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The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

wastedwind.energy

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Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#121

Post by wongarsu »

littlestymaar wrote: post #97
wongarsu wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing you would have to do to make this happen is to change electricity pricing from a fixed rate to a dynamic rate based on actual market conditions, along with a standardized way of accessing current pricing. This would drive consumers to shift their behaviors to take advantage of cheap prices, and smart appliances could access the price feed to make decisions like the ones you mention. Another simple one…

Even if such a system was set up, it would take years before the appliances where all updated to take advantage of it. And in the meantime it would be very unpopular for people who can't just afford to renew their otherwise fully functional appliances.

For your old appliances you still pay the same on average. A fixed price contract isn't cheaper, it just smooths prices into a long-term average. And many of the changes can be done manually. On your old dishwasher or washing machine you decide when they start, and most of them even already have buttons to start with a fixed-time delay. Instead of starting them at the end of day you can just start them when the wind is strong or the sun is shining, or watch the price feed. You even get to feel smart for saving money

I agree on the popularity, but you'd absolutely see an effect even without anyone buying new appliances

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#122

Post by ragebol »

apelapan wrote: post #68
moooo99 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just false. Of course wind turbines can and do lower prices, regardless of wether or not they‘re base load not

They lower the prices a lot when they are producing at full tilt. This means that prices, at least to some degree, go up when wind turbines are not producing at full capacity, since the other power sources need to amortize their fixed costs across fewer kilowatt hours sold.

Going up or down: there is more supply, so prices go down wrt. a situation without wind turbines, at least momentarily until the wind drops down indeed when we go back to a system w/o wind.

If you can store the energy, your energy cost goes down (but storage is not free of course, though getting cheaper).

Amortizing the fixed cost will mean the 'fossil' power is more expensive per kWh indeed, making it more and more attractive to buy storage as to bridge the gap between windy/sunny periods that do have cheaper electricity.

Some electricity markets have or a re looking at capacity mechanisms, they pay simply to have the capacity to generate power at any given time, even if not generating, eg. to be a backup. Eventually, that will be the business case for any fuel-powered power plant I suppose

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#123

Post by cameronh90 »

littlestymaar wrote: post #97
wongarsu wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing you would have to do to make this happen is to change electricity pricing from a fixed rate to a dynamic rate based on actual market conditions, along with a standardized way of accessing current pricing. This would drive consumers to shift their behaviors to take advantage of cheap prices, and smart appliances could access the price feed to make decisions like the ones you mention. Another simple one…

Even if such a system was set up, it would take years before the appliances where all updated to take advantage of it. And in the meantime it would be very unpopular for people who can't just afford to renew their otherwise fully functional appliances.

Years isn't that long.

The aim is net zero by 2050, lifespan of a fridge-freezer is about 10 years. Even assuming designing a system and putting it in place took 5 years, that's still enough time to have most appliances on it by 2040.

Given the current energy prices, it probably even makes sense to replace appliances sooner than their normal lifetime. My fridge-freezer is only 5 years old, but if it broke today and cost more than ~£150 to repair, I'd end up saving money by replacing it.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#124

Post by PeterStuer »

dumbfounder wrote: post #34

Any numbers on how much energy isn’t sensitive to time? Is it reasonable to say that people can just use energy more when it’s windy to save money? Perhaps if could incentivize people to have large local batteries to eat it up during these times and use it during more costly times? But that seems very expensive.

That is the whole "smart grid" idea. Problem is that people are rightly suspicious that as usual, the "smarts" are not there to serve them, but to maximally squeeze them and maximize profits for the operator.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#125

Post by jcattle »

mixedbit wrote: post #32

I wonder how practical it would be to build a system that would let home appliances cheaply overuse energy when there is a peak in wind or solar production. For example: * Let heat-pumps heat homes to say 23C instead of 20C * Let freezers decrease the temperature to say -30C instead of -18C * Let electric water heaters heat water to say 70C instead of 50C, such water can then be mixed with more cold water Such overus…

This is not the issue discussed here. The generated power can not be transmitted to where it is used.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#126

Post by lmm »

notTooFarGone wrote: post #47
grues-dinner wrote: post #30

Something like 400,000 people are opposing the Norwich-Tilbury power lines to bring wind energy to where it's used. Including a Green Party MP: https://www.dissmercury.co.uk/news/24840985.green-mp-adrian-... . And you'd better believe wherever they buried the lines they'd have objections and expensive consultations about the disruption and the HoUsE VaLuEs caused by trenching, drilling and service structures. Like th…

Who opposes Power lines? Never heard that this is a thing. As a foreign influence I'd be delighted to target all infrastructure proposals and bombard it with trolls.

I mean just read the link and they're objecting to a 120m-wide trench being dug through their countryside. Which is easy enough to sympathise with.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#128

Post by myrmidon »

grues-dinner wrote: post #80
notTooFarGone wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who opposes Power lines? Never heard that this is a thing. As a foreign influence I'd be delighted to target all infrastructure proposals and bombard it with trolls.

People oppose everything. * Lattice overhead powerlines? Eyesore (should use the new T style ones), house values, wind noise, hums, WiFi interference, cancer, access roads, hazard to planes, birds * T-frame pylons: boring ( https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/13/electr... ), eyesore (we prefer the lattice ones), most of the above too * Underground: damaging to the environment, end stations are eyesores…

There is no need to speculate on Reform members being on the take when they are literally pleading "guilty" in court: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6xwy015ngo

Scum.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#129

Post by stepbeek »

lars512 wrote: post #114
myrmidon wrote: post #108

It's good to raise awareness of this. I think that grid upgrades are the only good solution here (and those are already happening), because shifting enough consumption towards where the windfarms are strikes me as ridiculous (what fraction of London is going to migrate to Glasgow once electricity is 40% cheaper there, honestly?) and just luring a handful of new datacenters to Scotland (with cheaper electricity) is no…

Isn’t that just assuming that people, rather than industry, is the main consumer? Perhaps there are energy hungry industrial applications that could move.

Absolutely. I had imagined green hydrogen production or something similarly intensive to be the solution.

Re: The cost of turning down wind turbines in Britain

#130

Post by ErikCorry »

p_l wrote: post #69
notTooFarGone wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who opposes Power lines? Never heard that this is a thing. As a foreign influence I'd be delighted to target all infrastructure proposals and bombard it with trolls.

Heard lots of grumbling from an acquaintance in Germany that a big issue is, I quote, "Bavarians not wanting either overground nor underground power lines that would bring power from north to south, so at best we sell wind power from north to west and the south of germany buys nuclear from france" ;)

It's a huge issue, see the depressing web page on Südlink. Massively delayed, much more expensive, and less efficient because it has to be underground. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suedlink

Germany, like the UK, has dynamic national electricity pricing, which makes no sense when the interconnections are not powerful enough to actually make it a single electricity market.

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