301–310 of 396 posts
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HVDC links are more efficient than terrestrial AC transmission lines over long distances.
Also a lot more expensive. The UK is not big enough for it to make technical sense.
The UK market maybe not, but the UK could make a truckload of money selling their wind power to France to aid their old, barely running NPPs.
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Charging cars, heating water in a well insulated tank
It's great when we can use off peak energy for things like this, but they're not as easy to locate onsite as bitcoin miners .. and difficulty with transmission is a big part of the problem
Bitcoin on the other hand is just a waste of energy
I think one of the most important elements is buried - electricity pricing is uniform across the entire UK. That seems nuts to me, and incentivizes building in locations that are less useful - it's likely cheaper to build in Scotland, higher production from more wind, you get paid more (for expected yield plus curtailment apparently), and you have less wear on the equipment when you adjust to lower output.
I do wonder how effective a "you get 0.5p off your bill if you can see a wind turbine from your house" rule would be against NIMBYism.
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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 g…
they should just mine bitcoin with it
UK has an issue with winds getting too strong because of deforestation. There is a project to re-forest the north coast to coast. Then these trees can be also burned for energy as biomass.
Just look it up.
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HVDC is now a thing. Collecting solar in Northern Austrialia and sending it to Singapore over a 3800km long transmission line. Under construction now.
Thank you. People laughed when I suggested an HVDC link between North America and Europe. Nordstream 1 was 1222km, and Britpipe now, is 60km shorter. Boston to Lisbon is 5100km. Churchill Falls (home of a giant hydro dam project in Labrador Canada which got screwed by Hydro-Quebec because the only via transit was through Quebec), would be just under 4000km subsea. The transit contract expires in 2039 I believe...
It really doesn't make much sense to connect Europe and North America.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity...
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I get why it works this way because the alternative would be to force the fossil generators to sell at the renewable price and thereby making it uneconomical for them to operate which leads to brown-outs. I just think the societal costs the up very high because EVERYONE is paying a premium on power, and the total sum of that premium is only going to increase as we move more and more stuff over to electricity. I there…
That's what financial hedging and the like do - users and producers can sell power at guaranteed prices in exchange for missing out on price volatility. Ultimately, it's probably fairest that the wholsesale power market works the way it does to ensure guaranteed power - It costs money to provide a 100% service guarantee. It's worth noting there are some demand response initiatives and the like that are approaching th…
At this point there isn't really any part of the energy grid that governments do not subsidize. They subsidize companies that provide grid stability. They subsidize renewables that provide capacity. They subsidize the customer who buy energy. They subsidize the grid infrastructure that transports the energy. They subsidize the interconnection between countries that enables trade between countries. They subsidize the cleaning up and associated costs from pollution.
Obviously there needs to be some amount of battery storage of energy too, but once the storage capacity meets the needs of the local grid, and the batteries are full... what do you do with the excess power?
May as well mine Bitcoin with it and make some profit on that excess energy.
Energy buyer of first and last resort.
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Are you referring to Morocco or a potential future independent Scotland :-) ?
I am not too worried about Russian submarines meddling with the undersea cables between england and scotland…
Negative prices on power i.e. curtailment, is the perfect use case for Bitcoin mining. Obviously there needs to be some amount of battery storage of energy too, but once the storage capacity meets the needs of the local grid, and the batteries are full... what do you do with the excess power? May as well mine Bitcoin with it and make some profit on that excess energy. Energy buyer of first and last resort.