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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

#71

Post by lizknope »

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 thought Scotland DID have a large oil sector.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_oil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Scotland%27s_oil

You can argue whether it is Scotland's or the UK's but I live in the US and it is up to Scotland and the UK to sort out independence and their place in the EU.

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

#72

Post by dmitri1981 »

pydry wrote: post #45
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…

>There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices It seems like an opportunity more than a crisis to me. There are tons of potential applications for "free" electricity. * Storage heating/cooling that's basically free * Manufacturing carbon neutral jet fuel * Cheaper aluminium production It could also lead to onshoring of certain industries which previously moved to locales with access to cheap…

From what I understand that does not really work. For example, you can't have jet fuel manufacturing based on negative prices, because you need to have high utilisation rate for manufacturing equipment itself. It's not economically viable to have that equipment sitting idle during times of normal electricity prices.

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

#73

Post by tda »

pydry wrote: post #31
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…

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 wo…

I completely agree. This is a bit of a process though, look at how Texans with variable rates responded to extremely high (90 times normal rate) prices: some just said f*ck it and managed to use 10-20K USD electricity in a few days.

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

#74

Post by Glench »

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.

A few people in this thread are talking about electric heating being awful. And yeah, I think traditional electric resistance heating is expensive and not very high quality, but modern electric heat pumps are one of the most efficient forms of space heating we have, they can be run in reverse to cool houses too, and they increase comfort a lot — many systems allow you to have room-by-room control of the temperature. Plus they're used everywhere in Asia already.

Here's an example of someone's experience installing and using a "mini-split" heat pump for their house: https://www.sustainablelafayette.org/single-post/home-electr...

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

#75

Post by Aachen »

kjakm wrote: post #14

They also make £0.5-1bn in annual revenue from North Sea oil. It's an achievement for sure but it's like the Marlboro Man boasting he's quit smoking while still selling cigarettes to everyone else.

I'm not sure how valid an argument that is. If the Scotts didn't sell it, consumers would just buy it elsewhere. As non-fossil picks up, the demand and profit will just go down. Perhaps it's actually better to have the Scotts pump it up and transport the products to UK houses than getting it from across the planet. And oil is more than something you burn: the plastic itself is actually a carbon store (less CO2 to go in the air), we just have a problem keeping it out of nature and the production process needs electrification iirc (maybe there are also GHG byproducts, I don't recall atm).

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

#76

Post by adwn »

bilekas wrote: post #69
wcoenen wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might work, but it's not necessarily going to be very profitable. The equipment that sits around waiting for low or negative electricity prices represents locked up capital, and ongoing maintenance and depreciation costs. For the same reason, it's not a good idea to have bitcoin mining equipment sitting around waiting for cheap electricity. The hardware becomes obsolete very quickly, so there's only limited time t…

> But it's not necessarily going to be very profitable. Not paying for electricity is profitable by default.. Having a reserve for the long term that's environmentally friendly, its a benefit.. Investing in infrastructure that doesn't depend on finite fossil fuels is profitable.. So I have no idea what you're talking about. > For the same reason, it's not a good idea to have bitcoin mining equipment sitting around wa…

> So I have no idea what you're talking about.

Then you should also read the sentence directly after the one you quoted, in which it's explained:

> > The equipment that sits around waiting for low or negative electricity prices represents locked up capital, and ongoing maintenance and depreciation costs.

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

#77

Post by captainmuon »

pydry wrote: post #45
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…

>There is an increasing crisis in the UK of negative electricity prices It seems like an opportunity more than a crisis to me. There are tons of potential applications for "free" electricity. * Storage heating/cooling that's basically free * Manufacturing carbon neutral jet fuel * Cheaper aluminium production It could also lead to onshoring of certain industries which previously moved to locales with access to cheap…

This. Transition to renewables is not just about replacing power plants, it is about changing demand structure.

Negative prices are an incentive to build power buffers, or to use power when it is plenty. You can even do crazy things like make steel.

One funny side effect that might happen is that for individuals, power will not become more expensive from renewable energy, but rather cheaper - so cheap that the metering it is more expensive than the electricity, so there will be flatrates (up to a certain usage). The reason is that personal usage is just a drop in the ocean compared to all the cars and all the other things that now run on fossil.

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

#78

Post by [deleted] »

martinald wrote: post #47
pojzon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course, but the government has commited prices (>£100/MWh) for wind. You have to pay them at least that to compensate, otherwise they won't stop producing. Which is going to get extremely expensive quickly.

[deleted]

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

#79

Post by jonplackett »

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'

This was a joke about the UK not getting a good brexit deal and instead trying to get a deal like Canada, and therefore not being able to sell its excess electricity to somewhere closer, like the EU.

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

#80

Post by Aachen »

einpoklum wrote: post #9

Not to belittle this achievement, but as one can note in the article itself this is the _electricity_ demand, not overall _energy_ demand. Electricity is under 25% of Scotland's energy demand (75% is just non-electric heating + transportation). Also, I think Scotland has it easier than other places due to the low(ish) population density, which makes wind-farming less problematic. And being on an island in windy seas.

Still, it's worth applauding. Though you're very right that the layman reader will see this as "we're almost there" whereas getting total electricity production to match demand on average is really only the first few percent of the work ahead.
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