Agreed. But note that a lot of the local solar capacity doesn't actually show up on the grid production numbers. ie if you have a solar panel on your roof and mostly use it to reduce the power you take from the grid, all you will see in the national numbers is lower demand, not increased production.
Loads of on-shore wind is likewise not metered. If you own a hill top farm, especially if you have industrial electricity loads (e.g. milking cows, lighting barns full of hens) it makes loads of sense to buy a modest turbine and install it on a suitable rise, it won't pay for itself over night but it's very competitive with other farm investments and not correlated. If electricity prices go up the turbine is better v…
That seems very large - I can’t imagine plain farm owners could reach that kind of wind capacity, are you sure that’s accurate?
>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.
Scotland has one of the biggest gas fields in Europe, why should it rely on ugly and unreliable Wind turbines? Esp Global Warming probably makes Scotland's climate more comfortable, and its proximity to Greenland means sea levels might even fall.
Texas and GB seem to have similar levels of demand, but Texas seems to have quite a bit more wind/solar. ERCOT #s: https://p.datadoghq.com/sb/5c2fc00be-393be929c9c55c3b80b557d...
An enormously expansive area nearly 3 times the area, mostly full of cheap land a full 20 degrees of latitude further south isn't very surprising to have more solar and the continental-ocean boundary generates powerful midday wind, exactly when you want it.
For all the coal rolling, capital knows when there's a good deal going.
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…
The Tories said no to onshore wind, now solar is getting really cheap they are banning the building of solar on most farms (by reclassifying low quality land as higher quality land that must be used for food). At the same time they are thinking about allowing wind on land again (probably because it will no longer be the cheaper option). Given their links to fossil fuel interests it comes across as delaying tactics.
It's obvious why the Tories are thinking about allowing onshore wind again: a huge chunk of the mainstream media, including the BBC, have been pushing the idea that it's the superior option which the Tories are just ignoring because they're conspiring with fossil fuel companies to screw us. At this point it's probably not politically viable not to allow it even though it makes little sense. The BBC's been doing things like describing them as the "cheap, reliable" option every time they talk about the Torie sblocking onshore wind and omitting the fact that they're basically worse on both counts than the offshore wind the UK is building these days, repeating any claims the leader of the opposition makes on the topic verbatim and unchallenged, and even outright describing one of its big fundamental disadvantages as nonsense.
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…
there is a twitter account @UK_WindEnergy[1] that posts the percentage of total power on the UK National Grid that is being generated by wind about once an hour, and then once a day a daily wind % totals. it doesn't happen very often, but i have seen upwards of 60%! very heartening.
> Electricity prices would still be through the roof. The prices are all set on the international markets. Only to the extent that electricity can be imported and exported via international connectors, which are of course limited in their capacity. Prices are not set internationally, but domestically. Energy is not a tangible, stored commodity like coal which is internationally priced. If what you said was true then…
Gas prices are a big component of electricity prices at the moment and they are mostly imported.
There's actually a similar but much more widespread talking point about gas, claiming the price of that is set on the international market and therefore the UK producing more gas locally would not help reduce prices. That should come with the exact same caveats (only to the extent that it can be imported and exported, American prices are much cheaper for Europe's because of this, and that's likely a big reason why electricity prices are much lower there) but the mainstream media unfortunately ignores them.
I am Scottish and I would be proud if all our energy needs were met by non-polluting and abundant resources such as wind and tide. Even if you didn’t believe in man-made global warming, surely the idea of cleaner Scottish air would be a bonus.
They already are. Scotland has hit 100% renewable energy already on a few days.
A GitHub issue was filed regarding this: https://github.com/electricitymaps/electricitymaps-contrib/i...
Well, that issue explains a lot. The data source went missing, so the website just made up some data and used that instead! That whole website is a nonsense, what's the point in visualising imaginary data and pretending it's real...
Totally agreed. May be the top link change to non-lying site so not to affect all the good works of others.
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 t…
Adding to that, they are now looking at local hydrogen production from wind excess. While not nearly efficient as using the electricity directly, it's more efficient than throwing it away. Also the offshore farms sit in a pool of the raw material ( water ).
They produce hydrogen from sea water? I had assumed fresh water sources, but I suppose salt water on an absolute scale is not that more loaded with particulates than anything else.
Gas prices are a big component of electricity prices at the moment and they are mostly imported.
There's actually a similar but much more widespread talking point about gas, claiming the price of that is set on the international market and therefore the UK producing more gas locally would not help reduce prices. That should come with the exact same caveats (only to the extent that it can be imported and exported, American prices are much cheaper for Europe's because of this, and that's likely a big reason why el…
There is also a caveat that any cost savings from locality may be wiped out by higher costs in other areas. It may well be cheaper to invest in the US or Middle East and import as LPG. Transport costs are only one factor. And it is not like domestic supply would have no transport costs either. Running pipelines through rural England to fracking sites is not exactly cheap.