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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

#351

Post by dx034 »

oliwary wrote: post #121

Here is what I do not understand about these kinds of dynamics: Are they not the perfect way to encourage the creation of energy storage companies and technologies? It seems like there is a massive opportunity to purchase energy when it is cheap or even negatively priced, figure out some way of storing it, and then sell it back once the price is higher. Over time, this could stabilize the grid and encourage developme…

6% is not really a lot. I guess batteries can be profitable if you cycle daily. But at 6% curtailment, they would've been used only a few times a year. You'd need really cheap storage for that.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#352

Post by pifm_guy »

midasuni wrote: post #174
KaiserPro wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You can, but you need to own two neighbouring houses and be willing to install an (illegal) cable between them.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#353

Post by Delphiza »

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…

A slight adjustment to this is that the single-cable-operator can become a monopoly because of government regulations. Permits, planning permission, running roughshod over objections (see HS2, Heathrow third runway). So the ideal market can never materialise. We (citizens/subjects) are somewhat okay with this. Most people do not want the free market criss-crossing the countryside with operators laying cables across whichever farmers accept money from them.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#354

Post by smcl »

iso1631 wrote: post #331
smcl wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a strong opinion personally about the franchise system as I don't use any UK rail. My gut tells me they're not adding any value and they might as well be nationalised but someone whose opinion I trust (rail engineer and YouTuber Gareth Dennis[0]) has said that ditching them and nationalising it entirely wouldn't really fix what people think it would. However it has to be said that TPE and AWC have stood…

Yes both of those franchises are failing, and if they aren't meeting their KPIs then they should have the franchise stripped. Some of that is infrastructure (the cancellation of platform 15/16 at Piccadilly means the new Ordsall chord is basically useless, but they tried to use it anyway), I don't know enough about TPE to fairly attribute it, but with AWC it's franchise operation -- especially staff availability. Som…

I’ve no idea where you get the idea that “the left” (an enormous and diverse block of people) primarily want subsidies for the rich. It seems similar to the same (IMO bad faith) argument American conservatives made about student debt forgiveness - that because a small amount of wealthy people would benefit from a universal thing, it is therefore wrong.

The popular opinions I have seen are:

- “nationalise the railways”

- more frequent, reliable and cheaper services overall

As discussed, nationalising the railways isn’t necessarily the silver bullet many people think, but if you engage with those people and don’t insult/berate them they’ll come round easily. They're not hardline communists, hellbent on the destruction of private companies - they just want better train service somehow and may not fully understand how to get there. That's not to deny the existence of "tankies" and other weirdos, they're just a very very tiny minority.

HS2 should enable the “more frequent” part over the regions it covers. I don’t know how to make services cheaper or more reliable, I imagine subsidies come into it somewhere though, and this inevitably means that yes someone wealthy at some point will benefit from a cheaper rail ticket.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#355

Post by willyt »

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…

Natural monopolies should be centrally planned, because in this case the market competition is between nations on the basis of which one is an efficient and therefore cost effective place to operate. Companies don't set up competing mail rooms in the same building, that would be insane. It's less obvious at a national scale but economically just as silly to try and introduce competition where it would not naturally exist. The same principals also apply to railways, water, roads and phone lines.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#356

Post by xorcist »

ErikCorry wrote: post #193
blibble wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Strangely there already is one between Scotland and Wales and two more are proposed (see the article). I suspect NIMBYism is a big part of the explanation. Airborne AC links are efficient but ugly. Underwater AC links are tolerated by Nimbies, but inefficient. So you end up with underwater HVDC links.

DC links are usually built to better control frequency in grids.

They are expensive things, and typically not something left to popular vote.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#357

Post by iso1631 »

Quindecillion wrote: post #323
iso1631 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydrogen electrolysis and increasing interconnects seem a more useful thing to do.

I haven't followed the technology very closely, but it was my understanding that large scale storage of hydrogen isn't here yet, if it ever will be? And even if you built out more transmission, you're still limited by how far you can go. On top of that the infrastructure needed to transmit over large distances (1000km) is huge. Then there's a bunch of regulatory red tape to cut through, NIMBY push-back etc. It's unli…

> It's unlikely that a power company has the time, resources, and money to set up such massive transmission projects on top of their core business.

The core business of national grid plc is massive transmission projects

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#358

Post by msandford »

ccalloway wrote: post #341
avianlyric wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the wind providers have already sold that electricity in an energy auction. So the grid has to pay them for electricity, even if they can’t use it. One of the big points in the article is that there’s a single energy market in the UK that doesn't consider location. So it’s possible for wind providers to sell energy from locations where it can’t be used. An obvious fix is to introduce multiple energy markets f…

This isn't a real economic loss. Claiming it is, is tantamount to saying that if you don't need to go to hospital while on vacation, you have wasted money on travel insurance.

I don't think you understand how this stuff works in reality at the moment.

Perhaps the system could be changed to be more like how you imagine it should work, or would prefer that it would work.

But not understanding how it does work and jumping off from there on the discussion means that folks end up talking past each other, rather than actually communicating.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#359

Post by ErikCorry »

mschuster91 wrote: post #301
ErikCorry wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a lot more expensive. The UK is not big enough for it to make technical sense.

> 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.

And that is happening. There are multiple cross channel HVDC lines and more on their way. These make perfect sense.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#360

Post by WinstonSmith84 »

Quindecillion wrote: post #308

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.

Bitcoin would be a perfect use case, immediate turn on/off installation and giving actually a very good return on the money, especially at producer level. Either way, if I were a British tax payer I'd hate this current situation. Any solution, even hydrogen production which looks like a terrible idea, would still be better
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