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

The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

archy.deberker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 396 posts

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#101

Post by ajsnigrutin »

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…

You have two problems:

1) a lot of wind means there's too much power... that has to be used somewhere, that's why you have negative prices, to get someone to take that power off the grid and use it for something, sometimes useless, and someone has to pay for that

2) no wind means you still need gas, hydro, nuclear etc. powerplants, because you need power even when there is no wind and sun, so you need all the power generating capacity covered even without wind

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#102

Post by olivermarks »

ta545 wrote: post #71
londons_explore wrote: post #29

If the UK were ruled, and all decisions made, by a benevolent dictator, then the solution to this problem is easy. Consider every option of where to build the wind turbines, and where to build power cables, add up the cost of every option, and choose the cheapest (environmentally and/or monetarily) that gives everyone the power they need. An ideal market would produce the exact same result right? Well not quite... An…

Well there was a benevolent dictator in the recent past (upto 1995), when the grid was publicly owned.

Agree, but there have been some very expensive local authority disasters around solar.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/the-chauffeur-the-leaked-tape-an...

Publicly owned old technology is very different to attempts to publicly develop next generation power, which tends to require brave entrepreneurs historically.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#103

Post by Dma54rhs »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #45

California is facing a similar issue dealing with its solar duck curve[1], where prices essentially go negative during periods of peak solar generation. As far as I know residential PG&E customers can't buy energy in spot market prices, or else there could be some innovative arbitrage opportunities, like only running bitcoin miners when power is cheap. 1. https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-..…

Spot prices are the best in order to save the planet so to speak. People will waste energy when it's cheap aka pay with their wallets. A lot of EU household's pays market price for the electricity.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#104

Post by Reason077 »

redleader55 wrote: post #39
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…

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…

> "(a nuclear reactor makes 700-800 MW)"

1.6 GW per reactor for the latest ones under construction (Hinkley Point C) and in development (Sizewell C). Each site has 2 reactors for a total of 2 x 2 x 1.6 GW = 6.4 GW.

Although this is largely just replacing the UK's existing fleet of reactors, almost all of which will have shut down by the time Hinkley Point C comes online. Of the current 5 operating UK nuclear power stations, only Sizewell B is scheduled to operate beyond 2028.

> "They will need them built in the right place, because while more power cables can be built, you can't transfer a lot of power on very long distances"

One of the reasons offshore wind has been so economic & successful in the UK is they can usually plug in to existing, redundant transmission lines left behind by decommissioned coal and nuclear power stations, which are often on the coast. It's relatively cheap to connect to the grid when the infrastructure is already there waiting: you just need to build the cables from the turbines to the shore.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#105

Post by KaiserPro »

jonatron wrote: post #62
InCityDreams wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

which supplier are you with?

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#106

Post by KaiserPro »

londons_explore wrote: post #77

So why are these undersea cables so expensive? Lets do a little Math... A cable that moves 4GW of electricity 450 km is say +-1 million volts and 2000 amps. Assuming we want no more than 3% losses in the cable at full load, then each conductor needs to be 40mm diameter aluminium, at a total material cost of $3.6M To insulate a 1 million volt cable, we need 100mm of PVC - total cost $60M. And we'll obviously need a fe…

and the control hardware. The things that stepup/down are not cheap.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#107

Post by z991 »

londons_explore wrote: post #77

So why are these undersea cables so expensive? Lets do a little Math... A cable that moves 4GW of electricity 450 km is say +-1 million volts and 2000 amps. Assuming we want no more than 3% losses in the cable at full load, then each conductor needs to be 40mm diameter aluminium, at a total material cost of $3.6M To insulate a 1 million volt cable, we need 100mm of PVC - total cost $60M. And we'll obviously need a fe…

> and the cost to get it into place...

Your comment reminded me of "No Time on Our Side," a book about a submersible laying cable near the UK that sunk after a hatch failed during recovery operations. The author (who was a pilot in the submersible) details the incredible rescue effort to bring them back to the surface alive over a period of about 3 days.

A wonderful book and also one that made me appreciate how hard it is to lay cable (in some places).

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#108

Post by jonatron »

KaiserPro wrote: post #105
jonatron wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

which supplier are you with?

Octopus energy, on the agile octopus tariff: https://octopus.energy/agile/

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#109

Post by _visgean »

redleader55 wrote: post #39
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…

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…

> 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).

The start time is long but that does not say much about the overall operations.

> Modern nuclear plants with light water reactors are designed to have maneuvering capabilities in the 30-100% range with 5%/minute slope, up to 140 MW/minute

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant

and https://thundersaidenergy.com/downloads/power-plants-cold-st...

> In France, with an average of 2 reactors out of 3 available for load variations, the overall power adjustment capacity of the nuclear fleet equates to 21,000 MW (i.e. equivalent to the output of 21 reactors) in less than 30 minutes.

https://www.powermag.com/flexible-operation-of-nuclear-power...

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#110

Post by pornel »

user568439 wrote: post #85

Seems like factoring the location is the easiest solution. If energy were much cheaper in Scotland, some factories would move there, more people would move there as well and you would not need to transport so much energy across the country. But I guess there are more things to consider than the energy in that decision.

I'd also love to have real-time pricing as an option on the consumption side.

It's so dumb that we have "smart" fridges that can tweet, but not smart to avoid their energy use during peak hours. It's a thermal battery!

Post reply on HN