-first-ever-capacity-m...

Re: Offshore Wind Farm to Power More Than One Million U.K. Homes

#28

Post by arm85 »

barney54 wrote: post #13

The title of the WSJ article is misleading. An offshore wind farm does not power more than 1 million homes, unless you only want electricity when the wind is blowing. Offshore wind is one of the most expensive sources of electricity generation--more expensive than every except solar thermal. https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm Offshore wind is more than twice as expensive as onshore wind. The…

Offshore wind power is also cheaper than tidal generators. Neither of your sources show that the reason our electricity rates are higher than the US rates, is due to offshore wind.

Re: Offshore Wind Farm to Power More Than One Million U.K. Homes

#29

Post by madaxe_again »

barney54 wrote: post #13

The title of the WSJ article is misleading. An offshore wind farm does not power more than 1 million homes, unless you only want electricity when the wind is blowing. Offshore wind is one of the most expensive sources of electricity generation--more expensive than every except solar thermal. https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm Offshore wind is more than twice as expensive as onshore wind. The…

Actually, it does, if you're using a chunk of your wind time power to pump water up a mountain for hydro storage generators, as happens here. it's almost always windy off the UK coast - most wind power is concentrated off north Wales, which is no coincidence, as snowdonia has several large capacity pumped storage systems.
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