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UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

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Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#171

Post by anamax »

pxeger1 wrote: post #73
mabbo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) is much more efficient at transmission over long distances than AC. It can throw off your intuition on these things. In China, there is a 3300 km line like this moving 12GW of power. This is a little bit longer, but not by much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

The reason AC is often believed to be more efficient is because higher voltages of either type are more efficient (less loss to electrical resistance), and it's much easier to step voltage up and down using AC.

Another advantage of DC over AC is that DC doesn't have to be synchronized wrt frequency, phase, or power-factor.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#172

Post by yakak »

robonerd wrote: post #144
yakak wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about the description of the region, but UK legitimizes Morocco's position in land disputes to undermine EU seems a possibility to me.

Can you expand on the EU's stake in Moroccan border disputes? I'm aware of the West Sahara / SADR situation, but my impression is that the EU has little legitimate stake in that dispute except for their desire to fish in those waters. And Europe seems willing to deal with Morocco for permission to do that.

I was hoping someone with more knowledge of the situation would chime in..

My understanding is that:

Acting as a group the EU has made some "pragmatic" decisions like fishing in western Sahara waters, but probably found it relatively easy to turn down less economic and/or more illegal activities as a block. If the UK were to more fully ignore UN decisions and accept natural resource from the disputed lands, the loss of respecting the rules is much more a loss for the EU than Morocco.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#173

Post by imtringued »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #49
cptcobalt wrote: post #44

This is rad. > Alongside the consistent output from its solar panels and wind turbines, an onsite 20GWh/5GW battery facility provide sufficient storage to reliably deliver each and every day Four hour battery storage for renewables. The way of the future. > This “first of a kind” project will generate 10.5GW of zero carbon electricity from the sun and wind to deliver 3.6GW of reliable energy for an average of 20+ hou…

Isn’t 4 hours of battery storage much too low? How is that considered “reliable”? What am I missing?

Those 4 hours don't mean wall clock time, they mean it takes 4 hours to discharge the battery at its maximum discharge rate.

In other words, the battery would bridge exactly 4 hours of 0% power generation. The moment you have more than 0% power generation but still less than 100%, the battery will last more than 4 hours of wall clock time.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#174

Post by imtringued »

nbevans wrote: post #33
mike_hearn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brexit isn't mentioned anywhere and the physics of it would be the same regardless of the EU existing or not. The reason to go direct to Morocco are that transmission through regular AC grids would lose virtually all the power before it gets anywhere near the UK. 10GW is a hell of a load and you can't just pretend a grid is a bathtub at these scales. But as you brought it up, even if there was a semi-conductor breakt…

Exactly. The last couple years has really let the mask slip on what the EU stands for and they've made it expressly clear how they intend to treat the UK going forward - despite the UK's best efforts to forge a genuinely strong relationship, this has been rebuffed at every opportunity. We are "fair game" to them now. So it makes complete sense to design future energy projects with sovereignty in mind.

The EU ignores the UK to the extend that the UK wishes to be ignored by the EU.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#176

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

FpUser wrote: post #7
popol12 wrote: post #5

Sounds inefficient How big are the loss on such a high distance connection ?

If you do not really know the loss why does it "sound inefficient"? I am pretty sure they've done all the due diligence and if the project is a go then the losses are acceptable. I am more interested (again if the project is a go) what happens if / when some "friendly" people will mess with the cable.

Worth noting the project isn't even funded yet.

https://doomberg.substack.com/p/20000-volts-under-the-sea?s=...

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#177

Post by missedthecue »

BurningFrog wrote: post #141

> The Morocco-UK Power Project will be powered by a wind and solar farm, approximately 1,500km² in size I'm intrigued by how 1,500km² of partial shade will transform the Sahara ecosystem. I hope it will make more life possible in the shade.

The Sahara is 9.2 million km². So probably not much change for the ecosystem.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#178

Post by ncmncm »

Retric wrote: post #91
throwaway894345 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t 4 hours of battery storage much too low? How is that considered “reliable”? What am I missing?

Capacity factor, across 24 hours a 30% capacity factor works out to 7.2 hours at max output. Being able to 4 hours of max output is therefore 55% of the total energy produced in the average day. Grid demand is also significantly higher in the daytime so that 4h of battery allows you to very closely match users demands over 24 hours or ramp up during peak demand and fall back on other sources at night.

Just now, money is overwhelmingly better spent on top-line renewable generating capacity. There is no value in storage you are not generating enough power to keep charged up.

Furthermore, cost of storage is falling even faster than wind or solar ever did. Wait until next year, and you get lots more storage for your money.

Finally, batteries are good for very short-term storage -- their round-trip efficiency and fast response are unbeatable -- but they cost more than alternatives. For storage that you don't need to draw down every night, something you can fill cheap tanks with is better even if round-trip efficiency is low. Something you can also sell when your local tanks are full, and buy if they seem likely to go dry, is better yet.

So, expect to see a lot of anhydrous ammonia long-term storage. Also, hydrogen, and liquid nitrogen. And, lots of tropical sites synthesizing for export to higher latitudes in winter, and lots of higher-latitude cities importing it, via ship, in place of LNG and oil.

It is kind of surprising to see the batteries set up in Morocco, not in UK. That might be politics. Typically, storage is best sited near point-of-use. Maybe part of the deal is Morocco gets to use a share of the energy.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#179

Post by credit_guy »

kaibee wrote: post #146
credit_guy wrote: post #116

I find liquefied Hydrogen to make more sense. In case of conflict (like now), undersea cables can be sabotaged with plausible deniability. The Royal Navy can protect a tanker en route from Morocco to UK, or a convoy of such tankers, there were two times in the not so distant history when it had to do just that. But how do you protect a continuous line of a few thousand km? Separately, if at some random point in the f…

> But how do you protect a continuous line of a few thousand km? Cameras/sensors, and fast response time. You could put a sensor package every couple km. Given the amount of power this installation delivers, it wouldn't exactly break the bank.

The bottom of the ocean is a very dark place. Sun light does not penetrate beyond a dpeth of 200 meters. Your cameras need to have lights, and very powerful ones, but they won’t reach beyond, say 500 meters. So you will need many thousands of cameras and probably hundreds of autonomous submersible drones to be on station at all times. This does not come cheap. Leaving aside the fact that it may render the project uneconomical, after a few years of nothing happening, there will be lots of cost cutting pressures. Even without cost cutting, at depth things fail. You will have zones with no suveillance coverage. The problem with such a system is that 99% coverage is about as good as 0% coverage.

Re: UK-Morocco 10GW Renewable Electricity Interconnector Planned

#180

Post by ncmncm »

imtringued wrote: post #173
throwaway894345 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t 4 hours of battery storage much too low? How is that considered “reliable”? What am I missing?

Those 4 hours don't mean wall clock time, they mean it takes 4 hours to discharge the battery at its maximum discharge rate. In other words, the battery would bridge exactly 4 hours of 0% power generation. The moment you have more than 0% power generation but still less than 100%, the battery will last more than 4 hours of wall clock time.

The battery will mostly be drawn down at a time of much less than peak demand, so will provide power for longer than 4 hours. But it will be available too for when demand peaks above generating capacity.

It is usually a mistake to overbuild batteries. The money is better spent on PV panels, wind turbines, and grid tie-ins and, eventually, other storage media.

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