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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

#361

Post by ErikCorry »

Reason077 wrote: post #334
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 equipment costs (eg: converter stations) for an HVDC link are more expensive, but by running under the sea you save on a lot of other costs (ie: civil engineering, land acquisition, etc). Building any new transmission line through densely-populated England is extremely expensive. Even if you can secure the necessary land and wayleaves, nobody wants them running near their house and spoiling the views, so signific…

Most of these issues are not technical so I stand by my assessment.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#362

Post by msandford »

ccalloway wrote: post #342
mcfedr wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curtailment of wind wouldn't be a problem if it's just because too much wind, but that's not the case, there isn't enough transmission, and we are having to use gas, that is a problem

But by framing it as a problem of 'curtailment', it looks like a problem which gets worse and worse, the more oversupply of wind capacity that we have. In actual fact, this does not make any sense. Building additional wind generation can never be more wasteful than the costs of its construction. If it were free, it would make sense to vastly overbuild.

> Building additional wind generation can never be more wasteful than the costs of its construction. If it were free, it would make sense to vastly overbuild.

In a simple model where there was only one company that owned everything from top to bottom across the entire electrical grid from all power plants to every single power meter and everything in between? Yes I agree 100%.

However that's not how the grid actually works, so a simple understanding of the economics of a marginal turbine isn't the same as understanding the whole system.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#363

Post by pydry »

dTal wrote: post #349
pydry wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The suitable geography is considerably less rare than the nuclear and carbon industries jointly like to pretend. This has been confirmed by multiple studies (I have posted them at least 3 times before because this talking point is sadly rather common). Nowhere is currently "well" provisioned for pumped hydro given a solar and wind grid coz while they existed for over a hundred years they have never had to store that…

The largest pumped hydro facility in the world is Fengning in China, at 40GWh, and the second largest is Bath County in Virginia, at 24 GWh. Dinorwig's 9GWh is really not too shabby. Even Fengning would only power the UK for just over an hour. This is simply not the same order of magnitude for the storage you'd need to make it through a gray UK winter on renewable energy alone. What's the longest period without wind…

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/01/21/six-terawatt-hours-of...

6.5 Fengnings or equivalent should be enough for a 94% renewable grid in the UK.

It is well within the same order of magnitude.

>the first time the lights went out because the weather was bad you'd have people clamoring to build nuclear power plants

because why build a solar or wind farm this year when you can instead wait 20 years for hinkley c to be finished at FIVE times the LCOE cost?

it's absurd. the people dont clamor for nuclear power. only the military industrial complex does.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#364

Post by londons_explore »

KaiserPro wrote: post #106
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.

They're cheap if you buy them from China. China is world leading on this stuff, and has built tens of similar lines in recent years.

However, I'm sure 'national security' will require the equipment be procured from a western world supplier with no expertise.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#365

Post by Leherenn »

presentation wrote: post #257
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…

How about redirecting excess nuclear energy to eg produce hydrogen fuel cells?

Usually the problem with this kind of thing, is that the initial capex requirements are high, and it's just not profitable given how rarely it happens.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#366

Post by ccalloway »

msandford wrote: post #358
ccalloway wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You didn't directly address anything I said in my post or explain why you think I am poorly informed..

I used to work for National Grid in the Miliband era; I worked, among other things, on theorizing a replacement to the 'circle diagram' for the (then thought to be) coming renewables regime.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#367

Post by bluGill »

avianlyric wrote: post #282
bluGill wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contract. They have to pay for the the bank for the wind turbines even if not used. They have to pay the land owners (or the bank for the land, and government taxes). You also need to pay various employees. Thus you don't open a wind farm without some form of contract. On top of the above you want to make a profit.

Nothing to do with any of the above. Purely a function of how the energy markets in the UK work. There’s no contract providing you with a long term guarantee that the current situation will continue, and the grid doesn’t care if you go bust.

I don't know how the UK grid works. I know banks and investors won't put money into something if the rules don't give them confidence of a return on investment. Sure there are tech counter examples for investors, but banks are more careful.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#368

Post by gregoriol »

Scoundreller wrote: post #156
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.

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 wouldn't make much sense: eastern US/Canada and western Europe have about the same profile (same kind of wind/hydro/solar/... sources); it would make more sense to connect regions with different profiles, like the Scotland/England example of the article (high-wind/low-population to a high-population zone) or high-sunlight to a low-sunlight (like southern europe/northern africa to northern europe)

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#369

Post by msandford »

ccalloway wrote: post #366
msandford wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You didn't directly address anything I said in my post or explain why you think I am poorly informed.. I used to work for National Grid in the Miliband era; I worked, among other things, on theorizing a replacement to the 'circle diagram' for the (then thought to be) coming renewables regime.

>> 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.

> This isn't a real economic loss.

Perhaps I'm misinformed on what economic loss is. To me, paying for something and not getting it is a loss.

I go to movies, I buy popcorn, I spill popcorn. Movie theater says "tough noogies" to me that's a simple economic loss, and roughly the same. I paid for it, I didn't get it.

Worse still is paying for curtailment on both sides. From the article:

Consumers end up effectively paying three times for the power they’re getting: the original payment to the windfarm for the electricity, the payment to turn off, and then the payment to the alternative generator.

If this is true, and you're both paying a turbine operator for the power, and then again to not produce the power, well that's extra worse. That would be the initial economic loss (I paid for the thing and didn't get it) with an fee tacked on top.

I go to movies, I buy popcorn, I spill popcorn. Movie theater says "tough noogies" to me and doesn't replace the popcorn. They also charge me a fee for cleaning up the popcorn I spilled. That's worse from what I can tell.

Again maybe I don't understand what's going on here with respect to how precisely curtailment works. But it's hard to imagine that the situation

> So the grid has to pay them for electricity, even if they can’t use it.

is anything other than an economic loss.

Re: The UK is wasting a lot of wind power

#370

Post by ccalloway »

msandford wrote: post #369
ccalloway wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't directly address anything I said in my post or explain why you think I am poorly informed.. I used to work for National Grid in the Miliband era; I worked, among other things, on theorizing a replacement to the 'circle diagram' for the (then thought to be) coming renewables regime.

>> 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. > This isn't a real economic loss. Perhaps I'm misinformed on what economic loss is. To me, paying for something and not getting it is a loss. I go to movies, I buy popcorn, I spill popcorn. Movie theater says "tough noogies" to me that's a simple economic loss…

Obviously my original example, "saying that if you don't need to go to hospital while on vacation, you have wasted money on travel insurance" perfectly fits your definition of economic loss.
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