Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GB National Grid Status

gridwatch.templar.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 93 posts

Re: GB National Grid Status

#11

Post by pydry »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #4

Ok, I must have missed this but ... Wind produces 16% of UK electricity, and nuclear produces 13% .... Ok wow. I assumed solar would be the thing that takes over, and In Spain that's probably true. But here it seems wind is going to be a win. Anyway I still need to work out how to spend my declining years - how to write software for renewable energy farms ... wind or solar.

Ideally you'd have a mix since they anticorrelate. If it's generally sunny when there's little wind and windy when cloudy why wouldnt you?

(this is one reason why the amount of storage required for an all solar/wind grid is usually vastly overestimated).

Re: GB National Grid Status

#12

Post by snickmy »

pydry wrote: post #11
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #4

Ok, I must have missed this but ... Wind produces 16% of UK electricity, and nuclear produces 13% .... Ok wow. I assumed solar would be the thing that takes over, and In Spain that's probably true. But here it seems wind is going to be a win. Anyway I still need to work out how to spend my declining years - how to write software for renewable energy farms ... wind or solar.

Ideally you'd have a mix since they anticorrelate. If it's generally sunny when there's little wind and windy when cloudy why wouldnt you? (this is one reason why the amount of storage required for an all solar/wind grid is usually vastly overestimated).

I'm not sure the anticorrleation has ever been proved. While it seems logical, the cloudy / stormy weather that sometime we experience in UK is too harsh for wind farms

Re: GB National Grid Status

#13

Post by cjrp »

snickmy wrote: post #8
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #4

Ok, I must have missed this but ... Wind produces 16% of UK electricity, and nuclear produces 13% .... Ok wow. I assumed solar would be the thing that takes over, and In Spain that's probably true. But here it seems wind is going to be a win. Anyway I still need to work out how to spend my declining years - how to write software for renewable energy farms ... wind or solar.

In UK wind is actually broadcasted to take over. After the new line connecting with Norway (for hydro storage) the majority of investments are going into wind. On Nuclear, I think right now there is 1 big nuclear plan offline for maintenance so there might be some of that too. In the Mediterranean area, while there is more prevalence of solar, it's not a clear winner either. For instance in Italy there is quite an ag…

I read/heard somewhere that if the Republic of Ireland built all of their potential offshore wind-farms, it could power the country and generate a surplus for export. Obviously need to solve the storage issue or rely on interconnects for when the wind isn't blowing/blows too hard.

Re: GB National Grid Status

#16

Post by magnetic-recoil »

snickmy wrote: post #12
pydry wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally you'd have a mix since they anticorrelate. If it's generally sunny when there's little wind and windy when cloudy why wouldnt you? (this is one reason why the amount of storage required for an all solar/wind grid is usually vastly overestimated).

I'm not sure the anticorrleation has ever been proved. While it seems logical, the cloudy / stormy weather that sometime we experience in UK is too harsh for wind farms

Named storms often generate records for wind power generation. Even if a few turbines in the middle of the storm have to turn off, the rest of the country still gets lots more wind.

If you look at graphs of the wind and solar production in winter vs summer, the correlation is obvious. On a day-to-day basis, much less so, but on average low wind does tend to come along with higher sun.

Re: GB National Grid Status

#17

Post by pydry »

DrScientist wrote: post #7
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #4

Ok, I must have missed this but ... Wind produces 16% of UK electricity, and nuclear produces 13% .... Ok wow. I assumed solar would be the thing that takes over, and In Spain that's probably true. But here it seems wind is going to be a win. Anyway I still need to work out how to spend my declining years - how to write software for renewable energy farms ... wind or solar.

The UK is one of the best positioned countries in the world in terms of natural wind resource. This is because large parts of the north sea are shallow/have banks that very large offshore wind farms can be built on. No terrain to get in the way, no people to object about it being close to their house. Scotland is also windy and not that populated and so has quite a few onshore farms. Eg see. https://orsted.com/en/med…

>No people to object about it

I'm not sure whether this MP was in the pocket of gas, coal or nuclear interests or whatever but he successfully rounded up residents to NIMBY what would have been the biggest wind farm to date even though it would have barely have been visible.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navitus_Bay_wind_farm

I was bitter before. Doubly so now electricity prices are through the roof.

Re: GB National Grid Status

#18

Post by fredley »

RyanShook wrote: post #14

Is wind an efficient way to produce electricity? Would we be producing wind turbines if there were 0 subsidies?

Most windpower in the UK is offshore, and yes it's a great way to produce electricity, particularly here!

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

Re: GB National Grid Status

#19

Post by pjc50 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #4

Ok, I must have missed this but ... Wind produces 16% of UK electricity, and nuclear produces 13% .... Ok wow. I assumed solar would be the thing that takes over, and In Spain that's probably true. But here it seems wind is going to be a win. Anyway I still need to work out how to spend my declining years - how to write software for renewable energy farms ... wind or solar.

Wind is huge, while the last nuclear plant completed in the UK was in 1995. https://www.imeche.org/policy-and-press/from-our-perspective...

> how to write software for renewable energy farms ... wind or solar.

Basically this means working for Siemens. I don't think they have a huge number of software engineers, it's mostly MechE.

Re: GB National Grid Status

#20

Post by magnetic-recoil »

RyanShook wrote: post #14

Is wind an efficient way to produce electricity? Would we be producing wind turbines if there were 0 subsidies?

Offshore wind in the UK currently uses the "Contracts for Difference" payment mechanism. Operators bid to build turbines, and the best value operators get assigned areas of the sea. Then, they receive a fixed price from consumers for any electricity they generate (effectively, but there's market mechanisms in there that complicate the accounting).

Initially, this was much more expensive than fossil electricity, but the price of turbines has dropped and the price of fossil electricity has grown, so now existing wind turbines are lowering the price consumers pay for electricity.

New wind farms have achieved CfD rates of less than £0.04 per kWh, which is not a subsidy for the wind farm operators, but rather a subsidy for electricity consumers as this electricity is far cheaper than market rates.

Post reply on HN