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Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

bbc.com

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Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#21

Post by realreality »

martinald wrote: post #11

Really misleading article IMO. What this actually means is Scotland sometimes generated 200-300%+ of its demand from wind (and "exported" the rest), and sometimes low %age points and used other sources/imports. It makes it sound like Scotland is wind powered 97% of the time (only 3% more to go!), which is very different. There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices (typically when it is sunn…

If the UK commits to their plan to convert everyone to heat pumps and electric cars, that'll take care of any excess renewable capacity. In fact, they'll be in an impossibly large energy deficit...

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#22

Post by mytailorisrich »

martinald wrote: post #11

Really misleading article IMO. What this actually means is Scotland sometimes generated 200-300%+ of its demand from wind (and "exported" the rest), and sometimes low %age points and used other sources/imports. It makes it sound like Scotland is wind powered 97% of the time (only 3% more to go!), which is very different. There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices (typically when it is sunn…

One thing to also keep in mind is that it is forecast that the UK's electricity production needs to increase by 70% by 2050 just to meet demand from electric vehicles. It is said to be equivalent to 6 extra nuclear plants. [1]

As the government announced that sales of new ICE vehicles will be banned in only 9 years and most car manufacturers start unveiling their EV range in earnest I think we're going to see the shift to EV happen this decade. If so extra electricity production needs to happen now.

[1] https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-much-power-will-uk...

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#23

Post by neom »

jariel wrote: post #15
neom wrote: post #5

"Not only do renewables reduce the impact of our electricity use on the climate, they are also generating jobs and income for communities around the country." I wish everyone thought that way, all I hear in Canada is "oh the jobs, oh the jobs, what will happen to the jobs...???"

Because Canada has a massive Oil sector, Scotland doesn't so much - and with a tinge of hypocrisy they want a bigger share of the revenue proceeds from North Sea Oil. Canada's economic influence in the world is fairly strongly tied to Oil to the point where over the last 30 years it's correlated with the buying power of the dollar, and certainly the economic veracity of most Alberta. It also fundamentally alters the…

I completely agree with everything you're saying, and I also agree it's not easy to switch the components of the economy out willy nilly (oil for solar or wind farms, for example) - but I do believe if we don't make a concerted effort to finish a shift of phasing out our reliance on oil and its use as our international leverage, we're going to be in a world of trouble in 40 or so years.

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#24

Post by beaconstudios »

aclelland wrote: post #18
martinald wrote: post #11

Really misleading article IMO. What this actually means is Scotland sometimes generated 200-300%+ of its demand from wind (and "exported" the rest), and sometimes low %age points and used other sources/imports. It makes it sound like Scotland is wind powered 97% of the time (only 3% more to go!), which is very different. There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices (typically when it is sunn…

Grid storage is such an interesting topic to me. We are all used to energy storage at a small scale (phone batteries, even electric cars) but the challenges of needing to store such vast amounts of energy seems like an almost impossible task, even the large Tesla battery in AU only seems to be used to help smooth the grid supply. It seems that the Scottish landscape might lend itself to more Hydro but that'll be an u…

one of the most interesting strategies for grid storage I've seen is just pumping water up a hill. Then, when you want to get the energy back, just let it flow back down through turbines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit...

One of the potential strategies for dealing with grid storage in Europe is to turn Norway into a battery:

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/experts-respond...

Very neat engineering.

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#25

Post by IAmEveryone »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #8
qwerty456127 wrote: post #2

How much do they pay? I've heard electricity is quite expensive in the UK so surviving a winter can be hard.

For the most part electricity isn't used for heating in the UK, generally gas central heating is preferred. There are obviously some exceptions, houses built in the 70s with electric ceiling heating (this is as bad is it sounds) or electric storage heaters.

Electric heating in a country like Scotland is simply unconscionable. There is natural gas infrastructure. And where it’s not, even oil is better than electricity.

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#26

Post by IAmEveryone »

martinald wrote: post #11

Really misleading article IMO. What this actually means is Scotland sometimes generated 200-300%+ of its demand from wind (and "exported" the rest), and sometimes low %age points and used other sources/imports. It makes it sound like Scotland is wind powered 97% of the time (only 3% more to go!), which is very different. There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices (typically when it is sunn…

What’s with the quotes around “exported”? Excess power is exported, which happens to be one way to manage it, reducing the need for storage.

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#27

Post by sefrost »

beaconstudios wrote: post #24
aclelland wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grid storage is such an interesting topic to me. We are all used to energy storage at a small scale (phone batteries, even electric cars) but the challenges of needing to store such vast amounts of energy seems like an almost impossible task, even the large Tesla battery in AU only seems to be used to help smooth the grid supply. It seems that the Scottish landscape might lend itself to more Hydro but that'll be an u…

one of the most interesting strategies for grid storage I've seen is just pumping water up a hill. Then, when you want to get the energy back, just let it flow back down through turbines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit... One of the potential strategies for dealing with grid storage in Europe is to turn Norway into a battery: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/experts-respond..…

I read about a similar idea using abandoned mine shafts.

https://www.theengineer.co.uk/abandoned-mine-shafts-energy-s...

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#28

Post by paul_f »

beaconstudios wrote: post #24
aclelland wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grid storage is such an interesting topic to me. We are all used to energy storage at a small scale (phone batteries, even electric cars) but the challenges of needing to store such vast amounts of energy seems like an almost impossible task, even the large Tesla battery in AU only seems to be used to help smooth the grid supply. It seems that the Scottish landscape might lend itself to more Hydro but that'll be an u…

one of the most interesting strategies for grid storage I've seen is just pumping water up a hill. Then, when you want to get the energy back, just let it flow back down through turbines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit... One of the potential strategies for dealing with grid storage in Europe is to turn Norway into a battery: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/experts-respond..…

In theory. Turns lout building pumped hydro is really hard. Finding suitable locations is a big challenge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSgd-QhLHRI&ab_channel=RealE...

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#29

Post by AdmiralGinge »

eldaisfish wrote: post #13
martinald wrote: post #11

Really misleading article IMO. What this actually means is Scotland sometimes generated 200-300%+ of its demand from wind (and "exported" the rest), and sometimes low %age points and used other sources/imports. It makes it sound like Scotland is wind powered 97% of the time (only 3% more to go!), which is very different. There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices (typically when it is sunn…

spot on. Every time this comes up, it's the same BS. The actual figure for the UK grid (there is no separate Scotland grid) is just over 40% of net electrical energy demand supplied by renewable sources. If Scotland was severed from the grid it would require fossil fuels and nuclear just like the rest of the UK. The 97% figure is arrived at by taking British renewable energy that happens to be in Scotland and subtrac…

This is something that never seems to come up in discussions on Scottish independence interestingly enough. I guess it'd be like Ireland and Northern Ireland where both jurisdictions use a common electricity market, unless politicians on either side throw their toys out of the pram which is highly likely in my opinion.

Re: Equivalent of 97% of Scotland’s 2020 electricity consumption was from renewables

#30

Post by eldaisfish »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #20
aclelland wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grid storage is such an interesting topic to me. We are all used to energy storage at a small scale (phone batteries, even electric cars) but the challenges of needing to store such vast amounts of energy seems like an almost impossible task, even the large Tesla battery in AU only seems to be used to help smooth the grid supply. It seems that the Scottish landscape might lend itself to more Hydro but that'll be an u…

Electric cars are perfect for this. Connect them to the grid and the internet, and they’ll charge but also feed back as needed.

Have you heard of Tesla's batter in south Australia? It was recently expanded to 193 MWh. Care to guess how long it'll run at full power? Around 60-100 minutes. At its rated power of 100 MW, it can power around 25% of South Australia's lowest demand. That's it. At peak demand, the fraction is lower still.

Cars have a fraction of the energy storage capacity of a single battery site and not all cars are connected to the grid at all times and neither will all their stored energy be usable.

Batteries aren't the silver bullet many imaging them to be. The real solution is expanding transmission capacity, building more renewables and supplementing that by nuclear or hydro.

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