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The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

ukerc.ac.uk

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Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#11

Post by philipallstar »

ZeroConcerns wrote: post #5

Yeah, this whole "let's sell off state-owned infrastructure on the Free Market" hasn't worked out so well: not only in the UK, but also elsewhere in Europe, the handsome profits of those moves have pretty much evaporated, investments in upgrades have been severely lacking, and now everyone is pointing fingers due to the inevitable capacity meltdowns. (Note that I'm not opposed to privatization in general, and it has…

> the inevitable capacity meltdowns

Capacity is constantly being hit by very large population growth. Just like water and housing. Money available is lowered by state-enforced price caps. Purchase prices are raised by state-mandated net zero rules that subsidise green sources.

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#13

Post by amiga386 »

benrutter wrote: post #4
mytailorisrich wrote: post #2

> Well, that brings us to the oft-ignored elephant in the room: transmission capacity. This is a well-known issue in the UK, which impacts new solar and wind projects but also charging stations, and large-scale charging in general, and even new developments in areas of too much demand.

Yeah - I wondered about how "quiet" this driving force was. It's certainly a big issue, but the network operator (NESO) published a big paper after the government asked them to suggest how achievable net-0 by 2030 was, which really specifically called out the need for much larger transmission capacity. I work in the energy sector and hear it mentioned a lot, but I don't really see it published in the media a lot. In…

My understanding - from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crkep1vx3mro - is that.

1. Gas-powered electricity generation sets the wholesale rate (for _all_ forms of generation) more often than not, and gas is expensive, especially after we had to find alternative sources in order to punish Russia for invading Ukraine.

2. Other than the wholesale rate, we need to _build_ all this clean energy, we need to attract investment, and it's our promise to pay for that CapEx over 15-20 years (the strike price) that we'll be paying for in our bills once gas is out of the picture, moreso than the actual cost of generation.

Also, Tories in 2023 failed to attract any investment, no capacity added: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66749344

Whereas Labour in 2025: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly8ynegwn4o

... we will find out if this worked, after the auction is finished and they announce the results (around November 2025 - February 2026)

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#14

Post by mishagale »

thelastgallon wrote: post #8

There are two things we can do with energy, move it across space or move it across time. Moving it across space requires transmission infrastructure (which is state owned or rapacious corp owned -- very slow to build or upgrade; rent seeking, regulatory capture). The other option is to move across time, which is using batteries. Cars are rarely driven more than ~20 mins/day which make them the ideal energy storage de…

Bear in mind that in the UK, a large chunk of the populations lives in either rented accommodation, high-rise flats, or both. And also, standard housing policy in London is for new developments to have fewer parking spaces than homes (to encourage public transport use over cars).

For many people in the UK, having an EV charging port on the side of your house isn't possible, because they don't have a house, or they don't have a parking space near their house.

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#15

Post by jayflux »

Transmission is a real problem and just like Nuclear, we haven’t improved it in the past 30 years.

So both eastern green link projects (offering more capacity) are due to be finished in 2029, “ok” I think “but surely we’re doing some work onshore to improve the existing network in the meantime..”

> Due to ongoing project work for increased power flow from North to South across two Transmission Owner (TO) regions and the interaction of the outage plans, increased capacity across the boundary will be limited and intermittent till 2029

So basically no transmission, onshore or offshore is going to be improved until 2029, but we’re still green lighting wind farms in Scotland. I’m amazed someone has the foresight to increase generation but not transmission until now, how were these green lit in the past knowing full well this bottleneck existed.

Maybe it’s controversial, but id argue for stopping more generation until transmission or storage is sorted, otherwise curtailment is going to be even higher in the next few years.

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#16

Post by pjc50 »

jayflux wrote: post #15

Transmission is a real problem and just like Nuclear, we haven’t improved it in the past 30 years. So both eastern green link projects (offering more capacity) are due to be finished in 2029, “ok” I think “but surely we’re doing some work onshore to improve the existing network in the meantime..” > Due to ongoing project work for increased power flow from North to South across two Transmission Owner (TO) regions and…

I suspect part of the foresight was exactly to create this situation, where the problem is framed as lack of transmission capacity. Because the alternative - building transmission capacity before it was needed - is even less politically feasible. Public money can only be spent when the need is so blatant it can no longer be ignored, and then everyone sits around and says "well why didn't we do that sooner".

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#17

Post by pjc50 »

benrutter wrote: post #4
mytailorisrich wrote: post #2

> Well, that brings us to the oft-ignored elephant in the room: transmission capacity. This is a well-known issue in the UK, which impacts new solar and wind projects but also charging stations, and large-scale charging in general, and even new developments in areas of too much demand.

Yeah - I wondered about how "quiet" this driving force was. It's certainly a big issue, but the network operator (NESO) published a big paper after the government asked them to suggest how achievable net-0 by 2030 was, which really specifically called out the need for much larger transmission capacity. I work in the energy sector and hear it mentioned a lot, but I don't really see it published in the media a lot. In…

> In all honesty, most of the dialogue around energy is just unhelpful and partisan

That's just the media. No interest in making things actually work, just in covering the fight, and quite often sponsored by fossil fuel backers or weird overseas media monopolists.

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#18

Post by pjc50 »

The B6 boundary: https://www.neso.energy/publications/electricity-ten-year-st...

The power lines follow the two main road links, the A1 and the A74/M6. I suppose that's not surprising from an access point of view. What is surprising is that the solution to NIMBY opposition is to route offshore and underwater, at considerable expense - and still getting opposition at the landing points. Fortunately one of the landing points is Torness, which already has a scenic nuclear reactor and associated transmission infrastructure.

I do understand the argument that the Borders is "unspoilt", but also .. hardly anybody lives there because it's an odd economic dead zone. Run another line of pylons within sight of the existing ones and call it a day.

I also wonder to what extent building more storage on either end would help. That's got to be brought into the equation. Don't say pumped storage because all the suitable geology for that and one of the biggest existing installations is also in Scotland, we need some in the Midlands.

And should probably be asking why new high usage AI datacenters are still happening in London.

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#19

Post by [deleted] »

pjc50 wrote: post #18

The B6 boundary: https://www.neso.energy/publications/electricity-ten-year-st... The power lines follow the two main road links, the A1 and the A74/M6. I suppose that's not surprising from an access point of view. What is surprising is that the solution to NIMBY opposition is to route offshore and underwater, at considerable expense - and still getting opposition at the landing points. Fortunately one of the landing…

[deleted]

Re: The Quiet Driving Force Behind Rising Curtailment Costs in Great Britain

#20

Post by RobotToaster »

throwawayben wrote: post #10
mytailorisrich wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They abandoned it because it does not solve anything and it is political suicide. Most people would have ended being forced to pay more than they already pay without alternative, so would not have helped solve grid constraints, either.

Could you explain more? It appears economically self evident to me that it would improve the situation but I'm not in the industry and there's probably much I don't understand. I would say that improving transmission seems like a much better solution but again I think zonal pricing can help there as it could then be more easily sold to the public as being able to import the cheaper (say) Scottish energy to your local…

The majority of the population live in regions that would become more expensive. Additionally the majority of Scottish constituencies vote for their nationalist party, so the major national parties don't have any chance of getting seats from Scotland, where energy prices may fall slightly under such a scheme.
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