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The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

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Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#61

Post by tablarasa »

pleb_nz wrote: post #6

So does NZ.... Man this place blows especially in Canterbury where I am. Nearly every single day it's windy enough that it annoys and sometimes ruins being outside. I must say 3 to 4 times a week 'f** this windy hole' to someone. Sitting in the roaring 40s trade winds why doesnt NZ have more wind generation is baffling.

Not to be pedantic, but the roaring 40s are by definition not the trade winds. The trade winds are easterlies- they originate from the east and blow towards the west. The "roaring 40s" are westerlies, flowing in the opposite direction and categorically not the trades. Incidentally, NZ is an amazing place to take up wind sports, so I'm with you on the larger point.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#62

Post by jonatron »

InCityDreams wrote: post #51
jonatron wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like negative prices, I got paid to heat my hot water tank and have underfloor heating on last night for 1.5 hours.

Paid for 1.5 hours underfloor, or just on for 1.5? *also where you are would be interesting. There's a big difference say between Scotland and Croatia.

I'm in London, electric prices last night: https://nitter.nl/pic/orig/media%2FFmNAukVXgAEF6Ar.jpg

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#63

Post by mikaeluman »

mariambarouma wrote: post #19

this is a remarkable achievement in itself. Years ago, renewables opponents kept making baseless claims that no grid would be stable with large amounts of renewables. It's now end of 2022 and for this year we've seen on multiple occasions power grids running perfectly fine on very large amounts of renewables with very little gas. Success, I guess.

Did you look at the situation in Germany? The foremost country on renewables...

And brown coal.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#64

Post by ZeroGravitas »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #48
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #4

Curtailment, like negative prices, seems like something that it is hard for people to have constructive conversations about. Probably the cheapest and best option is to build more wind and not care too much if it increases curtailment. Yes, all the things mentioned should be looked into and done when it makes financial sense but "wasting wind" is much less a thing to worry about than "burning gas", and I'd rather was…

> I'd rather waste wind than waste money. How is paying wind farms hundreds of millions of pounds to turn off wind generation not wasting money?

Because, overall the wind power is the cheapest energy source available, and has been for a decade (recently overtaken by solar in some markets).

Something that is cheap can have some percent wasted and still be cheaper overall than more expensive options.

Focussing only on the waste without that bigger context is at best a false economy, at worst fossil fuel promoting propaganda.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#66

Post by tomatocracy »

jamil7 wrote: post #50
redleader55 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Balancing a nationwide power grid is very complex. Some energy sources can be started and stopped instantly, but are limited - water. Others are plentiful, but unpredictable - wind. Others are predictable, but take a long time to start and stop - gas, coal(several hours), nuclear(1 day to start, fast to stop, but very expensive). A balanced grid will need all of them, will need them in quantities which can cover faul…

I always thought gas was quite quick to start which made it a good complement to renewables.

The quickest gas generation (gas engines) can go from cold start to fully ramped up in 4-5 minutes. A typical OCGT/CCGT is a bit slower and has a higher start cost (and a CCGT won't reach peak efficiency for hours). Pumped storage hydro takes 20 seconds or so.

However, turning generation on or off isn't the only way the grid is balanced in the short term - turning up/down tends to be a big part of it too and most conventional generation can do that faster (sometimes a lot faster) than startup/shutdown.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#67

Post by ta545 »

archydeb wrote: post #10
nateguchi wrote: post #3

One thing that I find hard to understand is how the electricity prices in the UK have gone up so dramatically (blaming gas prices) when a large amount of the electricity is not generated from gas. Is the price being artificially inflated?

Author of the article here Electricity prices in the UK (and most other places) are set by the marginal unit, which is the most expensive unit that needs to be turned on to meet demand. All other generation for that time period gets paid the same price. The marginal unit in the UK is usually gas, hence the sensitivity to gas prices

My understanding is most wind was bought at a guarenteed price by the government at the time of construction, so a wind farm producing 1MWh gets paid say £40 regardless of the cost of electricity on the grid - even if marginal cost was £20/MWh

As users are then paying £90/MWh for gas, does the excess £50 go to the government or to the wind far owner?

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#68

Post by Manuel_D »

nateguchi wrote: post #3

One thing that I find hard to understand is how the electricity prices in the UK have gone up so dramatically (blaming gas prices) when a large amount of the electricity is not generated from gas. Is the price being artificially inflated?

There's a couple reasons. A small amount of electricity may be generated from gas, but that small amount is often crucial and in a lot of demand. Furthermore, peaker plants will produce less and less electricity as more renewables reduced their duty cycle. But the overhead cost of maintenance remains: reducing a gas plant from running 10 hours a day to 2 hours a day does not result in a 5x reduction of cost.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#69

Post by hedora »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #27
SamBam wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand. Sure, letting turbines spin and not use the power, while burning extra gas, isn't worse for the environment than just burning gas in the first place (though it's significantly more expensive to triple-pay for the energy), but it's better is to turn that unused power into used power. The article wasn't decrying the existence of excess wind power, it was trying to describe the best solutions…

The article says we pay three times, curtail wind and then burn gas. Which is bad. But all the solutions are aimed at reducing the curtailment of wind. Rather than reducing the gas burnt. If the money saved by building more wind (or solar) and not having to burn gas saves more money then who cares if more wind is "wasted"? It would be nice to use every last drop, but I dont want to actually spend money to achieve tha…

The article is saying that more transmission lines were needed to avoid wasting 9b pounds of electricity last year. An already approved grid upgrade will cost 4b pounds, and would mostly be adequate.

Something had to get built first, and I guess they picked the wind turbines. This seems like everything working as intended to me.

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