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The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

archy.deberker.com

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Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#171

Post by blibble »

smcl wrote: post #142
blibble wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

since covid it has been essentially nationalised: the government took on the risk and any pnl the franchising sysem won't be coming back

I'm sure TransPennine Express and Avanti West Coast passengers would love that but it's not quite true (yet?)

it is true

TPE is still under covid arrangements and Avanti West Coast is under a new style management contract as I described above

switching out top level boss doesn't suddenly improve underlying problems with the service

in the UK this is almost always the infrastructure, which has been nationalised since 2002

the government (DfT) had more control over the railways under the franchising system than they had when BR existed

almost all of what the hated "train companies" consists of is putting a driver in the cab, the rest is down to the DfT

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#172

Post by midasuni »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #136
stdbrouw wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, that's not what the article is about. If more wind power gets built in Scotland to serve needs in England, then increasingly more of that output will have to be curtailed because we simply can't move the energy to where it needs to be, to the point where the only thing adding more wind farms would do is to provide a tad bit more energy when there's hardly any wind to distribute. In all other scenarios, having…

The article leaves an impression that curtailment is a problem that is costing us money. See most other comments here as evidence of that. I'm explicitly calling for more curtailment, because it isn't a problem and doesn't need to be solved. Burning fossil fuels is a problem to be solved. High electricity prices are a problem to be solved. Both of those problems can be solved by building more wind power , which almos…

How would building 100 times as much wind power in Scotland reduce gas usage in England/wales without building more north/south interconnects?

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#173

Post by sampo »

grey-area wrote: post #111
archydeb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is that a good idea? It doesn’t sound very sensible to price everything at the cost of the most expensive unit, why do they do that?

How would you decide, who has the right to pay at the cheap price, and who has to pay the expensive price?

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#174

Post by midasuni »

KaiserPro wrote: post #118
archydeb wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the brave! But seriously (author of article here) I think that agile tariffs and more demand flexibility are probably a big part of the solution

I have the luxury of a 13khw battery, so it might make sense. But I suspect that when I need to use the grid will be uber peak £1.04 per kwhr. Edit: for those who are curious, here is some data on prices over the last month: https://agileprices.co.uk/

I guess you can’t have two suppliers, one on a traditional fixed contract and one on the octopus stuff, and choose the best one

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#176

Post by blibble »

fmajid wrote: post #157
entropicgravity wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HVDC is now a thing. Collecting solar in Northern Austrialia and sending it to Singapore over a 3800km long transmission line. Under construction now.

There's this incredible project to build a 10GW solar farm in Morocco (1/3 of UK peak consumption) and bring the power to the UK via HVDC cable. Amazingly they estimate only 10% losses despite being over 3800km long: https://xlinks.co/morocco-uk-power-project/ Surely HVDC links between Scotland and England could be built? And then there are pumped hydropower storage project like this one with a proposed storage capac…

> Surely HVDC links between Scotland and England could be built?

why would this be necessary when the entirety of Great Britain is one synchronous grid?

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#177

Post by rr888 »

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.

Peak electricity usage is on the cold, frosty nights when there is no wind or sunshine.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#178

Post by blibble »

Scoundreller wrote: post #167
Reason077 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "just short the generator coils and you have a free brake" You'll soon end up with a burning/melted generator. > "pump some water in a loop" OK, but you're going to need huge pumps (1000+ MW!). Expensive. > "or discharge through some resistors" Again, you'll need extremely large resistors, and a way to dissipate an awful lot of heat. We're talking about a huge amount of energy here!

sadly, my searches for "gigawatt resistor" and "gigawatt electric load" have been fruitless.

try "reserve ultimate heat sink" instead of "gigawatt resistor"

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#179

Post by midasuni »

smcl wrote: post #142
blibble wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

since covid it has been essentially nationalised: the government took on the risk and any pnl the franchising sysem won't be coming back

I'm sure TransPennine Express and Avanti West Coast passengers would love that but it's not quite true (yet?)

Despite what corbynites tell you the problem has never been privatisation or the franchise system - certainly not the TOCs. Indeed the system has managed to take Marylebone and the Chiltern main line from near closure under government control to providing massive investment and high quality thanks to long term franchises. The competition has lowered prices dramatically for those that care (in 1990 a 3 hour return Manchester to london cost about 3 times the £45 price it does today, but today you also have the option of a 2 hour return on a faster service, the revenue of which subsidies the rest of the network), and has driven usage to record levels arresting massive declines under BR

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#180

Post by SamBam »

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…

I really feel like you misunderstood the article. Perhaps you went into it with a different assumption of what it was going to say.

The article is saying that if we built more transmission lines, or increased storage capacity, or had localized pricing, that more of the power generated would get used, and we wouldn't need to turn on the fossil-powered plants as much.

More wind wasted is precisely equal to more fossil fuel burnt right now.

Further, the article described why simply building more production doesn't solve things, because most of it would be built in Scotland, and we wouldn't be able to bring in any more power into the grid where it's needed then we do now.

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