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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

#31

Post by pydry »

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…

There hasn't been nearly enough done on demand shaping.

Rather than wondering how we can store all the excess capacity it's probably more cost effective to wonder how we can shift demand.

Aluminum smelters in Germany use gargantuan amounts of electricity, for instance, but they can use 3x as much on Friday when power is cheap than Monday when it's not with relative ease.

Using a powerwall to keep production steady would be a ridiculous waste of money.

Storage heaters need to make a comeback, as well.

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

#32

Post by ppf »

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.

That's not ideal, as it would eat through the battery's cycle life at a much quicker rate.

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

#33

Post by aclelland »

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.

I've seen this suggested often but I don't think I've ever seen any information about how it'd actually work in practise. Do the car companies actually want to do it, how is the car owner compensated for the battery wear and tear and who'd be in control of the management (government regulators, energy companies, car manufacturers).

Are there any examples of pilot schemes that have used cars in this way?

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

#34

Post by beaconstudios »

sefrost wrote: post #27
beaconstudios wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

oh I've heard about that one too actually - don't they suspend a large weight and use its potential energy as storage?

I'm a sucker for these back-to-basics engineering projects. High tech batteries be damned, let's just use potential energy for storage!

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

#35

Post by piokoch »

sandworm101 wrote: post #19
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…

>> Once this comes online, wind generation will often be over 100% of demand UK wide Which is exactly what I would expect from island nations. The UK has lots of coast, which means lots of wind. That is a resource to export. The cornerstone of free trade is that some things are worth more in some places and less in others. UK has lots of wind. Maybe they can trade that for imports of luxury goods from elsewhere. If o…

Yes, the point with selling electricity is that you need to guarantee that you will deliver some fixed amount of electricity. If you depend on wind power plants how this guarantee can be given? What if wind stops.

Maybe it would make sense to build huge bitcoin mining data centers and mine bitcoins in case of surplus. Hardly useful, but given current coins rush could be profitable. Better than paying producers for not producing energy.

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

#36

Post by ClumsyPilot »

sandworm101 wrote: post #19
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…

>> Once this comes online, wind generation will often be over 100% of demand UK wide Which is exactly what I would expect from island nations. The UK has lots of coast, which means lots of wind. That is a resource to export. The cornerstone of free trade is that some things are worth more in some places and less in others. UK has lots of wind. Maybe they can trade that for imports of luxury goods from elsewhere. If o…

"Maybe Canada needs power."

Maybe mars needs power, but neither of them is going to get any of it from britain.

Laws of physics take precedence over 'free trade'

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

#37

Post by pojzon »

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…

Serious question, why not simply stop generating energy by wind istead of stopping nuclear stallar ?

You „can” stop generating power using wind.

Get up to 30% from nuclear and rest from automated wind farms.

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

#38

Post by martinald »

sandworm101 wrote: post #19
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…

>> Once this comes online, wind generation will often be over 100% of demand UK wide Which is exactly what I would expect from island nations. The UK has lots of coast, which means lots of wind. That is a resource to export. The cornerstone of free trade is that some things are worth more in some places and less in others. UK has lots of wind. Maybe they can trade that for imports of luxury goods from elsewhere. If o…

That's what I said though. There is 5GW of HVDC import/export capacity to Europe. By 2025 maybe 10GW. These places are likely to be windy when we are windy, so they won't want the power.

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

#39

Post by detritus »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #36
sandworm101 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Once this comes online, wind generation will often be over 100% of demand UK wide Which is exactly what I would expect from island nations. The UK has lots of coast, which means lots of wind. That is a resource to export. The cornerstone of free trade is that some things are worth more in some places and less in others. UK has lots of wind. Maybe they can trade that for imports of luxury goods from elsewhere. If o…

"Maybe Canada needs power." Maybe mars needs power, but neither of them is going to get any of it from britain. Laws of physics take precedence over 'free trade'

I think OP was being quite dry with those two last lines. At least, that's what I upvoted them for.

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

#40

Post by martinald »

aclelland wrote: post #33
IAmEveryone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've seen this suggested often but I don't think I've ever seen any information about how it'd actually work in practise. Do the car companies actually want to do it, how is the car owner compensated for the battery wear and tear and who'd be in control of the management (government regulators, energy companies, car manufacturers). Are there any examples of pilot schemes that have used cars in this way?

It isn't the silver bullet some people say it is. Firstly, as others mentioned it really hammers the battery life. Secondly, it requires cars not being full so they can be topped up, which means less range.

Not to mention I don't think the local grid to houses can support loads of cars suddenly getting charged at once, which is what you want for big wind spikes.

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