Jacob Reese Mogg is involved, you know there's a bit of back scratching going on there then.
There is not reference or context in your comment. Are you simply suggesting that someone is corrupt because you dislike their political position?
UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output
21–30 of 58 posts
Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output
#22It's probably time to phase out curtailment payments. If renewable is to be the default form of generation it can't have special treatment forever. And it would be an incentive to deploy battery systems on the wind farm side of the grid connection to smooth peaks. (The whole "overstating your forecast" thing sounds a lot like LIBOR)
Do like Sweden or Norway and split the grid at bottlenecks like the Scottish border and it will be solved by itself by having lower prices in Scotland. It is a political problem, not technical.
Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are plans for big tidal barrage projects, especially in the Severn Estuary. Apart from creating power they'd also protect cities from rising sea levels. They always run into Nimbys who don't understand that sea birds etc are far more threatened by the direct effects of climate change than by projects that affect their habitats in a designed way.
> They always run into Nimbys who don't understand that sea birds etc are far more threatened by the direct effects of climate change than by projects that affect their habitats in a designed way. That's incredibly dismissive of genuine environmental concerns about immediate effects on coastal ecology
Can you elaborate on where the parent comment is erring? Sounds reasonable that planned interventions like tidal power plants are more controllable than global climate change
Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output
#24I think the UK by 2030 (or so) is actually going to have a really major problem with too much renewable capacity at times - not just not enough transmission capacity, just too much full stop.
There's currently 30GW of wind in the UK (offshore + onshore), plus an ambition to get another 35GW of offshore installed in the next 6 years. I'm not sure whether that will be met, but I would project at least another 20GW of offshore wind will come online based on in construction/approved projects by 2030.
At that point we'll have 55GW of wind, plus a huge amount of solar (probably 25GW minimum, potentially a lot lot more).
UK electricity consumption is very low per capita and it is falling rapidly with not much sign of this changing.
I think we are going to be in a position where we have (way) too much power at least 50% of the year.
Some will be able to be used for storage, and some potentially exported via HVDC, but I fear the generation on windy + sunny days will be pretty enormous.
This would all get sorted out by 'the market' but CfD contracts basically pay to keep producing whatever the price (I believe some of the contracts may have changed slightly on this). Which really distorts the market.
Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output
#25I think the UK by 2030 (or so) is actually going to have a really major problem with too much renewable capacity at times - not just not enough transmission capacity, just too much full stop. There's currently 30GW of wind in the UK (offshore + onshore), plus an ambition to get another 35GW of offshore installed in the next 6 years. I'm not sure whether that will be met, but I would project at least another 20GW of o…
Scope for the increase in electric use between electric cars (244b vehicle miles, or 60TWh) and moving from gas to heatpumps (250TWh of domestic gas usage, so 80TWh), that adds a constant load 24/7 of 15GW (if it were evenly spread through the year)
Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output
#26I think the UK by 2030 (or so) is actually going to have a really major problem with too much renewable capacity at times - not just not enough transmission capacity, just too much full stop. There's currently 30GW of wind in the UK (offshore + onshore), plus an ambition to get another 35GW of offshore installed in the next 6 years. I'm not sure whether that will be met, but I would project at least another 20GW of o…
That's interesting, and looking at per-capita use graphs over the years...seems predictable. Are there any major sectors of "use" that would shift if electricity were cheap enough? Like, for example...in the UK, is any significant part of building/home heating, or industrial production still gas or fuel oil?
Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output
#27The curtailment periods in the UK are already a problem, particularly in Scotland where there is now not enough grid capacity. There's no point building massive farms up there now without corresponding National Grid investment, which isn't happening anywhere near fast enough.
I don't remember where I saw it previously, it could have been here, but Octopus is looking to fix this.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/25/octopus-buil...
It does make me wonder why the National Grid can't keep up. We can all see how BT has a massive conflict of interest with OpenReach, which is why AltNets are thriving. But what's stopping National Grid?
Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They always run into Nimbys who don't understand that sea birds etc are far more threatened by the direct effects of climate change than by projects that affect their habitats in a designed way. That's incredibly dismissive of genuine environmental concerns about immediate effects on coastal ecology
Can you elaborate on where the parent comment is erring? Sounds reasonable that planned interventions like tidal power plants are more controllable than global climate change
That does not mean they are less damaging. They are definitely more damaging at a local level, and it is not clear that they are better at a global level.
Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output
#29Why is there so much less tidal power. The tides are constant, unlike wind and sun. The UK has a lot of coast and a lot of tides.
Tidal power involves machinery below the water, which then becomes as expensive as a boat to maintain. Wind power has just ridden the cost reduction curve so much better.
fwiw wind power also requires a generous amount of maintenance
Re: UK Wind Farms Are Overstating Their Output
#30I think the UK by 2030 (or so) is actually going to have a really major problem with too much renewable capacity at times - not just not enough transmission capacity, just too much full stop. There's currently 30GW of wind in the UK (offshore + onshore), plus an ambition to get another 35GW of offshore installed in the next 6 years. I'm not sure whether that will be met, but I would project at least another 20GW of o…
Wouldn’t we just use more electricity?
I know I cut back on my electric because it costs 28p per kwh, which is crazy high.